Bachelor of Science in Nursing

Placements

The program will assign you to clinical placements according to your educational needs and the availability of experiences. Experiences will occur throughout the province.

In order to facilitate learning experiences, lab/clinical experiences may be scheduled at a variety of times. Twelve-hour shifts and weekends will be included in some rotations.

Preparation

You are expected to be prepared for your clinical experiences. Often this preparation will include chart research or other activities prior to actual client care. For chart research and other activities in the clinical area other than your actual experience, you are expected to wear appropriate street clothes and your picture identification tag. Some areas may require lab coats. In addition, you should identify yourself and your purpose to staff in the area. When doing chart research you should not take charts out of the charting area.

Attendance

Clinical experience is an integral part of the program. It is expected that you will participate in all clinical experiences in your courses. It is recognized that absence may be unavoidable (e.g., illness), and policies [see policies under 6.1] are in place to deal with this. Students who have been absent from clinical due to health problems may be required to produce a medical certificate stating they may return to clinical.
Avoidable or repeated absence is not acceptable. You should be aware that employers often ask about attendance when seeking references.

In cooperation with agency staff, your client assignments will generally be selected prior to the clinical experience. Agency staff take these assignments into consideration when organizing their own workloads. Therefore, if illness or other unavoidable circumstances prevent you from being present for clinical experience, it is important for you to let people know as soon as you can before you are scheduled to begin your clinical experience. Unless your instructor otherwise informs you, you should notify both the instructor and the clinical practice area that you will be absent.