Online classes combined with hospital based training – could this be the answer?
There is a New Jersey hospital system that it proposing a new plan. It consists of a two year program where the students attend one 12 hour clinical day per week at a participating hospital, and the hospital is responsible for training the student. The rest of the program consists of online classes. I would link to the article but it is now “locked content” and you need a print subscription to the New Jersey Business Journal to view it.
(Note to New Jersey Business Journal – Stop operating your website like it’s 1997! It’s 2007 dammit and you could be making more money from internet advertising than print subscriptions! But I digress…)
It’s an interesting solution. It harks back to the days of hospital diploma nurses, which isn’t a bad thing. (Any BSN nursing program would have you believe otherwise.) The program features once a week 12 hour clinical days over the span of two years. If you take out some time for vacations, that could bring the total up to almost 1000 clinical hours for this program. Not bad considering the amount of clinical time in spent in nursing school is definitely a controversial subject.
The question is, do we trust hospitals to take over this crucial part of nurse training? If a hospital already has strong nursing leadership that advocates for its staff, then I believe we can trust them to train nursing students. If the nursing leadership is weak, and doesn’t advocate for its nursing staff, then this could pose a big problem.
As far as online classes are concerned, they have some distinct advantages (flexible scheduling, taking tests in your pajamas,) but they also can create a lack of camaraderie and support which is so crucial for nursing students. I can remember talking a Nursing Research class online and being completely frustrated with the material. It might have helped to meet with my classmates in person, to share our knowledge. On the other hand, if the online classroom “atmosphere” is improved to the point where it can take advantage of new social networking technologies (creating profiles, active forums, uploading photos, link-sharing, etc) then I think it could end up being a very satisfying and fruitful experience.
Either way, I believe this is a real, working solution, which is much better than simply giving government grants to nursing schools and believing that they will magically fix the problem. Time will tell if it actually produces quality nurses.
Any thoughts?