At 5 a.m., when most members of the Penn community are asleep, crew team members are assembling for practice, devout students are gathering for morning prayer and early risers are waking to get some work done before the day begins.
Many Nursing students, however, must also rise at 5 a.m., not to head off to the gym or to the library, but to catch the early morning carpools that take them to hospitals for their clinical rotations. At the hospitals, which can be located up to an hour away and in places as far as New Jersey, Nursing students complete their eight-hour clinical shifts in which they treat patients and perform most of the duties of a certified nurse. Often, the students do not return to Penn until approximately 4 p.m., having completed their first class of the day.
Many Nursing students at Penn struggle with lengthy clinical rotations. Clinicals are designed to arm Nursing students with the knowledge and practical experience necessary for the nursing profession.
The clinicals are divided into a lecture component and a practical component, in which students travel to hospitals and other clinical sites in Philadelphia and neighboring areas to care for patients under the supervision of a certified nurse. Increasing from six hours a week during sophomore year to 18 hours a week during senior year, clinicals are very time-consuming.
"It makes it hard to have other things going on," Nursing junior Noelle Dove says. "They think that nursing should take up all our time."
Nursing students rotate through such clinicals as obstetrical, pediatric, geriatric and medical-surgical every few weeks. The clinicals typically range from six-hour to eight-and-a-half-hour shifts and require that students research their patients' diseases, medications and dosage levels prior to coming to the clinical session. In addition, many clinical instructors require that students arrive up to one hour early to prepare.
Dove, who also balances a job as well as early morning Reserve Officer Training Corps sessions, says that sometimes she has to leave work early if her clinical instructor wants the students there earlier than usual.
"They're not very understanding of people's schedules," she says.
The sites of clinicals vary, and include the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Delaware County Memorial Hospital and some locations in New Jersey. Although most clinicals are situated in hospitals, some take place at community sites or psychiatric centers, and one is even located at a group home for adolescent mothers. Students are required to provide their own transportation.
Most students accept that earning a nursing degree is difficult and time-consuming, and organize their schedules accordingly.
"There are periods when you're going to be stressed out ... but you have to prioritize," Nursing senior Caroline Cantillon says.
For Nursing senior Shannon Fair, who balances her heavy workload with her involvement in Penn Dance and Kappa Alpha Theta sorority, prioritizing means usually not going out with her friends on weeknights.
"When you have free time, you have to be very judicious about the way you use it," she says. "It's taken me four years to perfect my own personal schedule. ... It's a challenge."
Fair, however, admitted that having a tight schedule keeps her focused.
"I'm one of those kinds of people that thrives when I have a schedule because it keeps me on track," she says.
Kennedy Gachiri, a fourth-year student in the five-year Healthcare Management Program, also thrives on a busy schedule.
"Now, I'm used to how things are and I'm in my groove -- it's not so bad," he says.
Gachiri, who balances six and a half to seven credits a semester and is in class approximately 34 hours a week, is part of the Wharton Research Scholars Program and is a member of both the Joseph Wharton Scholars and the Benjamin Franklin Scholars programs. With his position as a residential adviser in Hamilton College House and his involvement in Francophones at Penn, Penn International Partners and Pennvelopes, Gachiri, who manages to sleep seven hours a night, is a master of time management.
Gachiri does not bemoan the lengthy clinicals for the precious time they take up in his schedule.
"Working with patients is amazing. ... Everything just makes sense. There are moments of clarity, and you think, 'This is what I want to do,' and it helps you hang in there," he says.
Most Nursing students, despite the time-consuming clinicals and lab modules -- supervised lab time in which practical skills are taught and tested -- agree with Gachiri that the rigorous program is worthwhile and necessary.
"It's hard and it's challenging, but I've gotten job offers that I don't think I would have been able to get if I wasn't in such a challenging program," Cantillon says.
Although Gachiri is happy with the program, he says he wishes that the University would give more recognition to its Nursing students who are "doing professional work while in school."
"The University in general hasn't recognized the work Nursing students do that is above and beyond the amount of work the normal University student does," he says.
Nursing senior Teri Noone, who has already completed a degree in another field, reflects on the pressures and obligations that beset Nursing undergraduates.
"If I were a traditional undergraduate, I don't know what I would do."
