Getting Clinical Experience as an Online Nursing Student

Clinical experience is vital to undergraduate and graduate nursing students. It improves their hands-on skills and cements their knowledge.

However, finding and arranging the right clinical experience for you can be challenging. While virtual simulation use expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic, these experiences may not be as effective as the in-person equivalent, and outcomes could ultimately be affected as a result.

Below, our team of expert nursing contributors discuss the student advantages and disadvantages of arranging online nursing clinical hours, and give tips on how to find clinical placement.

The Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE) defines clinical nurse experiences as planned learning activities that help students to understand, perform, and refine their professional competencies.

These clinical experiences are important opportunities where nurses can apply the knowledge and skills learned during their undergraduate or graduate program. Nursing students can expect to provide patient care and have their instructor or clinical preceptors observe and question them.

Nursing school clinicals take place in an approved hospital facility or healthcare provider’s office. The days and times of student nursing clinical hours are coordinated between the nursing program and the clinical experience facility.

There are key similarities between clinical hours for nursing schools that are in-person or online. These similarities include the type of patient care and professional skills nurses must demonstrate.

Traditional undergraduate students attending an in-person program can expect the school to arrange their nursing clinical hours.

Traditional graduate students and online students can expect to arrange their own clinical experiences with the facility or healthcare provider.

In some cases, online nursing programs will assist the student in finding nursing clinical hours. Emma Leigh Geiser, an RN, blogger, and freelance writer said “It can be difficult to find preceptors and to do this on your own; it’s much easier and less stressful if the school already has an established relationship with an institution.”

Sharon Cobb, Ph.D., MSN, PHN, RN is an assistant professor at Mervyn M. Dymally School of Nursing. She pointed out that during the pandemic, some pre-licensure programs were using simulation models to help students complete required clinical hours. The number of hours allowed varies by state.

In other circumstances, programs provide an immersion experience for students who are not local, so they can complete clinical hours quickly.

Clinical immersion provides an opportunity to build clinical reasoning, management, and evaluation skills. Whatever clinical site a pre-licensure student uses, Cobb said they need an established agreement with the school.

“Post-licensure students usually have to complete all clinical hours through direct patient care,” she said. She went on to explain that post-licensure (often RN-BSN) programs encourage students to find a clinical site in their geographical area.

Cobb notes that some preceptors charge post-licensure students. “It may be more difficult for students who are non-local, and the program has no established sites near the student’s location,” she said.

The average BSN program requires roughly 600 nursing clinical hours. This can vary by program and state.

RN-to-BSN programs often require far fewer clinical hours. This can range from 50 – 100 hours to complete the program. Nurses tend to work an eight-hour shift.

Master of science in nursing (MSN) programs have a wider range of potential clinical hours, depending on the program and the state. They require roughly 1,000 nursing school clinical hours to graduate. The student completes these hours at the discretion of the healthcare provider who is precepting them.

Finding a strong clinical training site when you’re involved in an online nursing program can be challenging.

If your program does not provide clinical placement assistance, begin looking for training opportunities within the last weeks of the previous semester.

This gives you enough time to find a placement that meets the nursing school clinical requirements for the term.

The training site must meet program requirements and pass approval for your nursing clinical hours. Consider these tips to find an approved training site:

Assessment for clinical training can take many different forms.

“Our school had satellite instructors and administration who were in charge of our clinicals and skills assessments,” Geiser said. “We would meet once or twice a week for hands-on activities and testing related to our clinical training.”

Other universities rely on technology for assessments. In these cases, instructors come to the site for in-person evaluations less frequently.

“Most programs have employed application software that will allow students to document/chart on their patients and create nursing care plans (often for pre-licensure students),” Cobb said. “In addition, faculty and students perform an evaluation of the site and the student’s performance during midterm and finals.”

Nursing school clinicals provide an opportunity to grow clinical reasoning and critical-thinking skills. While some programs do offer virtual clinical experiences, which may mimic telemedicine, all nursing students must complete hands-on nursing clinical hours.

Virtual clinical simulations are experiences that allow students to interact virtually with patients in a digital learning environment. The goal is to offer a parallel to real-world engagement so learners can practice nursing skills, such as assessment, diagnosis, and interventions.

All accredited nursing programs require students to complete nursing clinical hours to graduate. Clinical training must be sufficient to ensure the student attains practice-focused outcomes and integrates their knowledge into their professional practice.

The number of nursing clinical hours required varies depending on the school, state, and undergraduate or graduate program. For example, a BSN student may need to complete up to 700 clinical hours but an MSN student may need to complete up to 1,300 hours.

Page last reviewed January 9, 2023