Re: For those who are in AA school and got into multiple ones, why did you chose that particular school?
I'm a first year nova (fort lauderdale) student and wanted to address the comment about nova not having "good first year clinical sites". I'm not sure what you mean by good but the hospital I'm at now is an awesome place to rotate through. Most of my classmates, including myself, were intubating patients on our first day of clinicals. Some of us have also had the opportunity to help place peripheral blocks/ spinals in our first month of clinicals. Some of my other classmates at different sites have had similar experiences so I would say that our first year sites are pretty good. The reason I chose Nova is because I liked the way the program is set up here. While I don't think there is anything wrong with other programs sending students into the OR in the first week, I liked the fact that we learn about the drugs we will use, the procedures we will be doing, and how to troubleshoot issues in the OR before actually going into the OR. Instead of going to my first day of clinicals with no clue as to how the anesthesia machine works, why certain drugs are being used, etc. I went into my first day feeling pretty confident about these types of things. It's just a different style of learning. When you start clinicals during your first week of school, you know nothing about the machine, or the dosages of drugs you would need to use, or how those drugs work. We went in our first week knowing how to take a patient history, put them to sleep, maintain them during the procedure, and wake them up at the end. Along with the physiology and other background knowledge to be able to understand the "why" behind everything that is being done. For our lab exams, we each have to pre-op our preceptor and run a complete case from start to finish on the simulator. By the time you get to the OR, you will be really prepared to go in there and intubate, push drugs, pre-op patients on your very first day. While it takes a few days to learn basic "OR etiquette" and sterile technique, you pick it up really quick. Like I said, I don't think either way is bad....I just preferred this way. Also, it was cool to be able to actually DO things starting day 1 as opposed to just shadowing.
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