Vocational Placement Question / Enrolled Nursing / Nursing General / Forums / NurseCentral -

Author	Vocational Placement Question
NoahsArk (offline) Joined: Sep 2011 Location: Gold Coast Posts: 9	Mon Sep 26, 2011 8:09 pm Hi! I've just found this great forum and by looking into a couple of topics here I've already found the answers to most of the questions I had. :-) I'm Katrin, 34 years old and have two kids (5 & 2 yrs). I'm currently at home looking after our little one. I've been playing with the idea of studying nursing for a while now and I'm now about 95% sure that I will apply for the November intake at GCIT. The online course that is.I'm not too concerned about passing the subjects as I've done a bachelor degree (accounting & finance) at Griffith university a couple of years back. I realy want to try and do the course full-time as I'm not the youngest anymore and I don't really want to drag it out over 3 years when it can be done in half the time. My only concern is the vocational placement. Does anyone know how many hours there will be per semester? I've seen the total hours in the course description but what does that actually relate to on a per week basis? Is it done in addition to the studies or will we get a study break to do the placements? I'm really excited now that I made up my mind. I just hope that it will all work out. I don't have my family here to help me with the kids and my partner is pretty busy himself with work and so on. I mean there are options ... we could increase my daughter's days at kindy or hire a sitter ... What are your thoughts? Cheers Katrin

Persephone (offline) Joined: May 2010 Location: NSW Posts: 31	Sep 27, 2011, 07:56 am Hi Katrin, First semester is 80 hours placement in aged care, semester two is 160 hours each in acute care. I do the course online, it my be different oncampus, but we don't get study breaks to complete the placement, we have to keep up with all your study while doing it :). It is usually done in 2 week blocks, but you can do it over a few days a week IF you negotiate it with the hospital/facility yourself, but that can be difficult to organise. Since you're local, they will organise all your placements for you. Also, the course is done part time over 2 years, not 3 if that helps.

NoahsArk (offline) Joined: Sep 2011 Location: Gold Coast Posts: 9	Sep 27, 2011, 08:47 am Hi Persephone, Thanks for the info. I didn't realise that it was only 2 years if done part time. Sounds tempting. :-) In regards to the placement - how do I chose the facilities? Do I just look them up in the yellow pages? Do I have to talk to them and ask if I can do a placement there? Very confusing. Cheers Katrin

Persephone (offline) Joined: May 2010 Location: NSW Posts: 31	Sep 27, 2011, 11:37 pm If you are local to the gold coast, the TAFE will organise your 2 week blocks of placement at a nursing home then one of the Ramsay hospitals. They'll let you know what dates its on and you will go with a group of other students and have a facilitator looking after you while you're in the facility. If you're not local or want to try to do placements 'part time' rather than 2 week blocks, you have to phone or visit the facilities and ask (beg?) them to take you for placement but it can be hard to find some where that will take you. Good luck!!

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Vocational Placement Question