March 1, 2013
To All Incoming GEPN Students:
I am so pleased to welcome you to the GEPN program, and to the YSN Class of 2016. You are about to embark on an exciting and challenging year, and we, your GEPN faculty, are anxiously awaiting your arrival. In this letter I will address some specific information you will need prior to beginning the school year.
Your Schedule
You will receive a detailed course schedule in July but I wanted you to have an idea of how accelerated your GEPN schedule is going to be.
You will have three days of class per week during the fall semester: o Mondays - 8am to 4:30 pm
o Thursdays - 8am to 5 pm
o Fridays - 9am - 3pm (9am to 12 noon are clinical skill labs and Anatomy is 1:30pm to 3pm).
You will have 12 hours per week of clinical work:
o A combination of six hours on Tuesdays and Wednesdays or 12 hour shifts on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Saturdays.
Special workshops and classes will be scheduled throughout the semester with at least three group clinical conferences on Tuesdays or Wednesdays from 1pm to 3pm, but you will know exact dates in July.
There will be a weeklong orientation program which starts on Monday, August 19, 2013. This program includes essential information such as policies, procedures, class content, and clinical practice that you will need to know and understand in order to ensure your success at YSN.
All classes begin Wednesday, August 28th, with clinical beginning
approximately two weeks later. In order to ensure patient safety and quality care, you will be expected to prepare for clinical practice on the day prior to the first clinical shift of the week. This means that students assigned to clinical sites will be expected to go to the hospital on the afternoon or evening before clinical weekly.
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The expectation is that all students will review their respective patients’ charts in order to develop a plan of care for the next day. This typically takes several hours once you return home on Mondays. Thus, Mondays are REALLY long days for you.
Please note however, that the first week of clinical is an orientation to the unit at which time we go over the clinical expectations and requirements. You do not need to go to the clinical unit the night before your shift during the first week of clinical.
In the first semester, clinical groups are scheduled for: o Day shifts: 7am – 1pm or 8am – 2pm or
o Evening shifts: 3pm – 9pm or 4pm – 10pm or o Twelve hour shifts: 7am - 7pm
YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE YOUR CLINICAL ASSIGNMENT UNTIL AFTER ORIENTATION.
Please Note: Students who are parents will need to make sure that their day care includes availability prior to 7 am. We will make every attempt to assign
students who are parents or “commuters” to their choice of shift for the first seven week rotation. However, thereafter clinical assignments will be made with a variety of factors in mind. Therefore everyone will be expected to attend various clinical sites and times.
Spring and summer terms
Clinical shifts will be a full eight hours long.
You can expect to have two days per week of class and two-three shifts per week of clinical practice. The specific days of the week in which we hold class and clinical will vary by rotation.
Assigned clinical shifts include both day shift (7am – 3pm) and evening shift (3pm – 11pm), as well as Saturday day shifts or 12 hour shifts (7am - 7 pm).
Equity will be considered for Saturday shifts. For example, if you have a
Saturday shift during one rotation we will try to place you in a weekday shift for the next rotation
Community Health rotation is 135 hours of clinical which are held Monday through Friday (40 hours per week) in July.
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Vacation times have been set, and are firm. You will have a break in October and November. I do not have access to the times yet but will send it out to you as soon as I receive it.
If there are personal commitments during the GEPN year (i.e., weddings, presentations), please let the faculty know early about your needs. In general, you should understand that accommodations for clinical hours cannot be made.
Preparations for Clinical Practice Clinical uniforms and other supplies
The initial clinical experience will be in a simulated laboratory where students will begin learning basic nursing skills (e.g. blood pressure, temperature, assessments). By the second week in September, you will be providing direct patient care in a variety of hospitals located within, and outside of New Haven, CT. Prior to clinical experiences, all students will need to purchase the following:
Clinical Uniforms: All students are required to purchase two pairs of navy blue colored scrubs and a white lab coat (knee length is preferred) for clinical.
Clinical Shoes: All shoes should be washable. Sneakers are acceptable as well as washable clogs of any color.
Stethoscope: All students will need to purchase their own stethoscope. You can buy your stethoscope online (many students use the web site, http://www.allheart.com. There are two stethoscopes you should consider and they are Littman or MDF. If you want to purchase the MDF stethoscope, the company recommends you purchase it from UniformDiscount.com.
Other: You need to purchase a pen light and a reflex hammer
The following recommendations are made based upon specialty practice:
Adult Advanced Practice students, adult NP’s, and psychiatric NP’s tend to purchase a more specialized stethoscope, such as the Littmann® Master
Cardiology Stethoscope Personalization or Littmann® Soft Touch Cardiology STC Stethoscope Personalization (only the shape is different). The MDF Classic Cardiology Stethoscope is comparable to the Littman Master Cardiology.
Midwives, pediatric nurses and family NP’s prefer the Littmann® Cardiology III Stethoscope, as it does have the capability to assess babies, adolescents and adults. The MDF 797CC ProCardial Stethoscope is comparable to the Littman Cardiology III.
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If finances are tight, please do not worry about purchasing an expensive stethoscope now; all clinical faculty have stethoscopes you can use on the clinical arena. That being said, a stethoscope is an investment that you will have for years to come.
Other: A watch with a second hand and bandage scissors.
All students should purchase all required uniforms and equipment prior to the start of the fall semester. The aforementioned items and all clinical related items are available at any uniform shop or on any online uniform website.
CPR Certification
All students are required to be CPR certified prior to arrival at YSN. You should enroll in the “community CPR course.” It should be “for the professional.” This course will certify you for one-person CPR for the adult, child, and infant. If you are already
certified, please check the expiration date, it must remain current through July, 2014. If it is not current, you will not be allowed to go to the clinical units.
Students also might consider becoming certified in Community First Aid and Safety. Any local Red Cross Chapter can assist in identifying a certification course. The national website is located at www.redcross.org and is a source of contact information on local chapters.
Another organization that could be contacted is the American Heart Association. Their website is at www.americanheart.org, and their toll free phone line with information on CPR training is 877-AHA-4CPR.
All students are required to provide a copy of either a CPR card or a letter signifying successful completion of a CPR course. The copies need to be submitted to the Office of Student Affairs during orientation week. Without proper documents, students will be deemed ineligible to start the clinical practicum. As I noted earlier, the certification must be current for every clinical rotation, thus it needs to be in effect until the end of July of 2014.
Optional Prescription Coverage
When you receive information from the University about the Yale Health Plan coverage, you will have the opportunity to sign up for coverage for prescription medications. Even if you have health insurance through another source, I urge you to look carefully at your policy and consider signing up for the additional prescription coverage. There are
circumstances in which you might be faced with the need to take very expensive
medications, such as, if you experience a needle stick from a patient who is HIV positive. Although we teach you how to avoid this situation, and needle sticks happen rarely, you
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cannot avoid the risk completely; thus, if you experience such an injury, the medication for HIV prophylaxis can cost thousands of dollars.
Transportation and Car Pooling
Throughout the GEPN years, students will concurrently have corresponding didactic course work and clinical practicum. Please note that not all clinical practicum sites are located in New Haven proper and therefore may require the use of some form of transportation. Students are responsible for all costs associated with transportation. Given that not all students will have access to a car, all clinical practicum assignments requiring transportation take this into account and assign at least one student with a car to clinical practicum located outside of New Haven proper. Students who do not have access to a car are not exempt from clinical practicum located outside of New Haven proper. Also, Yale has an agreement with Zip car so that Yale students can utilize them at a reduced cost.
Fall course work
You will be enrolled in Medical Surgical Nursing seminar (N517) and clinical (N516a), Introduction to Drug Therapy (N509), and Biomedical Foundations of Health and Disease (N503).
Your text books include:
For Medical Surgical (N517)- The book that is required is: Pellico, L. H., (2012). Focus on Adult Health: Medical Surgical Nursing (1st ed.). Philadelphia-Lippincott. ISBN-13: 978-1-58255-877-6
For Biomed (N503)-The book that is recommended but not required is:
Pathophysiology, The Biologic Basis for Disease in Adults and Children, McCance, K.L., Huether, S.E., Brashers, V.L., Rote,N.S., 6th edition, 2010, Mosby Elsevier, ISBN 978-0-323-06584-9.
For Introduction to Drug Therapy (N509) - The book that is highly recommended but not required is: Lehne, Richard A., Pharmacology for Nursing Care; 8th Edition, St. Louis: W.B. Saunders Co., 2012 (2013), ISBN-10: 1437735827, ISBN-13: 978-1-437735826
For Fundamentals of Human Anatomy (N511) - I coordinate the anatomy course, which is taught in collaboration with the anatomy department at the Yale School of Medicine. For those with a background in science, we recommend the following book:
Moore, Dalley, Agur, (2010). Clinically Oriented Anatomy, 6th edition, Philadelphia, Lippincott Williams and Wilkins ISBN -13: 978-0-7817-7525-0
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McConnell & Hull, (2011). Human Form/Human Function, Essentials of Anatomy and Physiology, 1st edition, Philadelphia, Lippincott Williams and Wilkins ISBN -13:978-0-7817-8020-9
With that said, you can use any anatomy book you want as a resource as we will have prepared notes for you weekly. You are not required to purchase an anatomy book.
For Clinical in Medical-Surgical Nursing (N516): we recommend you to purchase Bates pocket guide to physical assessment and history taking. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; Seventh ed. ISBN-13: 978-1451173222
In addition, we recommend you purchase an NCLEX prep book. The students recommend Saunders.
We have many electronic books available to you when you arrive so there is no need to purchase a drug or laboratory analysis book.
Also, please keep in mind that you will need to be flexible; despite our best efforts, the schedule is subject to change. We make every effort to let you know of changes in advance but sometimes even the best-laid plans go awry.
In addition to the housing information, you will receive information over the summer on orientation and the Big Sib program offered by the YSN Student Government
Organization. Your Big Sib will be an excellent resource for any questions that are not addressed or other questions about Yale and New Haven in general. I recommend that you take advantage of the opportunity for the informal contact this offers you.
In closing, we congratulate you on being accepted to the GEPN program, and hope you are able to schedule some vacation time, and adequate time for relocation, so that you can start school feeling rested and at home at YSN.
If you have questions about the information in this letter, you can contact me at linda.pellico@yale.edu.
Sincerely,
Linda Pellico, RN PhD Associate Professor
