Clinical Laboratory Experiences

All nursing students at Rutgers School of Nursing–Camden must have the capacity to demonstrate those skills and competencies that are described in the Student Handbook, with or without reasonable accommodation, in order to be able to function in a clinical setting. 

Clinical settings are chosen by the faculty to provide experiences congruent with theoretical course content. A variety of agencies are used throughout the program to provide students with a range of experiences and also to expose students to many professional nursing roles. Agencies include day care centers, nursing homes, hospitals, clinics, and various public health agencies.

The clinical laboratory site varies depending upon the specific nursing course. A number of clinical facilities in the South Jersey-Philadelphia area provide rich resources for student clinical experiences. The scheduled times for all nursing laboratories will be made available to students at the start of each semester.

Students should plan for increased demands of their time for clinical laboratory experiences as they progress through the program. Evening and weekend clinical lab hours may be required. Each clinical experience is planned by the instructor and coordinated with agency services. Because of this, each clinical placement may start and end at a different time.

Students are responsible for their own transportation to the clinical agency.

Nursing laboratory courses are corequisites of nursing theory courses. Each nursing theory lab course must be taken together and both must be passed with a C+ or better to progress in the curriculum.

Failure of a theory course will also result in a failure of the corequisite laboratory course. Conversely, failure of a nursing laboratory course will result in a failure of the corequisite theory course. A grade of F will appear on the transcript for both courses. Students who fail the clinical course for documented unsafe practice are subject to administrative/faculty review for dismissal from the nursing program.

Students may not fail and repeat more than one combined nursing course sequence (theory and clinical). Failure to earn a grade of a C+ or better in a repeated nursing course will result in the student's dismissal from the nursing program.