Insight from a first-year nursing student

First-year nursing student Luke Giles

Luke Giles has been a college student for less than two months. But he already is six weeks into his first clinical rotation as a Case Western Reserve University nursing student

“It hit me when I first put patients’ vitals into the actual electronic medical record system. It wasn't like turning in an assignment with made up numbers. It was for a real person.”

While students in some other nursing programs practice in simulations and take prerequisite courses for the first several semesters, CWRU nurses, like Luke, start doing real nursing work three weeks into their first year. By the time they graduate, Luke and his friends will have clocked more than 1,300 hours of real nursing experience.

Can you picture it? 

You move in. You get your stethoscope. And you get down to it. 

That’s nursing at CWRU.