Beyond the Classroom

The Clinical Simulation Program uses high fidelity patient simulators and patient actors to create a wide variety of learning opportunities in realistic settings. You learn to function as an individual and also as a member of an interdisciplinary health care team through these exercises. You face rarely seen cases, hard-to-diagnose cases, and other challenges of the nursing profession in the simulation labs so that when you face them in the field, you will know how to respond.

Our Westbrook College of Health Professions also offers a unique opportunity for a Health Care Immersion Experience in Ghana, West Africa. The experience normally takes place in August and comprises an interprofessional group of students and faculty who deliver primary care and related services in the twin cities of Sekondi and Takoradi. You work closely with community health outreach workers and professionals from the Effia Nkwanta College of Nursing and Midwifery. The work involves interprofessional collaboration, community education, and academic and cross-cultural exchange.

UNE is one of a handful of private universities with a comprehensive health education mission that includes medicine, pharmacy, dental medicine, nursing, and an array of allied health professions programs. You take part in interprofessional education initiatives that prepare you to work with other aspiring health care professionals to practice comprehensive and collaborative team-based care. In the simulation labs, and also in service-learning and clinical experiences you benefit from exercises that also include students from other UNE health professions programs.

If you are in the traditional B.S.N. program, during your last four semesters you are deeply immersed in not only nursing coursework but clinical experiences that emphasize clinical judgment, health and human functioning, care and therapeutics, person and environment, and health care resources. If you are in the Accelerated B.S.N. program, you spend the entirety of your 12-month program both pursuing coursework and engaging in clinical experiences. 

Typically, you spend one or two days per week in one of the area's leading hospitals or in a community setting. The different settings serve diverse populations and allow you to actualize the process of integrating theory and practice. Our clinical partners include New England Rehabilitation Hospital, Maine Medical Center, Southern Maine Medical Center, Midcoast Hospital, and York Hospital. At these locations, you work under the direct supervision of a clinical faculty member in clinical experiences that include medical surgical nursing, gerontology, maternity, pediatrics, and other specialized areas of care.