Academic:  David Gallimore

Librarians: 

SALT Team:  Chris Hall

The context

This is a 10 credit Taught/ lecture based module with 100+ 1st year pre-registration nursing students. It is a core module for the field of adult nursing on the BSc Nursing programme. The module addresses specific keys areas relating to the fundamentals of nursing practice and clinical exposure. They were in the first module of the programme and had not yet been on a ward placement.

Previously this Clinical Skills part of the module had been taught with a with a half day lecture, which included some practice. Unfortunately this approach meant that some students were able to hide to a certain extend and avoid engaging with the tasks and some students felt unprepared for this aspect of life on the ward. Additionally, anecdotal evidence form mentors on the ward suggested that the students were not well prepared for basic assessment of patients.

The Question was: Are the students really safe on the ward undertaking assessments on real patients?

The Approach

Although this is a formative exercise and doesn’t count towards the final marks for the module, it is a timetabled session and students are expected to do this. The session takes place early in the course and therefore doing a formative exercise without marks is seen as a normal thing to do.

The students are expected to attend a half-day session. While they are waiting for their allocated slot they are advised to review the recognising the sick patient learning module on the Blackboard site for the module. During the session the students practice taking pulse, blood pressure, temperature and respirations on each other.

In order to keep the momentum of the activity going there is a group feedback session to the whole class straight after the activity has finished. During this session students will have the opportunity to share their experiences with the group and the OSCE team. Detailed written feedback for each student is sent out three days later.

Outcomes

Although students found it challenging they were glad they had done it. For some students it was the most stressful thing they have ever done but feel that they have learnt from it and that it was a useful experience. As a result fewer students felt that they were unprepared when going on the ward. Additionally, there was a decrease in comments from mentors on the ward about ill-prepared students.

One of the successes is that the students value what they have learnt rather than whether they have passed or not although of course they need and want to pass, with the main outcome being that students are aware of the measurements that they are required to take to assess a patient in their health care role.

The previous approach was easier to deliver and there was quite a bit of work involved in setting up the OSCE. However, the benefits make it worth it and now that the approach is in place the workload has eased. That doesn’t mean that it is a static approach as it is evaluated and amended according to feedback from students, staff and mentors after each time it is run.