Importance of Clinical Teaching in Nursing

The objective of clinical education is to develop the confidence in the nurses (as cited in Levett-Jones, Reid-Searl & Bourgeois, 2018). There are various aspects that help nurses acquire while practising in the challenging clinical work environment. This essay discusses the general factors that permit nurses to study in the practice setting as they retort to the needs and challenges in health care environment. 

Clinical teaching occurs when professional knowledge is developed and shared amongst clinicians. For example, in nursing, this process happens when an experienced nurse teaches another less-experienced one in a clinical area. Clinical teaching could involve clinical skills, non-clinical skills, direct patient care, and indirect patient care, etc.  (Health Education and Training Institute [HETI], 2013). 

Clinical teaching is important for nurses of all levels of experience to maintain the delivery of safe and competent care, and continuous professional development (HETI, 2013). Clinical teaching should occur through a cooperative and teamwork approach, while focusing on supporting and motivating learners(HETI, 2013).In addition, clinical educators are advised to use guided questions, give constructive feedback, offer suitable learning resources, integrate theory and practice, help learners identify their own learning objectives, and foster the learner’s ability for self-directed lifelong learning (HETI, 2013). While clinical teaching is the core point of care supervision activity, clinical facilitation, preceptorship, buddying, transparent and constructive peer review, coaching, mentoring, and reflective clinical supervision all play vital roles in a nurse’s professional development journey (HETI, 2013).

Surgical Oncology has witnessed revolutionary changes in technology, diagnostics, treatment strategies, and the overall understanding of cancer and its prognosis (Veronesi & Stafyla, 2012). Despite all of that, having a patient-centred integration of all the new information is a big systematic challenge. All international cancer centres have implemented a team approach in oncology with the goal of deciding the most suitable approach for the patient; this means clinicians make decisions after sharing their expertise with one another.

In the age of information technology, continuous training and education in surgical oncology becomes crucial. Information technology has facilitated the worldwide sharing of knowledge and made continuous professional development more possible. On the other hand, surgical oncologists should be able to understand and integrate the findings of basic and clinical research into their contemporary practice (Veronesi & Stafyla, 2012). We must treat patients as people, not cases; this is possibly the century’s biggest challenge in surgical oncology (Veronesi & Stafyla, 2012).

Continuous professional development is a legislative responsibility of every nurse to maintain their registration, as it is one of the registration standards set by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (Ross, Barr & Stevens, 2013). Every nurse is accountable of maintaining the necessary competence for their practice because they must provide safe care. In that regard, nurses can participate in ongoing professional development by seeking higher studies (e.g. post-graduate studies) to ascertain their clinical and academic potentials, while also improving their career prospects.

Factors That Enable Nurses to Learn in the Clinical Setting

In addition, nurses are regularly challenged to adapt to ever changing technology and high health care costs that push health communities to respond with different management strategies; however, any change could provide a learning opportunity to look at things from a different perspective (Ross, Barr & Stevens, 2013).

Nurses work in an often-unpredictable work environment, look after patients with complex conditions, and with often-challenging workload. Nurses need to maintain a positive and collaborative relationship with their colleagues to facilitate their work and learning all at the same time; a positive learning environment helps an individual to develop their skills within a collaborative model of nursing (NSW Department of Health, 2011). In clinical practices, clinical support and supervision are required all the time to ensure safety and facilitation of work (HETI, 2013).

The nursing profession is rapidly changing due to the innovation of new technologies effecting the way nurses provide care, document, or/and conduct health assessments (Ross, Barr & Stevens, 2013). It is a necessity for nurses to adapt to changes and learn about new practices under such circumstances. Change can come from government policies, market conditions or new health service delivery where healthcare needs to change to respond to new challenges (Ross, Barr & Stevens, 2013). The factors that enable nurses to learn about new things and work in such a challenging environment is by learning about all new techniques so that they can respond to the challenges easily (Frankel & PGCMS, 2018). The new techniques could be learned by unique learning methods that help them meet all the contemporary healthcare requirements. In-hospital training sessions can be a way that enables nurses to learn, as it allows them to participate and critically observe patient care and its outcomes(Price & Reichert, 2017). For instance, professionally developed nurses can become mindful of and appreciate their own contributions to nursing or admire work by peers both within their profession as well as other health care practitioners (Ross, Barr & Stevens, 2013). It also helps them in synthesizing the nursing theories and bringing theoretical knowledge into practical implementation.

Continuous learning for ongoing professional development is important, as it supports nurses to remain updated with all the latest technologies, practises, and research findings (Ross, Barr & Stevens, 2013). Efficient use of new technologies in the clinical setting on top of being aware of new research findings help nurses provide evidence-based practice and make better clinical decisions (Laschinger, Nosko, Wilk & Finegan, 2014).

Ongoing Professional Development for Nurses

It is important for nurses to be competent in their area of practice to provide safe, efficient and standardised evidence-based care (Stokke, Olsen, Espehaug & Nortvedt, 2014; Price & Reichert, 2017). The lack of knowledge and/or expertise can be problematic especially when nurses are unable to properly utilise new technologies or are not aware of new clinical information that could be incorporated into an evidence-based practice. It is better to have a practical knowledge rather than just having a theoretical knowledge in the health care sector; hence, ongoing clinical work supports nurses to gain more experience in their field, which could help them improve their career prospects (Beauvais, Stewart, DeNisco & Beauvais, 2014). For example, nursing students and new graduate nurses are sent out to attend clinical rotations or/and placements in primary and tertiary healthcare settings to gain progressive hands-on exposure in the clinical setting (Rayburn, Davis & Turco, 2017). Overtime, this will help them gain the required practical knowledge to eventually become fully competent nurses. Nevertheless, it must be taken into consideration that from students and early-career nurses to mid- to late-career nurses, they all think and respond to clinical learning and professional development differently (Price & Reichert, 2017); different learning styles must also be taken into consideration.

Factors that promote nurses to get actively involved in clinical practices is by having the opportunity to directly offer quality care to patients (Potter, Perry, Stockert & Hall, 2016). The required competencies and patients with complex illnesses are rising day by day, thus to reduce the risk of making wrong decisions, nurses should ensure their professional practises are current (Wiechula, Conroy, Kitson, Marshall, Whitaker & Rasmussen, 2016). Another factor that promote nurses to learn about new things is when they gain immediate access to information and all the critical cases with the motive of improving patients’ outcomes; however, it is recommended that they should first gain experience by undertaking training-simulation sessions before being involved in direct clinical practises (Hockenberry, Wilson & Rodgers, 2016).

Nurses play a central role in healthcare through their clinical knowledge and expertise. Nurses may still miss those because of the concurrency of other patient care requirements (Hewitt, Chreim & Forster, 2017). Other challenges to clinical learning may also exist because of a clinician/learner’s attribute, such as the learner being a poor communicator, uninterested in a specific area of clinical work, being a reluctant supervisee, overconfident, or a perfectionist; nevertheless, such challenges should encourage clinical teachers, supervisors, and managers to enhance their own professional development and supervision skills to improve their ability in managing such complex matters (HETI, 2013). In addition, the matter of directly expanding their knowledge and improving their skills while in the clinical setting can be a challenging problem, as many nurses may not be capable of doing so in timely fashion on their own without clinical supervision, guidance, or structured and organisational support (Patterson, Stephens, Chiang, Price, Work & Snelgrove-Clarke, 2017; HETI, 2013). The outcome of learning completely depends on the environment of which they are working in (Rayburn, Davis & Turco, 2017). Nurses can learn in the clinical setting when they work in an environment where they can apply their theoretical knowledge into practical skills (Asegid, Belachew & Yimam, 2014). Poor learning environment for nurses can have an adverse effect on the quality of health care, whereas a positive one will offer them a motivation to continue their professional growth and provide better care. Attending debriefing sessions, receiving peer reviews and constructive feedback from their clinical teachers and supervisors also help them enhance their clinical performance, and encourage them to self-reflect (HETI, 2013).

Challenges to Clinical Learning and Professional Development

Conclusion

In conclusion, clinical teaching for professional development is fundamental to maintain optimum nursing practice standards. Based on the above analysis, while there are various factors that help nurses engage themselves in clinical learning practises, that does not come without challenges in an everchanging healthcare environment. Nurses must be supported, facilitated-for, and encouraged to participate in clinical learning processes to develop their knowledge and skills and provide better quality car

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