OPERATIONAL SIMULATION OF CLINICAL SESSIONS AS LEARNING INSTRUMENT FOCUSED ON FUTURE NURSING PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE

INTRODUCTION

Clinical Sessions are structured and scheduled meetings where nurses analyze and discuss about patient care basing on scientific evidence. In this way, it promotes reflection on professional practice and knowledge generation within the health team, facilitating effective clinical decision making and improving the quality of patient care.

Professors of Nursing and Physiotherapy Department (University of Cadiz) have been using the Operational Simulation of Clinical Sessions as a learning instrument during the process of learning in clinical practice. This activity has been carried out for two years and was included in the Register of Educational Innovations of University of Cadiz in academic year 2008/09.

CONCEPT

Operational Simulation of Clinical Sessions is a learning instrument for students who are enrolled in courses with practical clinical credits. They perform a tutored analysis of healthcares applied to real patients and present it for discussion in a simulated clinical session as if they were professional nurses.

OBJETIVES

We expect from this learning instrument to integrate knowledge, abilities and attitudes that students have been acquiring along their academic training. This manages to increase efficiency and effectiveness of learning in clinical practice and facilitate the acquisition of skills focused on the practice of their future profession.

LEARNING METHODOLOGY

This activity has involved about 260 nursing students who have taken part in clinical interships at Punta de Europa Hospital, La Linea de la Concepcion Regional Hospital and Jerez General Hospital.

To carry out the activity, students select a real patient or patient group based on the interest aroused by case/s. They must implement a nursing care plan establishing a clinical judgment to determine objectives and interventions adequate to selected case. After analyzing the results obtained in each patient, they must make an oral presentation and public defense of the case performed by means of a simulated clinical session. It takes place at the health centres, which helps to associate this activity with professional practice.

Groups of twenty students, clinical practice tutors and coordinators as well as teachers in charge of subjects take part in each session.
Once the cases have been presented and discussed, every student receives a grade based on the aim and interest of the case presented, methodological analysis, presentation and conclusions.

We think that the main skills promoted by this activity are:
- Utilization of nursing methodology.
- Documentary Skills: finding information and scientific evidence.
- Oral Presentation.
- Teamwork.
- Development of critical thinking.


CONCLUSIONS

We consider the operational simulation of clinical sessions as a complex instrument but useful and efficient for the formative evaluation of students in clinical internships. Likewise this methodology can enhance the co-responsibility in students’ training of clinical practice tutors and teachers on charge of the subjects.