Clinical Judgment Article - Why is Clinical Judgment Needed

WHY

is Clinical Judgment needed to prepare students for the Next Gen NCLEX ® and their professional practice?

Closing the Gap

Many of us are busy instructors with full course loads, so you may wonder why you would add one more component, Clinical Judgment, to your classes. The reason to consider this is simple. Integrating Clinical Judgment enables you to address one of the major stumbling blocks for students—their ability to move from learning textbook material to applying their understanding in the multifactorial environment of patient care. 89% of instructors surveyed said they struggled to teach Clinical Judgment to their students. 1 This is where Clinical Judgment assignments in Davis Advantage can help. It is designed, using case studies that align with the new Next Gen NCLEX® format and the NCSBN Clinical Judgment Measurement Model, to help students develop this needed skill. As we know, many students initially rely on memorizing information. For example, students learn the normal ranges for

arterial blood gases and correctly identify acidosis and alkalosis. Students may also note normal values for fasting blood glucose and understand the connection to diabetes mellitus. Knowing these values and associations is an essential part of the learning process. 65% of entry-level nurse errors were related to poor clinical decision-making 2

However, if your students are like mine, you witness problems emerge as students rely on these associations to the point of ignoring relevant, contextual information. For instance, a patient, having suffered trauma, may have elevated blood glucose levels resulting from the stress response. Some students may, however, diagnose the patient with diabetes mellitus. At other times, students may misinterpret arterial blood gases if they overlook how these values are changing over time.

89 % of instructors surveyed said they struggled to teach Clinical Judgment to their students

Not all students make these mistakes, of course. But that many students do speaks to the need to make consistent and concerted efforts to model, practice, and refine clinical thinking in our classes. This is where Clinical Judgment in Davis Advantage can affect change.

Across All Levels

94% of students said they would recommend Davis Advantage 96% of students said Davis Advantage is easy to use 94% of students said Davis Advantage reinforced concepts they didn’t understand at first 1 95% of students said Davis Advantage enriched their learning experience

As teachers, we want to ensure that whatever we bring into our courses is of benefit to our students. This applies to our classrooms, but also to what lies beyond the classroom. A large part of our awareness goes to determining how to prepare our students for their next steps. One of the advantages of Clinical Judgment is it is designed to work across several levels across the curriculum. First, of course, Clinical Judgment must be applicable to your course. If you are currently using Davis Advantage, you can be assured that Clinical Judgment integrates easily into the “Learn-Apply-Assess” model used by the Davis Advantage digital platform through clinical case studies that fulfill the “Apply” component for students. As of now, for each textbook using the Davis Advantage digital platform, Clinical Judgment contains six case studies. The choice is yours as to whether you want to assign all the case studies or choose only those most relevant to your course. Rather than you working to accommodate Clinical Judgment within your class, Clinical Judgment has been designed to work for you.

Building Cognitive Capabilities

Clinical Judgment also prepares your students for future challenges, especially for the Next Generation NCLEX®. The case study questions within Clinical Judgment are written to incorporate elements similar to those used for the Next Gen NCLEX®. The Clinical Judgment question types align with the format and focus used in the Next Gen NCLEX® for assessing clinical judgment and decision-making. Your students will be exposed to the following new question formats that require multi-step thinking:

Grid/matrix n

Extended drag-and-drop n

Extended multiple response n Cloze (drop-down) n

Enhanced hot spot (highlighting) By engaging with the case studies in Davis Advantage, you and your students can feel confident that the work they are completing will help them prepare for the Next Gen NCLEX® and enable them to successfully transition from the classroom to professional practice.

HHHHH “Davis Advantage

has helped improve my confidence in my nursing skills and knowledge. Utilizing the interactive nursing lessons has also helped me feel more comfortable in the clinical setting. I highly recommend for any nursing/ NCLEX study preparation!”

– Ankita P., Finger Lakes Community College

The Stories We Tell

We all want to be the best teachers possible for our students. Their successes are our successes as we aspire to provide opportunities to facilitate their accomplishments. By incorporating case studies, Clinical Judgment in Davis Advantage provides the opportunity to support student learning in a way that works best for most students—exploratory learning through the use of stories. In my experience, the use of an effective case study makes a difference in what my students learn, and more importantly, what they retain. The stories contained in

case studies help our students relate to the material in a more integrative manner and can help transform student understanding. Many times, while teaching a case study, I have seen students have that “aha” moment we are all seeking as teachers. Given how Clinical Judgment in Davis Advantage has been created, we can look forward to having more such moments with our students. In so many ways, from its ease of integration within Davis Advantage to supporting our students’ development beyond the classroom, Clinical Judgment helps us become better teachers and our students better learners in an area that most, if not all students need assistance—clinical thinking and decision-making. Please feel free to watch the video below highlighting this article, Why is Clinical Judgment needed to prepare students for the Next Gen NCLEX and their professional practice? In addition, see the following links and contact information below on how to learn more about Clinical Judgment in Davis Advantage.

Why is Clinical Judgment needed to prepare students for the Next Gen NCLEX ® and their professional practice?

Learn More! § www.FADavis.com/NextGen § Hello@FADavis.com

About the author Kimberly Harding, MS, PhD is an instructor at

Colorado Mountain College where she teaches a 200-level Pathophysiology course to students online, hybrid, and in-person. She earned her MS at Ball State University in Muncie,

IN and her PhD at Indiana University School of Medicine, in Indianapolis, IN. She contributed content to Davis Advantage.

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