APPLY The Davis Advantage Clinical Judgment Case Studies allow students to apply their knowledge to evolving complex clinical scenarios. These case studies align with the Next Generation NCELX® format and can be assigned individually or used for class discussion. Davis Advantage also provides Personalized Teaching Plans that suggest active learning strategies faculty may implement in classroom or small group situations (FADavis.com/ DavisAdvantage). ASSESS Finally, Davis Advantage provides quizzing assignments that can be used to assess students’ competence in using the content to make clinical judgments in specific patient scenarios. These assignments also allow students to assess their own learning prior to tests or exams. Questions replicate NGN-type questions, preparing students for the type of questions they will see on the NCLEX examination beginning in April 2023 (https://fadavis.com/ davisadvantage). Checklist for Faculty 5. Today’s learning resources make use of technology and educational research to support faculty’s efforts to prepare students for clinical practice in a complex world. What then is the faculty role in improving students’ clinical judgment competencies? 1. Develop clear course, class, lab, and clinical learning objectives which emphasize application of knowledge in clinical situations beginning in the earliest nursing courses. In the past, objectives in early nursing courses required students to remember or understand a topic—the objective did not require application to a clinical scenario until later in the curriculum. For example, an objective such as “List the potential causes of decubital ulcers” might appear in a Nursing Fundamentals course. In a perfect world where the time needed to become clinically competent was easily available, perhaps the luxury of requiring application in courses later in the curriculum after students had built some clinical knowledge would be possible. Unfortunately, time is of the essence today, so we must give students an opportunity to apply simple concepts immediately as they are presented. An objective that captures this approach in that Fundamentals course might be “Assess a patient for the potential for developing a decubitus ulcer.“ 2. To the extent possible, provide a clinical context to all lab activities. Simulation activities have taught us that presenting a clinical situation makes the practice of a procedure more real (thus more engaging). So even if the student is to practice a dressing change on a moulage without a simulated patient, the faculty can provide a clinical context that can direct the student’s action. For example, the instructor observing the practice session might say “The patient is experiencing acute, severe pain. What should the student performing the dressing change do?” 3. Clinical Instructors should incorporate questioning that helps students go beyond the application of protocols to those that help students integrate scientific knowledge into clinical judgment. Tanner (2006) suggests that time spent in clinical teaching may be inefficient. Clinical time is often spent in assessing the amount of time students spend in preparing for the clinical experience, supervising assessments, and assuring care is safe (in Van Graan, et al., 2016). While time spent in these tasks is important, (especially ensuring patient safety), helping students go beyond protocols to integrate scientific knowledge and clinical judgment into specific actions is also important. Table A provides an example of questions that can help a beginning student to make these connections.
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