Clinical Post Conference

[lansgrl123]

i am a nursing professor, i am thinking of conducting a study on the benefits of clinical post-conferences.

i hated post-conferences as a student (25 years ago) and my feelings have not changed. i see nursing students who come to post-conferences wanting nothing more than to go home. i know i'm burned out, especially when i have two clinicals in a row. i understand a colleague of mine is instituting a 2-hour post-conference for our students--that means the clinical instructor will give another 2 hours of some sort of instruction after the students have had 8 hours of direct patient care. i believe this is asking too much of our students.

now, i know nursing scholars and faculty members who will recoil when they read that i think post-conferences need to go away. isn't that how change begins?

take a stand and say "no more." nursing students have changed so dramatically over the years, someone must take this into consideration. how many are single parents or work full time? patient acuity has changed leaving students drained at the end of the day.

as a nurse, i was exhausted after an 8 hour shift (or 12) and could not give another 2 hours to anyone, i wanted to go home. i believe debriefing is warranted after a simulation but not in the clinical setting. what do you think?

[Always_Learning, BSN, RN]

I liked post-conference, (time to relax a little!) and I actually learned a lot...as long as it didn't drag on forever and was focused. I hated the ones where discussion was not at all clinical-related (all I could think was, "I could be at home right now...")

In general, I really enjoyed talking about my day and learning from others' experiences too. About 30 mins. is enough to accomplish this in a small group, in my opinion, although my instructors always offered to stay longer if someone needed to talk. I think it is important to keep the discussions focused, e.g. "What one thing would you have done differently if you were the primary nurse?" or "What was the most difficult aspect of your day?"

[SerenePeach]

Post conferences can be okay if they have structure - each person gets to talk about their experience or day for a couple of minutes, and I say the post conference should be no longer than 1 hour.

I HATE postconference this semester - people just gossip about everything else, there are several people talking at once and it just feels unproductive. Oh, and I also hate it when people monopolize the conversation or talk too long - last semester, there were these 2 women who would EACH talk for 30-45 minutes about their patient - and I just wanted them to shut up so I could go home. Because of those two, our supposed 1 hour post conference was always AT least 2.5 hours. I mean I get that you had an interesting day, but I don't want to hear about it ad nauseam.

[mangopeach]

I don't mind post conferences. I think they should be limited to no more than 1 hour though.

[Hygiene Queen]

Oh, and I also hate it when people monopolize the conversation or talk too long

Yes, because they are just sooooo amazing, aren't they?

They are 100% convinced we all want to hear about everything-- down to the minutest detail-- about THEIR day.

They stop just short of telling you each breath they took and each fart they held back.

They also were the ones that took the most boring task and tried to make it seem so much better than it was:

"... And the foley was in. I took a deep sigh of relief. I looked up... and the whole hospital was crammed into the room with big glowing smiles! The applause was deafening! My patient had tears of joy coming out of her eyes and told me, 'You're better than the old nurses here!'. The shouts and cheers were nearly drowned out by the brass band and parade trooping down the hall, and the news channels fought over space to film me as the hospital CEO and Jesus carried me off on their shoulders through the crowd..."

:anbd:

[Always_Learning, BSN, RN]

The hospital CEO and Jesus..."

:anbd:

LMAO!:bdyhdclp:

[inthere]

I say hell no to 2hr post-conferences! We students have lives to. One of the things I notice about nursing school is that they enjoy wasting a students time ex. Why schedule and 8 hr lab...take up 4hrs of that lab making us watch videos, just to turn around for the next 2-3hrs and demonstrate what was on the video to us....why not skip the middle man and demonstrate the procedure from the get go....and give use 6hrs of practice in the lab. I feel that nursing school doesn't practice the art of priority setting and time management when it comes to teaching the cirriculum. I don't even attend lecture anymore because the class is so long...why does take 4hrs to say what could be said in two. The worst part is they schedule open lab when we are either in lecture or clinical...go figure....it shocks me that we are passing checkoffs becuase we barely get time to practice

[ashleyisawesome, BSN, RN]

i dont think post conference should extend to past your scheduled clinical time, but i think they are beneficial.. ours are usually 30 mins- and hour.. sometimes we even use this time to review for tests after we discuss our patients.. but theres no way i would want to stay 2 hours after an 8 hour clinical day, thats crazy!

[LadyinScrubs, ASN, RN]

[...] i see nursing students who come to post-conferences wanting nothing more than to go home. i know i'm burned out, especially when i have two clinicals in a row. i understand a colleague of mine is instituting a 2-hour post-conference for our students--that means the clinical instructor will give another 2 hours of some sort of instruction after the students have had 8 hours of direct patient care. i believe this is asking too much of our students.

did i read the statement correctly, do we have a sympathetic nursing professor?

i enjoyed the debriefing after being on the floor but would have prefferred the post conference in the last hour or two hours of the clinical. my day would begin the day before: sometime after 1 pm, i would pick out a patient or two; obtained all the pertinent clinical info; worked up a long careplan that would end up about 8-10 pages; the careplans took anywhere from 8-12 hrs to work up; and, show up for pre-clinical at 6 am prepared to present one of my patients. the day started at 7 and ended at 2 pm. somewhere in the day was lunch. post conference was between 2-4 pm. can't say i was physically open to new teachinng. all i wanted to do was go home and prepare for the next day--meaning, update the care plan. if one of my pts was discharged, i had to whip up a new care plan.

what always worried me was how little sleep student nurses obtained before clinical. there have been studies showing lack of sleep is similar to being alcohol impaired. it would be interesting to see a study involving nursing students who are in a clinical to determine whether the long hours preparing care plans impacts their cognitive function (i.e., is the nurse sleep impared when they start the day's clinical).

what would be most interesting is to compare the functioning with a control group of student nurses in the same cohort group who had a normal night's sleep and did not prepare care plan(s) the night before.

would there be a decline in functioning at pre clinical conference, after lunch, and/or in the post conference wrap up? if so, how much a decline, and does the decline make the student nurse dangerous?

always wondered about this.

[leslie :-D]

post conference really is a great concept.

unfortunately, students are burnt at the end of their shift and are antsy to get the heck out of there and go home.:)

it is only in hindsight that i could appreciate what there is to discuss during this time together.

esp if the student (doesn't matter who it is) did a 'first', stuff like that s/b discussed.

i remember i had a pt that was complicated, critically ill (mets ca) and conflict betw the pcp and oncologist.

it was an awesome learning experience, as i was exposed to a lot of pathology (multi-organ system failure) and a lot of dynamics betw the family, doctors, and the pt just stayed silent, wanting someone to make up their mind.

pcp wanted to send her home to hospice, oncologist wanted pt to remain and start chemo.

anyways, it was such a learning experience.

it is clinicals such as that, that gives you something to discuss amongst the group.

but 2 hours??

hell, no.

leslie

[sandyfeet]

Reading everyone's responses has made me feel extremely unlucky. I have ALWAYS had 2 hour post conference, for every clinical rotation! For my first clinical (med-surg), everyone was just talking about their patients or trying to stay awake. And that wasn't even a full day...like a 7-3 on the floor and 3-5 post-conference. For the second one (psych), we had to act out dramas for how we would run patient groups or we would go over homework. But the last clinical (med-surg II), we were on the floor from 7-5 and then post-conference from 5-7. It was a LONG day. But I absolutely loved it, because this instructor was just as energetic, funny, and interesting at 6:45am as she was at 6:45pm. I always thought "If she is still going strong, and she is probably 30 years older than me, what does that say about ME?". Post-conference was announcements, getting back care plans, talking about patients of course, and last was games! Each student had to make up a game about whatever we were studying in lecture and run it for the group. At the end of the game we got a typed list of all of the questions used (and they had to be NCLEX-style) with the answers. Everyone looked forward to these games because it was light-hearted and silly after a long day, and you got a free study guide.

So if every post-conference for the rest of my time in nursing school is like my last clinical, I am totally behind post-conference. And those of you with the 30 minute slots...no complaining!

[gjerstp]

I too am nursing faculty. In my clinical groups I reserve the last half hour of clinical to talk about how the day went. It's a time when the students are finishing up their charting, and telling what happened with their patients. I think they learn a lot from hearing about different patients with different conditions and situations.

This applies to real hospital practice too. Once I had clinical students on a floor where, when the day shift came on in the morning, they all sat in a conference room, and one by one the night shift people gave report on their patients. It meant that everyone heard about all the patients, and in case it became necessary, could more safely take over care. Everyone gains from hearing those clinical-related stories..

But no two-hour sessions AFTER clinical!

[foreverLaur]

I too am nursing faculty. In my clinical groups I reserve the last half hour of clinical to talk about how the day went. It's a time when the students are finishing up their charting, and telling what happened with their patients. I think they learn a lot from hearing about different patients with different conditions and situations.

This applies to real hospital practice too. Once I had clinical students on a floor where, when the day shift came on in the morning, they all sat in a conference room, and one by one the night shift people gave report on their patients. It meant that everyone heard about all the patients, and in case it became necessary, could more safely take over care. Everyone gains from hearing those clinical-related stories..

But no two-hour sessions AFTER clinical!

The hospital I am doing my clinical at does that. Each nurse does bedside reporting and then everyone meets in the conference room for huddle and each nurse gives a quick run down on his or her patient for the day so everyone knows what is going on. It only takes about 15 minutes.