post conference

[suni, BSN, RN]

I am new to clinical instructing and am looking for advice on post conferences. I am not teaching in the classroom but do have the syllabus and thought I would try to do a topic related to what they are being taught in class for the week. Some ideas also are to have one of the students present their patient each week as a case study. Practice reporting off to each other shift report and patient handoff. Any ideas would be helpful, i really want to be able to make these interesting and fun for the students.

[Wise Woman RN]

Perhaps have a "real nurse" come and speak to the class.. I used to do this for the clinical instructors, just have a chat with the group, provide them with some confidence, encouragement, and humor. Oh, and a few "War Stories.." LOL

I loved this, and I think the students enjoyed it.. the instructors used to send all of their students, at one time or another, to my unit for the "Wise Woman Experience." The students would run with me for the am part of my shift.. what a blast!! I loved taking them under my wing..

[DawnJ]

My instructor likes us to tell the group what we learned that day and what we saw happen that was not safe/within protocol.

[seanynjboy, BSN]

I am new to clinical instructing and am looking for advice on post conferences. I am not teaching in the classroom but do have the syllabus and thought I would try to do a topic related to what they are being taught in class for the week. Some ideas also are to have one of the students present their patient each week as a case study. Practice reporting off to each other shift report and patient handoff. Any ideas would be helpful, i really want to be able to make these interesting and fun for the students.

I am currently in an ADN program and the thing that we never worked on a whole lot is the Handoff report. I think instead of teaching something related to what they are learning in class (because they typically want to concentrate more on skills and clinicals) you should practice more handoff reports and have each student take notes as to what they are saying to each other for their report. After that, have each student discuss what skills they worked on that day, what they need to improve on, comfort level of that skill/procedure (I just did my first female straight cath today! btw! :). Stuff like that.

I'll be honest...THE LAST THING most clinical students want to hear is another lecture when they get that enough during the week. The only thing I can suggest with regards to that is since you have the syllabus is try to find patients during the clinical day that fall in the realm of what is going on in class. I had one previous instructor do that and it really helped :)

[lub dub]

I like to use the "what did you learn today?" every once in a while. it makes the students actually think about what they did that day.

[suni, BSN, RN]

Thank you all, I do always ask them what they learned today but I like the idea of what if anything did they observe that they think is unsafe. I also try to correlate labs to the diagnosis and I make them report off to each other. I thought I could go over the difference types of oxygen devices also.

[seanynjboy, BSN]

Thank you all, I do always ask them what they learned today but I like the idea of what if anything did they observe that they think is unsafe. I also try to correlate labs to the diagnosis and I make them report off to each other. I thought I could go over the difference types of oxygen devices also.

Correlating labs to the diagnosis is a great idea! Teaching anything about oxygen delivery systems sounds great too! I had a clinical instructor that only asked us how our day went and really didn't give a whole lot of feedback or teach us ANYTHING. She was very nice, but would have been nice to get something out of it (but not a long lecture though) :)

You sound very enthusiastic, which is great quality :)

[happytoheal]

How experienced are the students you are working with? For a group working through their first clinical experience, I always like to have a post-conference on report. It always seems that report is pretty intimidating for new student nurses. I start conference by giving a "typical" end-of-shift report on the unit. I use abbreviations, talk fast, and act as "the" cranky, tired night nurse. As I give report, I have the students write down what they hear, and then spend about 5 minutes asking them what they got from report. Students always have different/conflicting info written down. Then, I allow them time to ask questions about abbreviations (i.e., BKA) I used during report. Then we talk strategy in regards to some common abbreviations, how to pinpoint important info during report, and how to assertively ask questions appropriately. My first year of teaching, I purchased a book that I liked that had different post-conference ideas...it really helped guide me to think about creating post-conferences that were not "lectures," but that still had objectives/goals. I suggest that you do some looking online to see what products are out there. Also, check out the QSEN website....a ton of great post-conference ideas on their website that are free. Good luck! : )

[NurseLatteDNP, MSN, DNP, RN]

Hello Suni,

I have tried messaging you to answer your question, but your inbox was full. I have some materials for you regarding post conferences as well as precepting.

[suni, BSN, RN]

I think I have cleared my inbox and would appreciate any info you could share. Sorry for the delay I have had a sinus infection.

[rbs105, ADN, MSN, RN]

I do advanced med surg clinical so they are getting ready to graduate. I give them 4 NCLEX questions at the beginning of post conference in different topics. That wakes them up and they get quick nclex test taking strategy reviews. Check w/your hospital- I get my students to AirMed to talk to a flight RN and see the chopper. Someone from pastoral care can talk about meeting spiritual needs. Find someone from the ethics committee. They love that stuff and it puts it in concrete instead of just reading it or getting lectured on it. They present cases but I have had them teach too-someday they will need to give an in service wherever they work. Why not start now? Too much of nursing school is stressful. To me, clinical is where we get our hands dirty and really learn.

Rbs105

[0su88]

I usually gear my post clinicals towards a particular subject, for example last week in lecture they learned skin assessments, so I pulled the unit protocol and charting on skin assessments and had each student pick a patient to do one on during the shift, in post clinicals each student presented their assessment. I also have them do care mapping on particular disease processes related to the patients they care for and we discuss those in post clinical also.