post conference

How about a one minute paper or muddiest question session?

My clinical group only has 4 students as well. My instructor, during any extra time in post conference, talks about issues directly affecting nurses. Today she spoke for about 10 minutes about hepatitis C and how we as future nursers are affected by the lack of concern our government seems to have for those of us on the front lines. She spoke about the fact that there is a cure for hep C and how it is so expensive that only the rich get cured and said she really hopes that our generation of nurses stand up and make the government take responsibility and eradicate the hep C epidemic. She explained that the government funded the research for the hepatitis C cure but allowed a drug company to patent and have control over it and how sick it is that so many people suffer from, pass to family, strangers, and nurses and eventually die from a disease that can be cured.

Last week the instructor asked us who the leader of nurses is somebody responded Florence Nightingale and we talked about how other "professions" have real live leaders but nursing has Florence Nightingale, who has been dead for over a hundred years. She tries to inspire us to do something about issues nurses are currently facing. When she speaks about these things nobody usually thinks about, it really gets us thinking and I, and my clinical group, go home and look these issues up and find other points to bring up at the next clinical. It really makes post conference interesting and everyone gets excited about the topic. It is something that gets us really thinking after listening to one another spewing facts about patients.

Simulation!

I've spent a lot of time doing careplans. I hate careplans, but the students are tested on them and I do acknowledge that they can teach an organized way of thinking about the patient. Sometimes the students have pre-prepared them and we critique them together, and other times I have them write one on the spot.

Thanks everyone for your answers! Lots of different things to do!

I did lots of things. I always did a five questions, five minutes med math quiz while I wolfed down my lunch.

Other ideas:

Everybody signs up for a topic to present to the group (if you only have 4 students, each of them can do two). You can have a list of them-- a surgical procedure, what a diagnostic exam shows, what's the difference between certification and licensure and certificates, unions, the most common labs in ______ and what they mean, standard of practice for _________, the latest health-related legislation in your state, a book report from a nursing-related book that isn't on the bookstore list, gawd, the possibilities are endless. Handouts for note-taking. Visual aids/props. This makes everybody the go-to-guy or -gal for that topic and promotes collegiality. We also had everybody bring snack one day (or two) and they had to bring a copy of the recipe. This promotes ... fun and weight gain.

Field trips: Go visit the cath lab, the Alzheimer's floor, the cardiopulmonary rehab gym, the morgue, sit in on a safety committee meeting, central sterile supply, occ med, amputation or wound clinic, the dietary department and the kitchen... have someone speak to them about what goes on there and what their most pressing issues are. Have the students prepare two questions each ahead of time.

Guest speakers: the local women's shelter on domestic violence, the CDE on her role, the local AA coordinator, the local cop on the narc education unit, transgender folk to talk about the healthcare they get (or don't get), someone from the DA's office on how they work cases of child abuse ... things they'll never get in lecture. Open their eyes to other places to use nursing skills....

That oughta get you through the semester

Dialysis nursing and tx modalities and what the patient faces.