cvl983

Hi Julia I have a question for you regarding how you liaise with the Unis in regards to the skills required for the undergraduates to be assessed on. See my post to EvelynRN-BSN above for more details. I am curious to see how your system works in the US... hopefully better than our current system! Cheers!

Hi EvelynRN-BSN I am interested in how you determine what skills the students are required to meet during their clinical. In Australia, the Universities coordinate the timing of when students go into the hospitals for clinicals. A facilitator employed by the uni comes with the group of students and takes them to the unit they are assigned to for the three weeks. I am an educator employed by the hospital in the ICU - unfortunately the system here currently means that the Unis do not liaise with us nor give us guidelines on what students are to achieve. Supposedly the facilitator from the uni has to check skills etc but the students are buddied with some of our RNs for the shift and lately the facilitators from the Uni bringing the students to ICU are not Crit Care Trained - so are useless in ICU!! They gave me a set of competencies they wanted the students to achieve on their second last day (!!) and expected me to do them - The competencies were not applicable to students or ICU. The training system here in Australia frustrates me - Educators in the units in the hospitals need to be part of developing clinical competencies and then assessing them - I am not happy with the current system where inexperienced facilitators are assessing students with meaningless competencies - it seems to me that they just want the box ticked without ensuring the students have gained any knowledge on clinical or have sufficient skills to be safe at the bedside. So..... how do you coordinate with the Unis? Hopefully your system is better than ours!

HI I am an ICU nurse educator in Sydney Australia - we had one such case several years ago and since then we cap our propofol infusions @ a max of 20ml/hr - we only use it for short term sedation - generally use midazolam for longer term if not contraindicated. Propofol is great in small doses for agitated neurotrauma pts due to its short half life so easy to wake them up to assess them....:dzed:

Hi - good luck with your new position. You did not mention what area you are teaching your clinical students in? I am presuming ICU as that is part of your background. I am an ICU educator in Australia and have spent the last 7 years teaching both undergraduate and new graduate RNs clinical skills in ICU ( amongst other things!) - don't know how different things are in the US.... if you have any questions feel free to ask me - I guess students (difficult or otherwise) are pretty much the same world wide!!

Hi - your virtual clinical excursion sounds really interesting - are you actually building the program or is there software out there that you have bought that allows the nurses to practice on virtual patients? I am interested in introducing learning objects and computer simulation teaching tools into our ICU orientation program - any advice on resources available on the net?

Hi all I am a Nurse Educator in Intensive Care working in Sydney, Australia and have just found the allnurses site - looks great and am looking forward to getting a global picture of nursing and what you are all experiencing in your places of work. The ICU I work in is a general ICU with a mix of Trauma, Neuro, surgical and medical patients.. so I am a jack of all trades so to speak! I am responsible for orientation and education of new staff, new graduate nurses and our existing staff's ongoing professional development. I have worked in ICU for 18 years and have been an educator for 7 years - and I still love my job! Am off now to explore the site some more!:wink2: