Question from a clinical instructor

Editorial Team / Admin · Oct 13, 2015

What about different types of dressings? VAC dressings, hydrogel, hydrocolloid, alginate, collagen, etc. Different than the wounds themselves and something they could work on before/after actually seeing the dressing.

KatieMI, BSN, MSN, RN · Oct 14, 2015

Assessment and history pertaining to wound/ostomy care would be nice thing to teach. It is ridiculous how often patients go for weeks in specialized wound care clinic and end up in LTACH with critical malnutrition (we had a case of real scurvy not so long ago), severe anemia, wounds dutifully treated on an extremity with no peripheral pulses, elemental loss due to unbalansed nutrition in case of high-output fistulas, etc. :banghead:

nursej22, MSN, RN · Oct 14, 2015

When our students go to specialty areas, they are to devise a teaching plan for a client they see, including possible community resources.

sailornurse · Oct 14, 2015

Discuss hyperbaric chambers & use in wound care. Where is the closest one located to you? What types of wounds are treated with this modality? What precautions, how does it work?

I remember my entire clinical group all 8 sitting inside the multi chamber at one facility.

annabanana2 · Oct 14, 2015

I honestly think the most useful thing would be to read up on various wound care products - whichever ones happen to be on the hospital's formulary. If you don't know what the products are for or what they do, you don't know why we're using them, and so you really have no sense of the plan of care.

I use this website: https://www.clwk.ca/communities-of-practice/skin-wound-community-of-practice/ a whole bunch for looking up different products as well as the learning e-modules (click on the blue tab that says "Knowledge Library eModules). They have one for how wounds heal, one for wound assessment, wound cleansing, packing and how to do an ABI. Depending on what your students have already learned, maybe they'd benefit from the wound assessment or how wounds heal ones? I found them useful as a student.

The "Knowledge Library Documents" tab has a section for product information sheets - very clear one or two pagers on every product in our formulary. You folks probably use some of ours and some that are different, but probably some of the basics are there.

luv2quilt · Oct 14, 2015

KatieMI, I love that - how would you word it, though? Ask them what aspects of the patient are involved in maintaining healthy skin / decreasing risk? I'll probably also do a bit on the Braden Scale here pretty soon since it seems that nobody scores correctly (anywhere... nurse or student!)

luv2quilt · Oct 14, 2015

WKShadow, so is ours. That's good to add, for sure! Since ostomies are so "scary" to many, and I know they haven't learned about them yet, I was thinking it would be good to keep it simple - What is an "ostomy" in general, describe the three BASIC types of ostomies (colostomy, ileostomy, urostomy), what patient teaching should be done for a pt with a new ostomy, what psychosocial issues - anything else? I wish I could find a good "label the parts of the ostomy" type diagram.

delawaremalenurse · Oct 14, 2015

When our students go to specialty areas, they are to devise a teaching plan for a client they see, including possible community resources.

This...and they could develop a mini case-study to put the information into context

luv2quilt · Oct 14, 2015

I honestly think the most useful thing would be to read up on various wound care products - whichever ones happen to be on the hospital's formulary. If you don't know what the products are for or what they do, you don't know why we're using them, and so you really have no sense of the plan of care.
I use this website: https://www.clwk.ca/communities-of-practice/skin-wound-community-of-practice/ a whole bunch for looking up different products as well as the learning e-modules (click on the blue tab that says "Knowledge Library eModules). They have one for how wounds heal, one for wound assessment, wound cleansing, packing and how to do an ABI. Depending on what your students have already learned, maybe they'd benefit from the wound assessment or how wounds heal ones? I found them useful as a student.
The "Knowledge Library Documents" tab has a section for product information sheets - very clear one or two pagers on every product in our formulary. You folks probably use some of ours and some that are different, but probably some of the basics are there.

FANTASTIC!!! I have some ppt presentations from education I received at my last hospital and a really great chart outlining the different categories, which I will post if I can get it in electronic form, but I love those videos! Great for new and seasoned but refreshing nurses alike!

luv2quilt · Oct 14, 2015

Now that sounds like a memorable experience. I'd love to have had that.
Most of my wound/ostomy education was gained and supported as a home health nurse.

I have to admit that even I don't know a ton about hyperbaric chambers. One thing teaching does for you is it makes you learn stuff you either never thought about or forgot along the way! I'll totally add a small bit about that.

luv2quilt · Oct 14, 2015

This...and they could develop a mini case-study to put the information into context

Since far be it from me to deprive them of their weekly care plans (they do a medical and psychosocial one for their patient each week), I will probably have them do this and one care plan on one of the patients they see. I figure all of the definitions / research is equivalent to the clinical paperwork portion (their assignments are detailed and thorough), and one mini-study with care plan will equal out the paperwork of their peers. Maybe a little bit easier since I will email them all what materials and links I have.