Nursing Student Experiences in Clinical Practice

This assignment explores the experiences of nursing students during clinical practice. It examines four key areas: clinical anxiety, clinical supervision, professional role clarity, and the theory-practice gap. Through personal reflection and analysis of existing literature, the assignment highlights the challenges faced by nursing students in these areas and proposes solutions for improving their clinical learning experience.

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Introduction
Clinical nurses nowadays are expected to give nursing care services of high quality
which can be achieved through nursing competency (Langley, & Brown, 2010). Thus,
nursing students should be taught and guided on how to become competent in their
work. The main goal of this work is to investigate about experiences of nursing students
in the clinical practice.
Exemplary 1: Theory-Practice Gap
I have discovered that what we are been taught in the classroom is a more different
experience from the instructions that we have been given in the nursing practice. I have
studied many theories in class but come in practice, many of them you cannot do. You
can only feel this when you were faced with a clinical situation but you cannot relate it
with what you learned in class; that is when you can understand about this gap.
The reflective measures to reduce this gap is through reflection by nursing theorists on
the realismof clinical life. Again,practice theory development can be exercised whereby
theory established from practice is enhanced. Whatever is being taught in theory done
practically and through this the gap shall be closed as time goes.
These gaps are endorsed to some factors like many people don’t have the motivation
on becoming medical training teachers and another thing is lack of funds to modernize
our nursing programmes (Barnett et al., 2008). These are some of the key issues that
are making this gap not to close and furthermore making it wider than it was there
before.

Exemplary 2: Clinical Anxiety
It mostly happens to many students when getting into real situations of health care and
attending to real patients. Many become nervous and anxious in the initial time about
giving patients incorrect information.
Another thing that causes students anxiety during this time of clinical placement is fear
of patient harming as they say that they don’t have that much knowledge to attend the
patient while still in year two in college.
Fear to fail and to make mistakes regarding nursing processes is another thing that
causes anxiety during clinical placement (Wald et al., 2012). This makes one nervous
even though you know the process very well but because it’s the first time you find
yourself anxious.
In our hospitals there are many incidents that create anxiety for students, the ward is
the paramount place to acquire the best and important information but unfortunately,
many wards don’t meet students’ needs while learning. Evaluation on how they relate to
staff, first experience with real patients are other incidences that make students
anxious.
If the students can be taken on a regular basis to clinics for learning before placement, it
can help them come over this anxiety and fear.

Exemplary 3: Clinical Supervision
This one is acknowledged as an opportunity in developing clinical leadership.
Supervision of clinical nursing is an ending logical process that supports and inspire
better professional practice. Working with the doctors in the settings of clinical
supervision is a great approach of allowing students apprehend appropriate practice.
Clinical supervisors’ moral value is elaborated in one’s decision-making process
(James, & Chapman, 2010). Many ward staff doesn’t care whether the students have
learned something or not but instead, they are busy with what brought them there but
not students. This is opposed to their dedicated role of service and education.
Despite that, some staff have good relations with students and are more willing to help
students but they behave as if they are not conscious of the strategies and skills needed
in clinical placement education and not ready to attend to their role as an instructor. An
instructor role should be more evaluative than that of a teacher.
Clinical supervisors should be the role model for the students through having good
characters which motivate many students to the nursing career and encourage those
who get discouraged along the way.
Exemplary 4: Professional Role
Many students were confused about what they learn in class and what is estimated for
them in the real practice. According to what was done by many in the clinic, made
students think that the work that was doing was not actually professional nursing. For
example, maintaining patients’ cleanliness, making patients’ bed and offering bed baths.

Occupation hierarchy and role in the profession are issues that many students
expressed. The role of profession comprises of behavior, knowledge, and skills
acquired through socialization of profession. Self-concept of profession comprises of
self-evaluation professional skills, values and knowledge. The key stages held by
society in socialization process are acquirement of motives, values and career attitudes
(Nash, Lemcke, &Sacre, 2009). The college staff should prepare students for the reality
in the exercise.
Nurturing self-esteem of the students is an important take in enhancing the process of
socialization. This keep close connection between quality concepts and clinical
competency hence play a very crucial part in nurturing practical profession (Moon,
2013). To reserve health of people is the biggest goal of competent nurses who go
through nursing education which leads to competency and clinical qualification.
Conclusion
As I have expressed above about my views, I have mentioned that my worries were
about the primary clinical anxiety, clinical supervision, professional role and theory-
practice gap. I have come to realize that through the integration of practice and theory
with better supervision will enable students to be competent enough to take good care
of the patients. This study will help supervisors and teachers to look for a more efficient
approach to conduct their clinical teaching where nursing students would be involved in
order to solve the problems that they face.

Reference
Barnett, T., Cross, M., Jacob, E., Shahwan-Akl, L., Welch, A.,
Caldwell, A., & Berry, R. (2008). Building capacity for the
clinical placement of nursing students. Collegian, 15(2), 55-
61.
James, A., & Chapman, Y. (2010). Preceptors and patients–the
power of two: nursing student experiences on their first acute
clinical placement. Contemporary Nurse, 34(1), 34-47.
Langley, M. E., & Brown, S. T. (2010). Perceptions of the use of
reflective learning journals in online graduate nursing
education. Nursing education perspectives, 31(1), 12-17.
Moon, J. A. (2013). Reflection in learning and professional
development: Theory and practice. Routledge.
Nash, R., Lemcke, P., &Sacre, S. (2009). Enhancing transition: An
enhanced model of clinical placement for final year nursing
students. Nurse Education Today, 29(1), 48-56.
Wald, H. S., Borkan, J. M., Taylor, J. S., Anthony, D., & Reis, S. P.
(2012). Fostering and evaluating reflective capacity in
medical education: developing the REFLECT rubric for
assessing reflective writing. Academic Medicine, 87(1), 41-
50.