Abstract
Clinical practice is an important component of the nursing education curriculum. The faculty spends a great deal of time instructing students in clinical settings. The faculty of our Department of Health Sciences provided clinical practice instruction for the first time. During practice the students learned how cancer patients are cared for and recognized the educational effects of the experience. We designed the teaching approach so that students could understand patient crisis situations through records and conferences. The subjects were 10 students for whom we were responsible. Each student monitored one patient carefully. Before surgery the student was asked to understand the impact of telling the patient the diagnosis, as well as concerns about the surgery, and to prepare the patients physically and psychologically for surgery. After surgery, the student could support the patient according to Fink's crisis process of recovery from risk. Ten students shared their experience with 10 patients through group conferences.
The authors provided practical nursing care instruction together with the clinical staffs at the hospital. We tried to assess the value of our instruction through the words and behaviors of the patients and the review of the students themselves. On the last day of the practice, the students volunteered such responses as “I could experience the wonderful aspects of nursing” and “I was pleased to observe my patient's recovery.” The authors could support patients' recovery, students' learning, and identify the educational effects of the practice.
