New opportunities for nurses in medical education: facilitating valuable community learning experiences

A new 4 week community programme, developed through a successful Department of Health Bid in partnership with the Community NHS Trust, provides a vital clinical learning block for all medical students at the Leicester/Warwick Medical school. The course owes its success to the pivotal role played by nurses. Working with an Academic co-ordinator the course was operationalised in the county's market towns and provided student access to the work of the entire front line community workforce in the care of people with life limiting diseases and disabled people. Senior nurses in each locality led the work with both community hospital and community nurses sharing their expertise with a wide range of front line health and social care professionals. The lead nurses and their teaching teams attended university training days prior to developing a locality student programme and played a key role in identifying preparing and supporting suitable patients for student learning. Students highly praised the work of the lead nurses who supported their learning throughout the course. All nurses felt the educational involvement was worthwhile, having overcome identified barriers and with funding support nurses have been able to assimilate the teaching into their annual workload.