Teaching and learning care--exploring nursing students' clinical practice

Care has always been a key element of nursing. This paper presents findings from research on the following issue: What opportunities and limitations do nursing students encounter when learning nursing care? The study has a qualitative design with field methodology and the study of documents. Six nursing students have been closely monitored during their clinical studies in hospitals, nursing homes and home-based nursing. The study shows that nursing students are likely to possess the potential to provide care for sick and unknown people. The motivation for their commitment to patients may contain an egoistical orientation and runs contrary to former ideals of the nurse's self-sacrificing altruism. Moreover the study shows that there is a potential in the clinical field and in the university college to reflective considerations on experience of care. While clinical practice often has focus on practical problem-solving and procedures, the college tends to focus on abstract theory. Both of these promote the privatisation and neglect of the students' experience of care. The paper concludes with a call for teaching and learning strategies targeting the use of nursing students' personal experience of care.