The homeless experience: clinic building in a community health discovery-learning project

The concept of discovery learning is exemplified in this account of four students and their instructor who began and developed a nurse-run clinic for the homeless in a community health project. The students were registered nurses returning for their bachelor's degrees. They experienced frustration at learning the difference between care based on their assessments of patients' needs and care geared to clients' assessments of desired interventions. The journals that they kept reveal self-discovery as well as new respect for other humans. In addition, a new type of community care emerged, which gives all indications of surviving.