Clinical supervision of nursing students: a survey in Nepal

Students, teachers, hospital staff and doctors alike indicate a dissatisfaction with clinical and field experience for student nurses. Students often feel lost, insecure and sometimes misused in both hospital and community settings. Teachers are reluctant to become involved on the wards because of lack of confidence in their own skills and potential conflicts with staff. Hospital staff feel that because teachers are incompetent, the teachers relinquish the practical demonstrations to the more experienced ward nurses. Doctors bemoan new graduates who have never been guided to properly execute procedures. How can this fear and resentment of clinical experiences by both students and teachers be alleviated? How adequate is the supervision provided by nursing teachers? These were the questions raised by nursing educators in Nepal. They sought the answers by first conducting a survey of teachers' and students' perceptions of clinical supervision and then using the findings to alert teachers to the problems.