Undergraduate Supervised Clinical Practicum Activities: An Enlightening Exploration

Clinical nursing practice is the hallmark of nursing education providing for the application of nursing knowledge to the care of patients in a contextual clinical environment. There is no universal method for educating students in the clinical arena. The literature has been limited to the evaluation of clinical education models and student perceptions of learning; however, there is a gap in the literature regarding the daily clinical activities of faculty and students.

This exploratory descriptive study examined the explicit undertakings of a clinical day among faculty and students in the southeastern United States.

Responses from 61 survey participants described detailed activities of a clinical day including preclinical preparation, prebriefing, student and faculty clinical activities, and postconference structure.

This foundational knowledge provides insight for improving clinical education with the goal of educators connecting clinical activities to the development of student competencies. [.