Building bridges for future practice: an innovative approach to foster critical thinking

Developing mechanisms to uncover and share with students the deep richness of practice through reflective, collegial, and supportive dialogue is a very timely and necessary activity. How this compliments other educational strategies and the impact of the full expression of practice dialogue continues to be created and discovered. While practice dialogue can influence experimental knowledge development, it does not negate the necessity of the student's active engagement in direct practice learning episodes with the clinical faculty. Preliminary evaluations by staff nurses and students are positive. Staff nurses have identified a "therapeutic" effect in sharing their practice dialogue. Due to the early phase of implementation, other outcome data are not available. In this project, "Critical Thinking Rounds" are being developed as a mechanism to begin to uncover critical thinking in practice. Based on the excitement of nurses and students coming together and sharing practice, similar activities need to be facilitated as essential mechanisms for expressing the essence of nursing practice in the hope of bridging the gap between education and practice.