Beyond hospital walls: educating pediatric nurses for the next millennium

As pediatric units in acute care hospitals close, as lengths of stay shorten, and as increasing numbers of procedures are completed on an outpatient basis, faculty must find different learning experiences for their prelicensure students. Some programs have discontinued pediatric rotations, others are seeking clinical experiences in community settings. These community experiences hopefully produce a more well-rounded, globally thinking nurse to practice in the 21st century, yet they also raise a number of concerns.