Concept Of Nursing Education

CHAPTER TWO

Conceptual Framework

Nursing education is a formally recognized program of study providing a broad and sound foundation in the behavioral, life and nursing sciences for the general practice of nursing resulting in leadership role and preparation for post basic education in specialty or advanced nursing practice (International Council of Nurses, 2002).

Nursing education lays the foundation for nursing practice and whatever nursing care given is a reflection of the nursing educational training one has received. A standard nursing education will yield quality nursing care, whereas if the education is shoddy nothing significant can be expected from the clinical practice and this will lead to

Most notably, clinical training is derived through training apprenticeships, in which an aspiring student learns many aspects of the profession from the “master” (Schen in kozier, 2008). Clinical nursing is the process through which student nurses are exposed to real life situations in order to acquire the skills inherent in nursing profession for effective nursing practice. It provides the students with the necessary opportunity to acquire knowledge and skills that help in critical thinking and performance of needed client’s/ patient’s care. Clinical teaching is a part of training in nursing education provided to nursing students in the clinical setting. The clinical teaching is often done by a nurse educator, clinical nurse manager and staff nurse as well. During the training, patients are observed and their health problems are studied. Discussions are made towards the improvement of the health problems and ways to improve the nursing care given by the nursing students are discussed as well. The clinical teachings are done in nursing in order to prepare the nursing students for the professional nursing practice, to know patients’ health problems, to prepare for research, to enhance communication skills, to provide a better holistic nursing approach in patients care. Clinical teachings also provide a conducive atmosphere for teaching students and provides

The researcher noted that the patterns adopted for clinical training in Nigeria include, training in the demonstration room, block study clinical training, study days clinical training and consolidated clinical training. Some of the factors that affect clinical training are the curriculum philosophy, the context for clinical training and the human and material resources needed for effective clinical training. Some of the challenges of clinical training in nursing include: inadequate trained and experienced nurse educators, clinical nurses, clinical supervisors etc. both in the schools and in the clinical areas. There are also theory- practice gap, inadequate funding for purchase of equipment, inadequate supervising of students during their clinical experiences etc. The nursing students most times feel reluctant to go for clinical postings. Instead of going to the wards after acquiring theoretical knowledge from school, they prefer to travel to their homes than to spend the other proportion of time which is meant for clinical practice. These