title: Clinical education: a challenging component of undergraduate nursing education.
abstract: Clinical education is an essential part of every undergraduate nursing curriculum. The main benefits are that it allows students to put theory into practice and experience the realities of the practice-based nursing profession. Limitations include the unstable nature of the clinical area as a learning environment and the challenges this produces with students' assessments. This article reviews the literature and concludes there is room for significant improvement in the area of clinical education and numerous strategies can be implemented to do so.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nursing, University of Wollongong, New South Wales.
authors.forename: Malcolm
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Elliott
mesh_terms: D002983:Clinical Competence / Q000592:standards*; D003479:Curriculum; D004506:Education, Nursing / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D015402:Nursing Education Research; D013338:Students, Nursing