title: Critical care clinical experience for novice students: reinforcing basic nursing skills.
abstract: To better match students' learning priorities with their practicum experiences and to facilitate skills learning, undergraduate faculty devised the innovative strategy of incorporating a critical care rotation into the first semester of students' clinical experience. The authors describe the basics of this previously untested critical care clinical experience and the essential planning steps prior to implementation, including faculty approval, hospital administrative and nurse manager approval, preceptor identification and education, means of evaluating and grading the students, and evaluation of the overall experience.
authors.affiliation: College of Nursing, University of Iowa, Newton Road, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA. pamela-ballard@uiowa.edu
authors.forename: Pamela
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ballard
authors.forename: Connie
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Trowbridge
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002983:Clinical Competence / Q000592:standards*; D003422:Critical Care; D004508:Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate / Q000379:methods*; D005181:Faculty, Nursing; D006801:Humans; D015402:Nursing Education Research; D011231:Preceptorship / Q000379:methods / Q000458:organization & administration; D016730:Program Development; D015397:Program Evaluation; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology; D013338:Students, Nursing / Q000523:psychology