Healthcare professionals receive education through classroom study and clinical learning. Clinical instructors assess practical application of theory, teach proper procedures, and evaluate communication and organization skills.
All healthcare professionals – including certified licensed practical nurses (CNAs), registered nurses (RNs) and physicians (MDs) – receive an education comprised of two parts: classroom study and clinical learning. Classroom studies are the most familiar place for students and consist of textbook reviews, reading from other sources, lectures, and written exams. Clinical work refers to instruction and learning in the patient environment, such as a clinic or hospital. A clinical instructor supervises students in a clinical or patient-based setting. Within this scenario, a clinical instructor assesses the practical application of information from the classroom, proficiency in the required techniques, quality of communication, and ability to organize patient care.
One of the primary roles of a clinical instructor is to assess a student’s practical application of medical or nursing theory. This skill requires more than a rote memorization of the causes and symptoms of an illness by the student. Rather, the details about the disease and the resulting treatment must be uniformly understood. The clinical instructor accomplishes this by assigning appropriate patients to each student, evaluating the completeness of each student’s written care plan, and observing the student as he or she performs the patient assessment and care. An effective clinical instructor neither micromanages a student’s patient care nor leaves them to fend for themselves.
Instruction in proper procedures and techniques is another duty of a clinical instructor’s job. In a nursing program, topics can include subjects as varied as correctly performing a sterile dressing change, performing a respiratory assessment, starting an IV line, or removing wound sutures. Depending on the topic and how difficult it is to master, the instructor can either perform the procedure while explaining all the steps to a group of students, or talk to a student through the procedure step by step. Most clinical programs have a certain skill set in which students must demonstrate proficiency to their clinical instructors in order to pass the course. Instructors observe student efforts and grade them on a pass/fail basis, with instructions for future improvements.
Another aspect of a clinical trainer’s job description includes assessing patient communication and care organization skills. There are fewer absolutes involved in these skill sets, and instructions should emphasize the general theory behind recommended actions while demonstrating concrete actions. For example, after teaching students how to use open-ended questions with patients, an instructor can provide examples of this method in a conversation with a patient. A clinical instructor also reviews with each student the organization of their care plans and provides instruction on patient care prioritization and flexibility.
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