ABSTRACT
In order to strengthen the teaching and learning of clinical nursing, a training workshop was conducted for the senior nursing staff of eight clinical wards who were freshly appointed as "Honorary Teachers". A prospective interventional study was conducted on 180 nursing students and 30 honorary and pure reaching staff of University of Nursing, Yangon, Nursing and Midwifery Training Schools and respective teaching hospitals of Yangon and Hpa-An from June 2007 to March 2008, with the objective of evaluating the effect of training of the honorary teaching appointees. Pre-tested self-administered structured questionnaires were used as a base line, identifying four areas: learning environment, teaching learning, teaching materials and collaboration between clinical and teaching staff, and a second assessment was done nine months after the intervention. The data were analyzed and compared. It was found that the clinical learning environment and the collaboration between the clinical and the teaching staff had improved significantly, and the clinical staff became more aware of their important roles towards effective clinical teaching. There was slight improvement after the intervention in Yangon, whereas there was significant improvement in all categories with an increase of 74% to 94% in collaboration in Hpa-an. The results of this study indicate that designation and delegation of duties with proper training and communication can further strengthen effective collaboration between clinical and teaching staff, thereby enhancing teaching and learning of clinical nursing and promoting quality nursing care.