Concerns of Prelicensure Nursing Students Before a Maternal-Newborn Clinical Rotation.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the concerns of prelicensure nursing students before their clinical rotation in the maternal-newborn setting. DESIGN: Qualitative descriptive design with one open-ended survey question. SETTING/PROBLEM: A private U.S. Midwest master's entry prelicensure nursing program. Students' concerns before beginning a maternal-newborn clinical rotation have not been fully explored in the literature and may differ from those reported by students in other clinical rotations. If not addressed, these concerns could negatively affect the clinical learning experience and hinder student success. PARTICIPANTS: Prelicensure nursing students enrolled in the Nursing Care of Women and Newborns course at an urban graduate college of nursing. INTERVENTION/MEASUREMENTS: On the first day of the course, students were asked to write on an index card their most pressing concern related to their upcoming maternal-newborn rotation. Participation was voluntary and anonymous. Course directors analyzed the responses for themes and further divided them by setting: labor and birth, newborn, postpartum, generalized (concerns across maternal-newborn clinical areas), and miscellaneous (nonclinical concerns). RESULTS: A total of 130 concerns were reported by 125 students. Of these concerns, 47% (n = 62) were related to labor and birth, and 4.6% (n = 6) were related to caring for newborns; 40% (n = 51) were general clinical concerns, and 8.5% (n = 11) were of a nonclinical nature. No students in this study expressed concern about being assigned to care for individuals on the postpartum unit. Although some concerns were similar to those reported previously in the literature, others were unique to the maternal-newborn setting. CONCLUSION: Prelicensure nursing students have concerns that are unique to the maternal-newborn setting. When student concerns are known before clinical rotations, course faculty, clinical instructors, and staff nurses can adapt strategies to reduce stress and improve the clinical learning environment for students so that they can be successful.

Teaching reproductive options through the use of fiction: the Cider House Rules project.

Alternative teaching strategies such as storytelling and the critical reading of literature are thought to help students develop their critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and cultural sensitivity and thereby better understand the context in which their patients live and make decisions. Such teaching methods are ideally suited for examining morally complex issues such as reproductive options. This article describes an alternative approach to teaching the complex personal, social, and moral issues surrounding the topic of reproductive options. The critical reading of the book, The Cider House Rules, provides a unique opportunity for students to obtain insight and understanding of the complex circumstances under which women and their families make reproductive decisions.