Senior nursing students' clinical judgments in pain management.

Sustained improvement in pain management depends on new nurses entering the healthcare system with strong practice knowledge and competent clinical judgment. The recent call to revamp nursing education to meet practice realities recommended integrating classroom and clinical teaching using a variety of pedagogies to develop students' clinical judgment skills. Understanding the pain management clinical judgments occurring in practice helps to methodically construct meaningful teaching interventions and guide faculty support of students. The authors discuss their study, and its outcomes, related to the pain management clinical judgments of senior students.