Nursing graduates need to be "real world ready", and able to meet the demands of the healthcare workforce. Research indicates that baccalaureate graduates have adequate theoretical base, but often lack competence in the clinical setting. Preceptorship programs are an effective way of developing clinical competence in the nursing student. The purpose of this study was to compare a traditional senior clinical course to a preceptorship model on students, faculty, and nurses' perceptions of student preparedness for the nursing role. A formal preceptorship program with the support of a clinical nurse faculty member was developed to enhance the success of clinical nursing education. A quasi-experimental design with nonequivalent groups was used to determine the feasibility and effectiveness of a preceptorship model for senior nursing students comparing the students', the faculty, and the nurses' perceptions of the students' preparedness for clinical practice after a traditional clinical and a preceptor clinical experience. The sample consisted of the fall 2017 senior semester cohort and the spring 2018 senior semester cohort, senior faculty who taught in those semesters, and nurses at the participating facilities. Overall, findings did not show a statistically significant difference between the traditional cohorts and the precepted cohorts; however, there is evidence of clinical significance. After implementation of the preceptorship model, there was an increase in the percent of nurses (100%), faculty (100%), and students (95%) who felt that the senior nursing students were ready for the professional role of a registered nurse.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to measure the level of stress perceived by postoperative coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) patients. Coronary artery bypass graft is the most used surgical intervention to treat patients with coronary artery disease (CAD). Many patients consider CABG surgery as life threatening and stressful. There is a need for nurses to be aware of the patient’s perception of stress to create a more therapeutic environment within the intensive care unit (ICU).Methods: The research method was a quantitative descriptive survey design and descriptive statistics were used for data analysis. A convenience sampling method was used resulting in a sample size of 60 participants who had recently undergone a CABG surgical procedure. The participants completed the Intensive Care Unit Environmental Stressor Scale (ICUESS) survey.Results: The results of the ICUESS survey were analyzed according to rank order and mean with standard deviation scores for each of the 40 items. Findings showed the following stressors were ranked as the highest level of stress: “Being in pain”, “missing your husband or wife”, “having tubes in your nose or mouth”, and “only seeing family and friends for a few minutes each day”.Conclusions: The participants in this study were not highly stressed. Pain was the highest ranked stressor. Nurses need to be aware of the perceived level of stress by the postoperative CABG patients to reduce stressors and enhance recovery. The Neuman Systems Model was appropriate for this study.

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Supervised clinical training is an essential component of nursing education programs. There has been little written about the impact of transitioning from the pre-digital healthcare environment to electronic medication management on the clinical education of nursing students. Even less is known about how nursing faculty and students incorporate technologies such a bar code medication administration into workflow to ensure correct medication administration. This article reports the results of a national descriptive cross-sectional survey of Associate and Bachelor of Science Nursing programs. Findings from this study confirm that despite the benefits of safety technologies, current practices in many clinical agencies create new challenges for nurse educators who supervise nursing students, potentially resulting in medication errors and false documentation. Nursing students in a clinical setting need to administer medications to become proficient and safe, and access to these technologies is essential. To ensure patient safety standards and legal compliance, clinical training site agencies need policies to define acceptable workflows while providing students with the practical experience needed to achieve skill competence.