Learning to become a nurse: students' reflections on their clinical experiences

Objective: To expose the significant events undergraduate student nurses reflect on during clinical experiences as they learn to become nurses. Design: A qualitative study using reflective instruments of unstructured debriefing sessions and journal writing. Setting: Conducted in a tertiary hospital in southeastern Queensland, Australia. Subjects: Forty voluntarily consenting students were involved. Results: The findings of this study identify that students' interpretation of and learning in the clinical context are influenced by: an interplay between the patient, registered nurse (RN) and the student's construction of themselves as a nurse. Significant to the study, and not previously identified is the way students enter the emotive life- world of the patient's experience. The study confirms that the RN makes a considerable difference to the student's experience. Furthermore, students begin to construct a personal identity of becoming a nurse through a process of developing confidence, confirmation of nursing practices and assimilating knowledge. Conclusion: Insights into what influences students learning in the clinical setting, how they interpret events and begin to build a repertoire of reflective exemplars provides clinical staff and educators with valuable information to design meaningful clinical learning experiences that will assist students to become nurses. (author abstract)