What can a student do if they're having problems on clinical relates very much to what they're
have problems with, so if it's the facilitator that they're having a problem with, that's
very difficult for them, but my advice would be to first try and discuss it with the facilitator.
If they feel that they don't have that sort of trust or sense of communication, then they
would be best if they approached the subject coordinator, or the academic advisor for clinical,
but preferably the subject coordinator first.
What they can do if they're having a problem with other aspects of clinical, and they do
have a relationship with their facilitator, is to talk to their facilitator about that.
And then together -- the facilitator can't change everything that's going to happen,
and if it's dealing with difficult staff, we can't change the staff, but together we
can work through how to deal with what I call a 'difficult person' or a difficult situation,
and hopefully develop skills on how to manage that.
If the student's having emotional difficulties, it's best that the facilitator knows exactly
what they're dealing with so that she can advise them whether they need to either go
home, or stay with it and work through the problems while they're there.
I've had students that the wards have said, "The student's not communicating with us -- there
have been quite a few problems with the student" and when I've discussed it with the student,
they have, you know, major family problems or their relatives are very sick.
The facilitator needs to know that information and... because nobody can work in a situation
where their mind is somewhere else at the time, so this all needs to be taken into consideration
because a student may fail a subject unnecessarily because there are problems that nobody knows
anything about.
If students are having problems on clinical, any sort of problem at all, I would expect
them to call their facilitator as soon as possible and get them to come up to the ward
and go through the problem together.
The problems may not always be within the power of the facilitator to fix immediately,
but we can work through it together.
But it would be much better to call sooner and try and address the problem rather than
to have three days' bad experience on clinical and stop your own development.
If the student's concerned -- emotionally confronted by what's on the ward -- I would
-- it would depend on the situation.
I would certainly always say to them, "Do you want to go somewhere?" -- let them have
the opportunity to leave the ward and do what they need to; to let their staff know that
they're going.
I would always be prepared to listen and to to -- I wouldn't be able to deal with or fix
it necessarily, but certainly to give them an opportunity to share what they're experiencing.
And again, depending on the experience, I'd encourage them to talk about it in debriefing,
and to share it with their other students.
As I say, it would depend on the problem -- if it was really severe and they needed to go
home, then they would need to go home and see somebody about it or or professional whatever,
but if it was something that was a bad odour or something like that, that is part of nursing
and that all the students would be being confronted with, then I would encourage them at -- in
the first instance -- to share about it at debriefing.