Tina Moore
Middlesex University, UK
Title: Tell Me. Show Me. The use of OSCE in the assessment of nurses
Biography
Biography: Tina Moore
Abstract
The emergence of the nursing process within the UK began in the 1970’s. The concept of care planning was quickly adopted by nurse educators as a method of teaching the nursing process in theory. However, this adoption was much slower in practice but eventually became the main way of documenting patients care. Recently, there have been a number of challenges to this practice namely standardised and computerised care plans. Care planning is the documentation of the nursing process. This includes a systematic and comprehensive assessment of the patient/client, identification of problems/nursing diagnosis, formulation of goals and plan of evidence based practices to achieve the goals, implementation of the plan and finally evaluation. Today, the writing of the care plans appear to have been preserved as an educational task that some have debated has little in common to the realities of health care delivery. We argue that care plans, if done correctly should develop critical analysis and clinical reasoning; synthesis of nursing and medical knowledge and the application and enhancement of physical and behavioural sciences. All are core characteristics of a professional nurse. Care plans are marked according to transparent criteria and are designed to allow the evaluation of clinical and theoretical knowledge and professional skills. Modern education is not simply a transfer of information; it is the imparting of a complex set of skills, behaviours and attitudes which when absorbed and interpreted by the student, form the base of their personal and professional practice. Graduates should be able to demonstrate professional behaviour and critical thinking skills that result in them being employable. Evaluating the result of this work is equally challenging - few assessment tasks are designed to assess the range of competencies needed to become competent professionals. The purpose of this study was to examine the attitudes and experiences of final year students on a BSc adult nursing programme. These students have struggled with comprehending and articulating this particular assessment strategy which has resulted in challenges with regard to success rates