Placement Learning in Medical Nursing: A Guide for Students in Practice

Are you unsure about your medical nursing placement? Do you need guidance on what to prepare to get the most out of your practice learning? Will you have the range of clinical skills to care for individual patients? What learning opportunities will there be to meet your competencies? How can you maximise your learning during this placement?

This book will help you with all these concerns. It will advise you on what to expect from the placement, what you can learn, how to link theory and practice, and how to make the most of your learning opportunities and meet your competencies.

Placement Learning in Medical Nursing covers the following areas:

• Takes a logical, step-by-step approach to preparing for learning on a medical nursing placement
• Provides the principles of care, treatment and management of an individual, linking university-learned theory to clinical practice
• Gives helpful evidence-based practice examples and resources to support placement learning
• Identifies clinical skills that underpin care of an individual
• Highlights potential learning opportunities and experiences available on a medical nursing placement
• Explains how to develop your clinical portfolio by completing specific exercises and activities
• Maps all activities and exercises to the NMC competencies
• Advises on approaches to a range of situations that may arise as a student nurse
• Adopts a case-study/patient pathway approach to consolidating learning, from pre-diagnosis, through a range of treatment options to discharge.

Series features:

• A unique guide to getting the most from clinical placements
• How to prepare for your placement
• What you can expect to learn during a placement
• Clear links to, and examples of, achieving NMC competencies
• Guidance on what to use as evidence for your portfolio
• Case studies that link theory with practice
• How to consolidate your experience and learn from the placement
• Tips, activities, further reading suggestions and useful websites.

Worried about your next placement? Will you 'fit in'? Will you have the right skills? What do you need to learn to meet practice assessments?

This series will help you with all these concerns. It will tell you what to expect from each placement, what you can learn, how to link theory and practice, and how to make the most of your learning opportunities.

This is the only series specifically for student nurses undertaking specific practice placements, and will give you all the information you need in a user-friendly format. Each book in the series covers a specific area of practice for a typical placement on a pre-registration nursing course.

Titles in this series:

Surgical nursing

Medical nursing

Cancer and palliative care nursing

Mental health nursing

Community care nursing

Older people nursing

Each book also covers:

• A unique guide to getting the most from clinical placements
• What to expect before a placement
• What you can expect to learn on placement
• How to consolidate your experience and learning
• Clear links and examples with NMC proficiencies
• Guidance on what to use as evidence for portfolios
• Short case studies to link theory with practice
• Key points reminder boxes

Introduction

Section 1 Preparation for practice placement experience

1 Medical nursing in context

2 Medical placements

3 Preparation for placement learning

Section 2 Placement learning opportunities

4 The patient journey within medical placements

5 Nursing practice: admission and beyond

6 Assessment of risk and the medical patient

7 Assessment of vital signs and changes in health status

8 Communication within medical placements

9 Nutrition and effective elimination

10 Medicines management

11 Medical investigations and medical day care

12 The end of the journey: discharge from hospital and the experience of death

Section 3 Case studies

13 Case study of a patient with heart failure

14 Case study of a patient who has been diagnosed HIV positive

15 Case study of a patient with tuberculosis

16 Case study of a patient living with diabetes mellitus

Section 4 Consolidating your learning

17 Revision and future learning

Glossary

Index