Week 1

Week one –

Health care is a new journey for me, and in all honesty have really not paid too much thought to the aspect of the Clinical Supervision part. My initial thought, was “oh neat! I get to be inside clinical facility learning!” I am amazed that Stenberg offers such a huge amount of hours dedicated to the CS and Perceptorship, and it is shedding light on how much there is to learn. Having a course dedicated to the CS part, I wonder how we are going to fill our weeks learning about it. It seems that it is fairly cut and dried – this is how it is, and this is what your role will be within it. How can we possibly fill 13 weeks up???

I thought it would shed some light on the subject (and it’s seemingly more complexity than first glance) to look throughout my textbooks. I am amazed that it is not a practice that is mandatory – and I wonder why not all educational institutions and hospitals do not have a CS practice. What aspect of it do they not agree with? I would think, in my limited knowledge, that it is the perfect teaching ground, with the knowledge that is found within RPN staff, and the years that they have worked in the field, it would be a breeding ground for students to come in and learn from them. I did not see it as a burden, as pointed out in Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, Chapter 64, “the horror stories that such experiences (no prior notice and little or no training) generate and travel quickly, causing other PMH nurses to resist clinical supervision, seeing it as a form of managerial inspection and control.” (Barker, 2003).

My hope in the next few weeks is to broaden my outlook on reasons behind the resistance to CS. Is it budget cutbacks? Staff shortages? Overworked nurses? Students who are seen as a burden? One more thing that nurses have to do in their already busy client filled day? There is more to this puzzle of just placing students.