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Seattle University College of Nursing embraces a transformative approach to building clinical judgment

Seattle University College of Nursing wanted to bridge the education-practice gap by ensuring its nursing students were exposed to case-based learning that helped them think more critically about patient care. The college adopted Lippincott® Client Cases for Clinical Judgment in its pediatric and pharmacology courses with the goal of giving students adequate cognitive practice with patient care before simulations and clinicals.

Profile:
  • Location: Seattle, Washington
  • Founded 1935
  • Accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education, Accreditation
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Challenge

Preparing nursing students to think critically about patient care


Recognizing that new nurses were increasingly less prepared for practice, Seattle University College of Nursing wanted to introduce new solutions that could augment or replace traditional teaching methods, helping students think more critically about patient care decisions. The College of Nursing wanted to move beyond teaching nursing skills and tasks and shift to a more interactive approach that would place an emphasis on sparking clinical judgment through complex, multifactorial patient scenarios and allowing for more student collaboration.

An obvious place to start given the complexity of the course material? The more challenging nursing courses, including pediatrics and pharmacology, which also had a strong instructor advocate in Dr. Amy Walker.

Solution

Foster deliberate consideration and thoughtful reflection among students

Recognizing the need for its nursing students to tackle complex course work through a more interactive, case-based approach, Seattle University College of Nursing rolled out Lippincott® Client Cases for Clinical Judgment to students in its pediatrics and pharmacology courses taught by Dr. Walker. With more than 300 complex multifactorial patient scenarios, students can practice before, during, and after clinicals to pause and reflect, sparking clinical judgment and encouraging collaboration with classmates.

Lippincott® Client Cases fosters deliberate consideration and thoughtful reflection among students, allowing them to move past simple memorization to consider what they should do – and why – before they take action on a patient care scenario. Emphasizing “thinking before doing,” Client Cases ensures students are equipped to make informed decisions in real-world clinical environments.

Connecting patient cases immediately into nursing school makes sense. I want my students to be practice-ready and to be able to make clinical judgments on day one. Client Cases enables the development of clinical judgment thinking skills to get them ready for complex cases.
Amy Walker, PhD, RN, Professor, Seattle University College of Nursing

Results

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Improved student performance
Student feedback indicated they had more confidence and were better prepared for clinicals where they felt more confident to participate and ask questions.
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Less anxiety about challenging courses
Dr. Walker’s pharmacology students initially had high levels of anxiety about the course but reported “loving the experience” by the end of the course.
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Better retention of course material
Students reported that the hands-on approach to learning complex concepts like pharmacology and pathophysiology helped them better understand the material.
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