Bridging the Gap Between Nursing Education Curricula and Real World Professional Practice in Clinical Healthcare Environments

• Deepak Kumar Sahu

  Author

• Harish Jaiswal

  Author

Nursing students are prepared academically with the understanding that they should be able to ‘hit the ground running’ when they are being clinically trained, However, Unfortunately, the quality of care being delivered to patients is being compromised due to a disconnect between what is taught in nursing school and what is expected of the students in the field when they graduate. Although the different approaches in nursing education are useful and targeted in imparting the required knowledge, there is a noticeable deficiency in ancillary skills like teamwork, complex problem-solving, and operating modern medical equipment. This paper proposes the Curriculum to Clinical Integration Framework (CCIF) as a unique and effective way to address the problem. This framework unifies education approaches such as competency based learning, immersive simulation, structured clinical mentorship, and digitally-enabled case learning. Unlike standard models, the CCIF focuses on learning as a journey that is traversed through continuous collaboration with peers and colleagues within and outside of the discipline, as well as corrections between what is taught and what is experienced in real clinical settings. This model has been applied in the early stages of a nursing career to improve professional self-confidence, reduce mistakes often made during the transition period, and improve patient care. It would be possible to implement these strategies on a wider scale within the collaboration of nursing schools and the healthcare sector to improve the quality of education being offered and, in turn, prepare the graduates for the ever-evolving dynamics of the field. 

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