There are several things about the idea that interest me.
Seeing the hard to get at places
Not every student will get to undertake a clinical placement in every area. Some clinical areas are quite small and don't have the capacity to look after many students. The project offers the opportunity for every student to have a little taste of these smaller areas.
Myths and assumptions
My background is community nursing and this is an area that I feel I know well. Amongst students and out in the world, there are a lot of incorrect assumptions about what nursing is in this setting. Community nursing is also placed within a health care system that has an emphasis on acute care and hospitals, which I think further exacerbates how little it is understood. Having students in a classroom, seeing the work as it happens and hearing the nurses talk about what they are doing would be a great way of showing the real work.
Artistry
Exposing the artistry that underlies the work is one of the key things that interests me about the project. I suppose it is really an extension of dispelling the myths and assumptions that students might hold, but it goes a lot further. There is an opportunity here to go beyond the surface activities and the tasks of nursing to see and hear about the things that underpin nursing practice. These are often the things that are not well described and not easy to see. It's easy to see a nurse do a wound dressing, but, unless you are looking, it is hard to see the nurse building self efficacy at the same time.
Classroom v Practice learning
The setting itself is interesting and important. It seems that students sometimes privilege learning in the practice setting over learning at university. Without question the practical learning is important - but so are the theories and other knowledge that underpins practice. Bringing the authentic workplace into the classroom has the potential to bring practice and theory together in a way that the students can really see the way that they are interwoven. One of the keys to this is to have the things that are happening interpreted by someone. I like the idea of having a tutor with the students who can point out some of the things that are going on. The clinician would also add to the learning if they could share their thoughts in action or on action
Other things that would be interesting are the students interacting with the clinician and patient, the clinician debriefing after she has provided care, student discussions following care. For me one of the main things is the opportunities to find ways of describing the nursing work through capturing an episode of care and carefully looking at what has occurred.
Along the way it's going to be interesting exploring the technology, the ethics and the pedagogy of something like this that brings the authentic practice setting, live, into the classroom.
