How caring assessment is learnt – reflective writing on the examination of Specialist Ambulance Nurses in Sweden

Abstract

This paper presents a research study that aims to describe and analyse how caring assessment is learnt in the Specialist Nursing, Prehospital Care Programme for educating specialist ambulance nurses. The study is based on a contextual and didactic model for learning. The focus was on the final course, Prehospital Emergency Care, with clinical studies and clinical practice amounting to 15 credits, plus one of two theoretical examinations. We are testing the model to explore what characterises the students’ learning when the model is applied. The informants were 37 students (registered nurses). Written data from all 37 examinations were analysed by means of the phenomenological Reflective lifeworld research approach. The results stress the significance of a didactic model constructed according to the specific circumstances prevailing in the learning context. With the help of the model an attitude of reflective awareness is adopted, showing that knowledge in caring science and medical science are equally valuable and, are applied simultaneously. Furthermore, the model generates knowledge that underlines the significance of the encounter with the patient in the care-giving context of the prehospital environment, in order for the student to be able to develop understanding and to learn caring assessment in prehospital emergency care. Thus the result reveals that it is the encounter with the patient that is most effective for the student’s learning process.