Internal medicine nurse shadowing program
Section snippets
Format
IM residents participated in a six to 12-h nurse-shadowing experience with a registered nurse (RN) providing direct patient care on the general medicine wards at an academic hospital.
Target audience
Participants included IM residents during their core three-year internal medicine residency training at McMaster University. McMaster is a tertiary care, academic institution and the IM training program has 28 residents per year. A total of seven residents volunteered to participate in our shadowing experience, including four residents in post graduate year one (PGY1) and three in PGY2.
Objectives
There were two shadowing-experience learning objectives:
- 1.
Generate awareness of professional responsibilities of nursing colleagues;
- 2.
Observe nursing activities including transfer of accountability (i.e. shift handover), documentation, provision of patient care, patient assessments, and interactions with other health care professionals.
Activity description
Each participating resident shadowed a registered nurse on an IM inpatient ward for six to 12 h. Residents observed nursing activities including transfer of accountability, documentation, provision of patient care, patient assessments, and interactions with other healthcare disciplines. Residents were asked to observe and not participate in activities beyond their scope of training, such as specimen collection (e.g. blood and urine), administration of medications, and securing and/or
Evaluation
Questionnaires and qualitative data from semi-structured individual and group interviews were used to assess the resident perceptions about the experience. Reflection and self-reported changes were used to determine the success of the intervention. Data was triangulated from multiple sources to perform a multi-source evaluation of the shadowing experience.
Required materials
Coordinating a nurse-shadowing experience requires a physician and nurse lead who will orientate the participants to the goals of the experience, review allowable resident activities, and schedule the experiences. A precise list of activities which residents could and could not participate in during shadowing experience can be provided upon request. Evaluation of this experience would require administration of pre- and post-exposure surveys and post-encounter interviews. All materials are
Funding
- 1.
McMaster University General Internal Medicine AFP Grant
Conflicts
The authors report no conflicts of interest.
Acknowledgements
This project was made possible by the 2013-2014 McMaster University General Internal Medicine AFP Research Grant. Thank you to Dr. Shariq Haider, Kelly Drake, Kelly O'Halleran, and Heather Vandeweerd for all your support. Division of General Internal Medicine at McMaster University. Kelly Drake, Nurse Manager, Hamilton General Hospital, Hamilton, Ontario. We would also like to thank our McMaster Internal Medicine resident- and nurse-participants.
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Cited by (0)
- 1
Winnie Chan and Mary Salib are co-first authors.