Utilizing an outdoor recreational setting for clinical community health nursing education

Background and Issues: Securing meaningful community-based clinical settings with BSN prepared preceptors has become increasingly difficult. In addition providing opportunities for interdisciplinary practice within a population focus is an issue which requires renewed attention. Description: This presentation describes the research findings from a study which explored student and faculty perceptions related to an innovative strategy for community/public health clinical education. Faculty at a mid-western university utilized an outdoor learning and recreational center for both pre-licensure and RN-BSN community health clinical learning experiences beginning in 2010. The center was established in 1941 and is a leader in therapeutic recreation and therapeutic programming for children and adults with developmental disabilities and chronic illness. Nursing students participated in two intensive weekend camp sessions involving 24/7 coverage over a three day period each weekend. Lessons Learned: This experience enabled students to meet the course objectives related to applying concepts of community assessment, program planning, prevention and epidemiology in implementing and evaluating interventions for community-centered care to an aggregate. It also provided the opportunity for interdisciplinary practice (nursing, medicine, pharmacy and therapeutic recreation students) that is emphasized in the recent IOM Consensus Report on the Future of Nursing. Recommendations: Findings from this study utilizing an outdoor recreational setting for community-based clinical education will be analyzed in order to identify future opportunities for community/public health clinical experiences with both pre-licensure and RN-BSN students, as well as recommendations for future research related to interdisciplinary practice.