Conducting Clinical Conferences

Abstract

Clinical conferences are responding slowly and unevenly to changes in teachers’ knowledge, skills, and convictions. In the past, the clinical conference frequently consisted of discussion of a patient’s symptoms, diagnostic tests, treatment, and prognosis, with relatively little emphasis upon his nursing requirements. The leader might be the instructor, or a student; sometimes several students were asked to present material. One, for instance, might review the anatomy and physiology and the pathologic changes, another might present a summary of the patient’s diagnostic tests, and contrast the results of these tests with normal values, and a third might discuss nursing care. More emphasis was usually placed upon medical aspects than upon nursing, and considerable time was spent in reviewing and reinforcing such factual knowledge as medical terminology.