Preceptor Clinical Information

To: Preceptors and Clinical Coordinators
From: Nurse Anesthesia Program Director and Faculty

These preceptor training resources provide important information for you to use in your daily interactions with students. If you have any suggestions that would make the clinical experiences, or this guide, more useful please share these with the College of Nursing Nurse Anesthesia Program faculty. We appreciate all the time and expertise you share with our students.

Travis L. Chabo,  PHD, CRNA

CEU Credit for Clinical Preceptor Training

North Carolina AHEC provides free online courses for clinical precepting through AHEConnect. These multidisciplinary courses are open to all healthcare professionals who serve or wish to start serving as a preceptor in a clinical setting. Participants may complete any combination of courses with AHEConnect account.

The following courses are available:

Clinical Precepting 101: The Role of the Clinical Preceptor, Host Clinical Site, and Legal Considerations.

This course will provide the participant information about the roles and responsibilities of the clinical preceptor and clinical host site for clinical learning experiences involving students in the health professions. Strategies for effectively managing the clinical learning environment will be discussed. Participants will learn about the legal issues that need to be considered when providing clinical learning experiences for professional students.0.20 CEU, 2.0 Contact Hours.

Clinical Precepting 102: Planning for and Providing Clinical Learning Experiences

In this course, participants will focus on planning for high quality clinical learning experiences. Participants will explore how to foster adult learning characteristics in the clinical learning environment. Participants will learn the components of quality learning plan that integrates determining expected learning outcomes and establishing an effective feedback process.0.15 CEU, 1.5 Contact Hours

Clinical Precepting 103: Communication, learner Self-Assessment and Preceptor Feedback

This course reviews the five skills of effective communication. Culturally aware and sensitive communication strategies are explored as participants consider a communication plan for a learning experience. The module also review specific concepts related to effective written, verbal and non-verbal communication. SBAR is presented and how it is effective with learners to guide them and mentor them in the learning environment. The module will reviews the basics of the formal written feedback tools and strategies to effectively monitor and record the clinical learner’s progress.0.15 CEU, 1.5 Contact Hours

Clinical Precepting 104: Managing difficult Situations in the Clinical learning Environment

This course will discuss key factors that may influence the clinical learning environment and will review methods for effectively managing difficult situations. Strategies for preventing, and analyzing student performance difficulties are reviewed along with measures to address student progress problems. The course will also include strategies for managing difficult conversations.0.15 CEU, 1.5 Contact Hours

Clinical Curriculum

To prepare nurses for a career as Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs), the Nurse Anesthesia Program faculty subscribe to the belief that learning is a developmental process through which declarative, procedural and conditional knowledge bases are developed and refined in a developmental fashion. We also believe that case-based anesthesia instruction allows students to acquire flexible knowledge structures required to apply theory to practice.

The students begin their educational process by taking the basic science foundational courses that include anatomy, physiology, chemistry and physics and pharmacology. These are taught by professors who are experts in these subjects. The pharmacology and physiology courses are taken with the medical students in the Brody School of Medicine.

  • The physiology course contains subject-appropriate labs and a full 5 s.h. anatomy course including a cadaver lab. Students perform dissections enabling them to understand the various anatomical planes that guide the tasks associated with anesthesia practice such as insertion of central lines, subarachnoid and regional anesthesia blocks.
  • The clinical correlations course accompanies anatomy to form links to clinical application.

The applied science courses are designed to incrementally build upon the basic sciences. These courses include the basic and advanced principles of the applied science of nurse anesthesia in the classroom and clinical area. Simulation is incorporated throughout the program.

The model for Nurse Anethesia Education, progressing from semester 1 ~ 3 of declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge as separated information; transition to semesters 4 and 5 when the declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge overlaps with conditional knowledge in novice stage; to semesters 6 and 7 when three knowledges overlaps in compotence; finishes with semester 8 and 9 when all three knowleges greatly overlaps in proficiency

The clinical curriculum is where, through case-based instruction, preceptors help students link procedural and declarative knowledge learned in basic and applied science to clinical application. This is an essential element of their education process. The East Carolina University College of Nursing Nurse Anesthesia Program has established important student preceptor relationships that allow students to have the opportunity to integrate these knowledge bases and practice newly acquired skills under the guidance of expert professionals.