Parental Evaluation of a T&A Follow-through Program

Abstract

The follow-through clinical experience as a vehicle through which faculty and students can meet clinical educational objectives is not a new one. The essence of the experience consists of student-client interaction before, during and following an anticipated health care intervention in which the student plays an active role. The concept of follow-through clinical experiences evolved as one answer to the diminishing acute care setting client population in the face of increased enrolments in all of the health care educational facilities. Further, the structure of this type of clinical learning experience fosters the kinds of nursing behaviors associated with the baccalaureate nurse. It is within this context that the Tonsillectomy and Adnoidectomy (T&A) follow-through program was planned as a component of the pediatric nursing clinical experience. The purpose of soliciting parental evaluation of the program was two-fold: to determine the value of the program to participant families; to elicit strengths and weaknesses in current course and curricular design. It is the purpose of this paper to present the parameters of the program, parental perceptions of the competencies of the student nurse and the implications of client evaluation of student performance for curricular development.