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The satellite university campus is becoming more prominent in Australia, and may consist of a large proportion of students of low socio-economic status (SES). Concurrently, there is a governmental target to increase the proportion of low SES students at university. However, there are concerns that students of low SES may be less successful at university, and accordingly, this study aimed to identify whether SES impacted on student success. Retrospective analysis was undertaken of satellite campus students to relate their SES and university entry rank to their academic results. There was no strong relationship between students' entry rank and their results, nor was there a significant effect of SES on results. This demonstrates that students of low SES, and those of lower entry ranks, were successful in their first year. These results indicate that universities can recruit low SES students to meet governmental policy, without the concerns of increased failure rates.

There is a great deal of literature surrounding the needs of regional Australia. This integrative review of the literature focuses on the experience of nursing academics teaching on a satellite campus, many of which are located in regional Australia. Four themes were identified: (1) challenges specific to regional satellite campuses, (2) student characteristics, (3) student experiences and (4) the academics' experiences. These themes identified not only significant benefits but also considerable challenges to the provision of higher education on regional university campuses. The experience of nursing academics and indeed their students is remarkably different from the experience of their metropolitan counterparts, and therefore the local context needs to be considered in regional education provision. Australian regional nursing academics need to be multi-skilled to address the workload and social inequity in support service provision.

Medication errors can have deleterious effects on patient safety and care. Interruptions, patient acuity and time pressures have all been cited as contributing factors in the incidence of medication errors. Yet, despite the number of different strategies that can be taken to reduce the incidence of medication errors, they still occur. The strategies often focus on refining systems and processes, depending on the root cause of the error. However, less recognised as contributory elements are human factors such as anger, hunger or tiredness. The aim of this quality improvement initiative was to reduce medication errors by 25% on a medical ward, through the introduction of the hunger, angry, lonely, tired (HALT) model to address the human factors associated with medication errors. Post-implementation, the HALT model appeared to have resulted in a total reduction in medication errors over a 2-month period by 31%. Mistakes related to human error were reduced by 25%, and those linked to communication and documentation errors by 22%. While this was a small-scale study, this is a significant reduction in medication errors. However, caution should be used when addressing other contributing factors associated with medication errors as using HALT alone will not address these. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and context: Implementation of current research in practice is challenging for ward-based nursing staff. However, university-based nursing academics are seen as the research experts and are perhaps well placed to support clinical nursing research. The problem lies with the divide between practice and academia; universities often use the clinical environment as the place to conduct research but this is often not translated effectively into practice. The development of a nursing professorial unit for acute and critical care was undertaken to meet this challenge. The unit's key aim is to develop, mentor and support a nursing research culture that is wholly situated within and driven by the requirements of the clinical environment. Aim: The aim of this article is to offer some insights as to how staff set about engaging with and developing the nursing professorial unit to support nursing research in our local hospital. Conclusions: The article highlights how an effective and coordinated approach to supporting clinical nursing research is possible. The nursing professorial unit has been successful in bridging the divide between academia and practice by using a non-university approach to supporting nursing research. Instead we have adopted the philosophy that practice is the sole driver for research and as academics our role is to support that position. Implications for practice: • The adoption of the nursing professorial unit model for supporting clinical nursing research is beneficial in closing the divide between clinical practice and the university • The continual presence of the academics in the clinical environment has had a positive impact on research development and implementation in practice • The nursing professorial unit has become an integral part of the nursing culture in the hospital environment [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims and objectives To explore new graduate registered nurses' reflections of bioscience courses during their nursing programme and the relationship between bioscience content and their clinical practice. Background Undergraduate nursing students internationally find bioscience courses challenging, which may be due to the volume of content and level of difficulty of these courses. Such challenges may be exacerbated by insufficient integration between bioscience theory and nursing clinical practice. Design A descriptive, cross-sectional mixed methods study was conducted. Methods A 30-item questionnaire with five written response questions which explored recently registered nurses' reflections on bioscience courses during their nursing degree was employed. Descriptive analyses were reported for individual items. Thematic analysis of qualitative responses was grouped to reveal emerging themes. Results Registered nurses' ( n = 22) reflections revealed that bioscience courses were a significant challenge during their undergraduate programme, and they lacked confidence explaining the biological basis of nursing. Participants would like improved knowledge of the relevant bioscience for nursing and agreed that bioscience courses should be extended into the undergraduate final year. The importance of relating bioscience content to nursing practice was elaborated extensively throughout written responses. Conclusions Although registered nurses reflected that bioscience courses were difficult with large volumes of content, having more bioscience with greater relevance to nursing applications was considered important in their current clinical practice. It is suggested that bioscience academics develop greater contextual links between bioscience content and clinical practice relevant to nursing. Relevance to clinical practice After working as a registered nurse, there was appreciation of bioscience relevance for clinical practice, and the nurses believed they would have benefitted from more nursing-related bioscience during their undergraduate programme. Focussed integration of bioscience with clinical nursing courses should be driven by academics, nurse educators and clinical nurses to provide a biological basis for patient care to nursing students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a great deal of literature surrounding the needs of regional Australia. This integrative review of the literature focuses on the experience of nursing academics teaching on a satellite campus, many of which are located in regional Australia. Four themes were identified: (1) challenges specific to regional satellite campuses, (2) student characteristics, (3) student experiences and (4) the academics’ experiences. These themes identified not only significant benefits but also considerable challenges to the provision of higher education on regional university campuses. The experience of nursing academics and indeed their students is remarkably different from the experience of their metropolitan counterparts, and therefore the local context needs to be considered in regional education provision. Australian regional nursing academics need to be multi-skilled to address the workload and social inequity in support service provision. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Nursing students have reported bioscience to be challenging and difficult to understand. This might have a negative impact upon their ability to understand patients' clinical conditions and nursing practice. We sought information about students' experiences with bioscience. A total of 126 final year nursing students completed a questionnaire. The findings showed that the majority of participants considered bioscience subjects to require more work compared to nursing subjects (65.9%), and that they would like a better understanding of bioscience (73.8%), but understood that bioscience forms the foundation of nursing practice (76.2%). Younger participants without secondary school science rated bioscience harder than nursing subjects and spent more time studying bioscience compared to older participants. Participants without any secondary school science lacked an ability to apply bioscience concepts to patient conditions. These results showed that nursing students, especially those without secondary school science, would benefit from improved bioscience integration with nursing practice. Nursing and bioscience educators should consider greater alignment of bioscience with nursing practice subjects, especially earlier in the curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background The transition shock or Imposter Phenomena sometimes associated with moving from student to Registered Nurse can lead to feelings of self-doubt and insecurity especially with the increased expectations and responsibilities that registration brings. Aim The aim of this study was to examine the extent at which imposter phenomenon is evident in four final year nursing student cohorts in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. Design A survey design. Settings The study took place at four higher education institutes - two metropolitan campuses and two regional campuses between October 2014 - February 2015 in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. A sample of 223 final year nursing students undertaking nationally accredited nursing programmes were approached. Results Each cohort exhibited mild to moderate feelings of Imposter Phenomena. A positive weak correlation between imposter phenomena and preparedness for practice was found. The New Zealand cohort scored higher than both the Australian and UK cohorts on both feelings of imposterism and preparedness for practice. Conclusions Nursing students possess internalized feelings which suggest their performance and competence once qualified could be compromised. There is some speculation that the respective curriculums may have some bearing on preparing students for registration and beyond. It is recommended that educational programmes designed for this student cohort should be mindful of this internal conflict and potential external hostility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims Bioscience content within undergraduate nursing degrees provides foundational knowledge of pathophysiology, anatomy, physiology, microbiology and pharmacology. However, nursing students often find studying the bioscience components of undergraduate nursing program daunting (Friedel & Treagust 2005, Craft et al. 2013). This is related to factors such as the volume of content, degree of difficulty and insufficient linkage between bioscience concepts and nurses' clinical practice. Students who are unable to conceptualise the relevance of bioscience with nursing subjects and subsequent nursing practice may not appreciate the broader importance of bioscience, and hence may adopt a surface approach to learning (Craft et al. 2013). The aim of this study was to develop a model within Nursing Practice in the Context theory subject, to include a bioscientist lecturing to complement the nursing lecturer, in order to explicitly demonstrate links between physiology, pathophysiology and nursing practice. Background A deep understanding of bioscience and the ability to draw on this information in the context of nursing clinical practice is integral to achieving high standards of patient care. For example, registered nurses with appropriate bioscience knowledge can contribute to diagnosis and hence influence patient outcomes (Prowse & Health 2005). Nurses' foundational knowledge, including bioscience understanding, is critical to their role as a 'knowledge broker' by being an advocate for patient safety (Logan & Angel 2011). Hence, the importance of bioscience is apparent within the workplace. In addition, during undergraduate studies, the importance of bioscience is appreciated by some students, who agree that bioscience forms the foundation of nursing and hence we believe that a good level of bioscience knowledge is required for nursing clinical practice (Friedel & Treagust 2005, Craft et al. 2013). Although bioscience has been shown to be integral to effective nursing practice, bioscience content requires con-textualisation. To demonstrate the relevance of bioscience to nursing students, nursing academics have been included within a bioscience unit, whereby the nursing academic within a bioscience laboratory session on the pulmonary system would discuss the clinical aspects of lung volume testing and what inaccuracies may arise if the patient is not relaxed (Larcombe & Dick 2003). On the other hand, almost half of nursing educators agreed that their science background was insufficient to their understanding of bioscience relevant to nursing (Friedel & Treagust 2005). This lack of confidence in nursing educators bioscience knowledge may limit their ability to teach bioscience effectively to nursing students. In our project, we approached the contextualisation of bioscience by developing a model that incorporated a bioscientist into a nursing subject, to show the relevance of bioscience for patient care. As far as we are aware, our project reports for the first time on a bioscientist teaching into a clinical nursing unit to strengthen the pathophysiology content, which may improve the integration of these subject topics. Methods The model developed in this project was a unique, two-part lecture structure: (1) the bioscientist teaching the physiology and pathophysiology in the first component of the lecture, followed by (2) the nurse academic focussing on the context of nursing practice, which included the referring to pathophysiology taught by the bioscientist. The bioscience-clini-cal nursing team teaching approach was conducted during the 2nd year of the Bachelor of Nursing course, after all bioscience subjects had been completed (prior content taught by bioscientists included anatomy, physiology and pathophysiology). A 15-item quantitative questionnaire was developed, with responses scored on a Likert scale (1=strongly disagree; 5=strongly agree). Questionnaire items related to patient care, pathophysiology-nursing links, and the relevance of the bioscientist contribution. Questionnaires were paper based and distributed to all students who attended a lecture towards the end of the semester (lecture attendance not compulsory). Time during the lecture was provided for completion and return; students were advised that participation was optional and anonymous. Convenience sampling was used; of the 88 students enrolled, a total of 43 students returned completed surveys. Means and frequency distributions of survey items were calculated, and internal consistency was determined using Cronbach's alpha test (value 0-7). Results The most important findings from this study are that more than 90% of respondents agreed that having a bioscientist who focused on nursing student needs helped to increase knowledge of patient conditions, and bioscientist teaching was beneficial to relate physiology and pathophysiology to nursing care (Table 1). This demonstrated that the teaching approach used was successful, emphasising the relevance of physiology and pathophysiology to patient conditions and outcomes. Similarly, most respondents saw the relevance of pathophysiology to clinical nursing practice, and were confident in their ability to apply pathophysiology to nursing practice. The majority of respondents also valued having a bioscientist teach with the nursing lecturer in this unit. Conclusions The results of our study show overwhelming support for this model, including a bioscientist who is focussed on the needs of nursing students, complementing the nursing lecturer, in a nursing practice subject. Students indicated that they could contextualise bioscience concepts with clinical nursing practice, and importantly, made links with patient care. First-year students have been shown to be confident that when they reach the workplace, they will recognise the relevance of bioscience to nursing (Craft et al. 2013), and our study of second-year students indicated that our teaching approach was effective in enhancing these connections. Registered nurses who draw on bioscience knowledge have been shown to improve patient care (Prowse & Health 2005, Logan & Angel 2011), and strategies to link bioscience content with clinical nursing practice that are integral for effective nurses. Relevance to clinical practice Our data strongly supported our model of physiology and pathophysiology teaching team delivered by a bioscientist and nursing academic, was successful in providing students with the ability to conceptualise pathophysiology for patients and clinical practice. Improved understanding of the knowledge and application of pathophysiology will better inform clinical decisions, and ultimately improve quality of patient care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]