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The COVID-19 pandemic impacted nursing education and health care systems alike. Increases in staff absenteeism along with increased hospitalizations have strained health systems across the globe. Postsecondary institutions (PSIs) were required to remove students from clinical placements, thus delaying nursing students' ability to complete their programs, and in turn, contributing to the nursing workforce challenges. Health care organizations and PSIs had to collaborate innovatively to support the health care response to the pandemic while continuing to educate and graduate students to expand the nursing workforce. In Alberta, the collaboration between the health system and PSIs led to the creation of an undergraduate nursing employee/student hybrid (UNE/Hybrid) role. This role was not only a response to the nursing workforce challenges created by the pandemic, but it provided nursing students with positive learning clinical placements ensuring that they completed their program in a timely manner. This role was designed to assist with the fourth wave of the pandemic (omicron variant), which was expected to be the most severe wave in terms of hospitalizations and increased staff absences. The UNE/Hybrid role allowed nursing students to complete the required learning for their final preceptorships and/or complete leadership placements in a paid role while being integrated into the unit culture and becoming part of the team. The initiative's results, including its successes, challenges, and lessons, are discussed.

Background The ability to recognize and respond to a deteriorating adult or paediatric patient is critical to prevention of poor patient outcomes. Simulation is one teaching/learning strategy that can prepare nursing students as they plan to transition to practice. Recognition and response to haemodynamic instability, respiratory distress, cardiac arrest, a massive haemorrhage, or a paediatric seizure has the potential to save patient lives. Method In this quasi-experimental pre/post study, participants were randomly assigned to a treatment or a control group (N = 59). The treatment group received a 16-hour simulation intervention held over two days that were two weeks apart. In addition, the treatment group completed two virtual simulations (one adult and one paediatric case). Results A new measure, Clinical Self-efficacy, was piloted in this study and showed a high internal consistency (0.91). Significant improvement in all items on the Clinical Self-efficacy tool was seen in the treatment group after the intervention. On the contrary, there was no significant improvement in any of the Clinical Self-efficacy items in the control group. Conclusion(s) The hybrid simulation intervention proved effective in improving confidence and competence in the recognition and response to deteriorating patients. Further multisite research is needed to further explore the significance of the simulation intervention.

This article describes an authentic learning activity intended to enhance prelicensure nursing students' clinical judgment and decision-making skills. This activity was designed for fourth year nursing students in a pediatric nursing theory course. Part A of the activity requires students to choose the most appropriate staffing assignment for the unit's staff on an inpatient pediatric unit and provide a rationale for that decision. In part B, students review shift reports, prioritize care based on the provided patient information, and identify appropriate referrals to the interdisciplinary team. This activity is adaptable to various educational healthcare disciplines and can be modified for junior and/or senior learners.

Novels are one humanities resource available to educators in health disciplines to support student reflection on their own professional practice and therapeutic relationships with patients. An interdisciplinary team, including nurses, a physician, and an English instructor, carried out an interpretive study of the use of a novel by clinical nursing instructors in an undergraduate practicum course. Students placed in assisted living or long term care facilities for the elderly were expected to read a contemporary work, Exit Lines, by Joan Barfoot, which is set in a comparable facility. The objective was to increase understanding of the meanings that participants ascribed to the novel reading exercise in relation to their development as student nurses. By using a hermeneutic approach, we used dialogue throughout the study to elicit perspectives among participants and the interdisciplinary research team. Major themes that emerged included the students' tacit awareness of epistemological plurality in nursing, and the consequent importance of cultivating a capacity to move thoughtfully between different points of view and ways of knowing.