Use of clinical space as an indicator of student nurse's professional development and changing need for support

A current challenge in educating nurses of the future is to support them during periods of immersion into the realities of today's health care settings during clinical practice rotations. The professional development of nursing students is dependent on their ability to integrate what they learn in the classroom with the realities that confront them during their clinical experiences. The success of clinical practice as a learning experience is dependent upon comprehensive learning support that is a collaborative responsibility between the triad of educator, clinical practitioner and student. Educators and clinical practitioners who work with students during clinical practice rotations must have an ability to recognise, and understand, the organisational behaviour of student nurses, to act as a mentor and support agent. Undergraduate student nurses undertaking their first cli nical practice experience participated in an ethnographic hermeneutic study that explored the ways clinical practice in a small rural community influenced the way they shaped their professional identity. A key concern of ethnography is the way participants use space thus the theme described in this paper presents the ways students traversed space within the clinical environment and discusses how this use of space is indicative of students' professional development. © 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.