Promoting Collaboration in Undergraduate Nursing Students

Background: The role of the nurse educator is to prepare students to collaborate and practice competently and safely. One way of promoting collaboration is with the use of students as standardized patients (SPs). Method: This exercise used undergraduate nursing students in collaboration with graduate nurse practitioner (NP) students in an advanced health assessment course. Undergraduate students were assigned a specific disease process to review, then as SPs were asked to describe symptoms and answer questions regarding the disease by the NP students. At the end of a combined group debriefing, a survey was given to evaluate the process. Results: Analysis of the survey identified the following themes: Positive Learning Method, "Aha" Moments, Improvement in Critical Thinking, and Communication. Conclusion: Using undergraduate nursing students as SPs helped create real-life scenarios for both the undergraduate and graduate nursing students to learn from.