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The Value of Clinical Experience and Potential Pitfalls

Clinical experience refers to volunteer experience or employment within the medical field in an area that best interests one as a potential career. It can be in a hospital, clinic, nursing home or research lab. All accredited nursing programs across and beyond the United States consider clinical experience as a requirement before graduating both at master’s or bachelor’s level (Bosch, 2017). This essay seeks to discuss the value of clinical experience and some of the inherent pitfalls it can cause.

According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), clinical experience exposes one to hands-on job experience that wholly prepares nursing students to a more diversified patient care in a variety of settings. Before entering the professional world, clinical experience equips nursing students with a vast knowledge on health. Clinical experience competently prepares students to become more accustomed to high-stress moments (Bosch, 2017). Scholars hone preparation skills by reflexing to make sure that they are equipped for any task. Though no day is the same for nurses, they develop a working routine. Clinical coaching trains the practitioners how to handle both high-stress elements and routines of work without negatively affecting patient outcomes (Bosch, 2017).  

However, clinical experience is associated with a number of pitfalls. Sometimes, students are given inadequate exposure to clinical procedures because of mismanagement and lack of follow ups. Due to the growing number of population, students do not get the necessary attention that they require from the assigned practitioners which can be quite unfortunate. Some institutions lack adequate facilities to expose students to diverse clinical departments so that they are fully equipped on what to expect during their professional journey (Logan & Clarke, 2016).

In conclusion, clinical experience is very important. It exposes students to the market expectations during their professional journey by implementing learned knowledge and behaviors to the real-world scenarios. However, as outlined above, clinical experience has some of the inherent pitfalls it can cause.