Debriefing helps nursing students clarify clinical decisions

Deconstructing debriefing best practices

Bonsall goes on to ask Dr. Jett how to debrief, asking if there are best practices other educators can follow to be effective. While Dr. Jett says she essentially had to educate herself, she shares the following tips educators can follow to be more effective at debriefing:

• Seek external education on how to debrief from organizations such as the Society for Simulation, as well as other educators and sources.
• Observe and model educators who are experts at debriefing.
• Practice “reflecting and debriefing” on yourself.
• Observe how students are reacting to your debriefing approach. Are they engaged, or are they shutting down because they feel judged?
• Seek a faculty assignment in a simulation center as a facilitator to gain practice.
• Set the stage so students know they are in a safe learning environment.

Creating a safe place to practice

To this last point, Dr. Jett says, “I realized how important being clear with expectations was” when she was learning and honing her own debriefing skills. “Let them [the students] know what they are going to do. It shouldn’t be a surprise.” She adds that educators should tell students they’ll talk about it afterward in a safe environment.

Importantly, she emphasizes that debriefing is not a time to teach. “This isn’t a time to lecture, this is a time to understand the doorway to a decision, the path, why they did something” to “help them critically think, critically judge that situation to make better decisions. That’s the heart and soul of it.”

Dr. Jett explains that not teaching is one of the hardest parts of debriefing for educators, emphasizing that, “You have to check yourself. Because nurse educators are opportunists, we look at every opportunity to teach, but it’s really not about us. It’s about giving them [students] the opportunity to safely show us what they’re doing, what they know, with us clarifying, reframing thoughts to pull out the meat and potatoes of the experience.”

She adds that removing students from the training environment helps because “…it almost always diffuses some of that energy from what they just did.”

Watch the full interview with Lisa Bonsall and explore how virtual simulation can support nursing students in developing clinical judgment.