• Communicates effectively with patients and family.
• Uses active listening to establish trust.
• Demonstrates emotional intelligence and self-management.
• Promotes patient safety, rights, and confidentiality.
• Approaches challenges or obstacles with a positive attitude.
• Arrives to clinical on-time, prepared with supplies, and dressed professionally.

• Prioritizes collaboration with patient incorporating needs and preferences to provide holistic person centered care.
• Seeks assistance and/or uses resources when appropriate.
• Demonstrates effective time management skills.
• Accepts responsibility for actions and decisions.
• Receives constructive feedback.

• Demonstrates clinical judgment when providing patient care.
• Identifies pertinent patient information prior to providing care including medications, labs, diagnostics, etc.
• Performs baseline and focused assessments as indicated.
• Provides holistic person-centered care.
• Responds to changes in patient condition.
• Develops/revises plan of care based on patient status.
• Documents accurately and completely in a timely manner.

• Links theoretical concepts to practice.
• Incorporates evidence-based practice in patient care.
• Communicates relevant information accurately and concisely to interdisciplinary team members (coworkers, health care providers, UAPs, staff, etc) including nursing report.
• Collaborates with interdisciplinary team members to address safety concerns and implement safety measures.
• Delegates, supervises, and evaluates care appropriately based on scope of practice.
• Provides effective patient and family teaching and documents accurately.
• Anticipates and advocates for patient/family needs.

The process of student enrollment in the Capstone course is made by matching student interests with available opportunities. Students select their top three preferences for specialty and location. They are then matched to their placement based on their class ranking. Students are ranked according to academic and clinical performance measures. Students who wish to pursue a capstone that is in a population-based or primary care setting do so with prior approval and mentoring.

The Capstone course is a three credit hour clinical course consisting of 192 clock hours which includes orientation, clinical, simulation, and conferences Students receive a pass or fail at the end of the course and not a letter grade.

Generally, it is a good idea to have the student go with the preceptor. This decision is a judgment decision based primarily on where the student has the best learning opportunities.

Students are expected to be on the unit ready to start when the preceptor would normally start their responsibilities. Students need to complete the shift and should not leave until the patients they are caring for have another care provider who indicates they are ready to assume care responsibilities. Students who are ill or unable to be at clinical must contact the School of Nursing (SON) clinical faculty and the clinical unit. The preceptor should notify the SON clinical faculty anytime a student is not meeting these expectations. Time spent by the student on the unit after the end of their shift is not included in the 120 hours of clinical commitment.

The student does not always have to be with the preceptor when they are doing clinical work on the unit. For instance, when a preceptor is sent home for PTO or is ill, we hope that the student would be reassigned by the preceptor or charge nurse to another appropriate nurse depending upon the unit census or nurse availability. Students should not arrange to work with other staff members without the approval or knowledge of the preceptor. If this is occurring, then preceptors should clarify their expectations with the student and notify the SON clinical faculty.

Students are expected to dress in their SON grey scrub top, grey scrub pants or business casual with a KU SON lab coat. All other dress requirements should be consistent with the dress code expectations of the nursing staff on the unit and the institution. The student must ONLY wear the name badge from the School of Nursing identifying them as a nursing student.

Students should be making entries in the medical record as if they were an RN in that department. Refer to institution policy for specifics. Students should sign each entry with: (their name), KUSN. The KU SON recommends that the preceptor sign these entries immediately after the student.

During the semester, the student should have developed enough confidence in their abilities to notify the physician or appropriate medical staff to explain a patient's clinical status. The preceptor should follow the appropriate agency policy of the institution.

Preceptors should expect students to be able to administer PO, IM, IV, topical, eye and ear drops and suppositories competently. Preceptors should expect that the student has a working knowledge of all the medications they are administering. Knowledge of actions, interactions and administration of medications is an ongoing process, and students should feel comfortable interacting with the preceptor to increase their ability but also demonstrate personal initiative. Preceptors should not expect students to be familiar with medications that are unique to the clinical unit or experimental (e.g., chemotherapy). Preceptors do need to verify a student's competency with medications. The preceptor needs to be with the student during preparation, validation and administration of all medications.

Each time the preceptor interacts with the student, they should be identifying and evaluating how the student is meeting the capstone goals. Structured evaluation conferences occur at mid-rotation and the end of the rotation. During the conference, the student, preceptor and faculty review what the student has done to meet the course criteria. After the evaluation, the preceptor, student and faculty should all sign it.

The determination of a student's demonstrated competency is subjective and varies depending on the type of unit and the expectations of that unit. While we do expect that students will be able to satisfactorily perform most of the roles of an RN on that unit, we do not expect that students will perform at the level of an experienced RN. One criterion that preceptors have used to assess overall student competency is to ask themselves, how comfortable would I feel about this person's ability if I had to work with them every day?

Preceptors who have any concerns about whether the student is meeting the clinical performance expectations should contact the SON clinical faculty.

The ability of all students to conduct themselves in a manner consistent with appropriate professional nurse expectations is expected. Students who fail to treat their patients, families, significant others, preceptors, nursing staff, classmates and SON clinical faculty with respect are subject to not only course failure but also a further review of their activities by the SON administration. This same standard of behavior is expected when dealing with information of a confidential nature.

Preceptors who are working with a student who is not safely delivering care should contact the SON clinical faculty member as soon as deficits are seen to discuss their concerns and to develop a plan of action. The SON clinical faculty is ultimately the one who must decide if the student is performing at a satisfactory level.

Each year a formal evaluation of the Capstone course is completed. Each student is asked to complete an evaluation of the course, their SON clinical faculty, preceptor and the facility where they completed their Capstone through MOKAN. In addition, each preceptor is given the opportunity to evaluate the student, SON clinical faculty and course through MOKAN. The evaluations are standardized but do include areas for written responses. All precautions are taken to ensure that those people completing an evaluation remain anonymous.