Summer Nursing Internship Experiences
Internship education is practice-based learning in which students alternate periods of classroom study with planned, career-related work experiences. During internship experiences, students are supervised and evaluated by the employer. The nursing curriculum at LAU includes two required Internship learning experiences: NUR211 Summer Nursing Internship I, and NUR311 Summer Nursing Internship II. Through these experiences, students will grow professionally and personally in all three domains of learning: cognitive, affective, and psychomotor. The learning that takes place complements but does not replace or duplicate the learning that occurs in the student’s clinical coursework. Students will complete internships during the summer terms.During Internship preparation, students will be assigned to one of the pre-selected sites by ARCSON and prepare for the experience. The students follow the rules and regulations of the perspective clinical setting. The result of the preparation activities is a plan that supports the student’s professional development. Each student has an opportunity for a different but equally valuable internship experience.
During their internship experience, students are paired with practical nurses or registered nurses to support them meet the course outcomes. Nursing responsibilities are delegated to nursing students by the supervising PN/RN and may vary according to institutional policy, clinical unit routine, academic level, experience, and qualifications of the student.
Through their internship experience, students can improve their observation, assessment, teaching/coaching, reporting, and documentation skills, as well as their organizational, priority-setting and communication skills. The student and their work supervisor will complete a formal evaluation of student’s work, which will help them reflect on what they learned about nursing, patient care, the health care system, and themselves as a nurse. This will also be reviewed with the faculty. The internship evaluation will be used by faculty to determine the internship grade (P – NP). Finally, by completing two internship experiences students will be able to explore different nursing work settings.