Educators need to be committed to providing students with a solid foundation in evidence-based clinical decision-making.  Although evidence-based practice emphasizes the patient’s worldview as central to competent practice, few nursing students can explain what process they use to examine the needs of patients or describe why nursing research is central to practice.  Recognizing that students need a practical method to give voice to evidence-based practice, faculty retooled a senior nursing course in a baccalaureate program, using Symphonology as the framework for evidence-based practice. Symphonology is a context-driven ethical decision-making model guiding holistic interaction between patient and nurse. The Symphonological decision-making matrix is based on a nurse-patient agreement that emphasizes patient preferences, nursing knowledge and the context of the situation, constructs that are integral to evidence-based practice.  The goal of the nurse is to ethically represent the patient, using the bioethical standards of autonomy, freedom, objectivity, self-assertion, benevolence and fidelity. The use of Symphonology in evidence-based practice will be demonstrated by a simple case study that highlights how students learn to use Symphonology as a reasoning process to direct and explain practice.  The presenter will share teaching strategies that demonstrate how Symphonology enhances the ability of students to engage in evidence-based clinical practice and to fully understand the meaning of their practice.  Students use a specific process based on bioethical standards to analyze complex practice issues.  The process improves student motivation and develops a mindset that reflects a critical interpretation of research, the health care system, the patient’s worldview, and the context of the situation. Student vignettes underscore improved clinical expertise within a humanistic framework of teaching and practice.

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See more of The 17th International Nursing Research Congress Focusing on Evidence-Based Practice (19-22 July 2006)