Clinical Nursing Teaching in Saudi Arabia Challenges and Suggested Solutions

Aims: To discuss the recent barriers and challenges facing nursing clinical teaching in Saudi Arabia and suggest solutions to overcome them. Background: The issues affecting nursing education today are increasingly complex and dynamic. Clinical teaching is one of the most important academic and health professionals’ components and should be given utmost consideration to cope with the recent requirements of nursing education. Discussion: The clinical teaching lacks effectiveness which indicates a need for more active clinical setting to be able to make the theoretical components come alive in the practice and enthuse students. Clinical teaching in Saudi Arabia suffers from the lack of coherent theoretical base necessary to inform students. Also, the lack of substantial research in the area of clinical teaching suggests that the clinical nursing teaching has been neglected. Conclusion: The rapid increase of the nursing students’ admission cannot be met with the limited number of clinical preceptors. The lack of preparing nursing clinical preceptors will impact negatively on the teaching process. Potential challenges related to the clinical educator and nursing students might act as a obstacle toward achieving a good environment for clinical teaching. Implication for nursing practice: Nurses provide the majority of patient care therefore; they must be empowered with good preparation to improve care and service in order to maintain quality of patient care.