by Dr. Lorrie Stewart-Torres (lstewart25@gsu.edu)
Faculty Instructor ADN Pediatric Program, Georgia State University’s Perimeter College
Medication Card completion is one pharmacologic learning intervention given to nursing students. Medication or Drug cards are completed by nursing students to assist with safe patient care. Medications are such a fundamental and vital area of nursing that drug test questions occur on most nursing tests and occur for Registered Nurse (RN) licensure. In our nursing program, students are given a rubric and a list of medications that relate to the course. Then they are expected to document critical information for each drug on an index card. The information documented includes what is needed for safe administration, evaluation of effectiveness, and essential education to the patient.
Traditionally in the pediatric nursing program, the faculty collect and review each of the cards for indications that the rubric was followed. In addition, faculty review the cards for the presence of critical information. Nursing students often struggle with how to translate the pages of information in a drug book into a comprehensive medication card.
Many drug cards are returned with remediation feedback given. With the transition to online instruction in March, I realized I had physical possession of medication cards. However, I had no immediate way to give them back to students with feedback. With much thought, I came up with a Kaltura video that the students who needed remediation could view. The video started with why medication cards are used in the nursing program. This included information to receive immediate student buy-in such as “ability to answer test questions” and “clinical points”. Then the video gave details on how to set up a medication card to ensure inclusion of each aspect of the rubric. Finally, the video included a typical student’s medication card, and the thought process needed to improve the information. In addition, it gives tips on using the medication cards to answer test and NCLEX test questions. A “medication master’s” drug card is presented at the conclusion. This card guides the nursing student through administration, evaluation, teaching, and testing.
I believe this type of self-guided teaching in a video could help incoming students before they start to build their medication cards. I used research from the GSU Library and freely available PowerPoint slides and clip art. This made the video relevant, evidence-based, and engaging. I believe this video will be a helpful pedagogical online tool even when face-to-face teaching resumes.
