Building EBP Into a Curriculum

In practice

A nursing faculty wants graduates who practise from evidence. Three things have to happen and the first is uncomfortable: faculty acquire the expertise before anything else, because nobody teaches a competency they do not hold. That is a resourcing question rather than a willingness one, and pretending otherwise produces a curriculum taught by people learning it a week ahead of the students. Administrative buy-in comes before design, since support decides whether there is time to build anything. The educators themselves are assessed, and informatics skills are assessed first, because a student who cannot search cannot appraise. Then the sequence. Integrated first, as content in specific courses. Then infused, as a way of working that runs through the programme rather than sitting in one module. Question types are taught apart from one another, because a student who cannot tell a clinical question from a research question will choose the wrong method every time. Practice starts outside the clinic, on scenarios, so the first attempt is not made on a patient. Journal clubs are structured with a purpose, not convened as a habit. And students apply it as students, on real questions, which is what turns them into brokers carrying current practice into placements that have not met it.