När vårdande och lärande sammanfaller : Patienters, studenters och handledares erfarenheter av möten på en utbildningsvårdavdelning inom psykiatrisk vård

When students learn caring during clinical practice, the usual point of departure is thatcaring and learning coexist, as separate and parallel phenomena. There is, however, a needto study how caring and learning relate to one another, as well as when and how theyconverge. The aim of this dissertation is to describe how caring and learning converge inthe encounters between students and patients, in a dedicated educational unit withinpsychiatric care, as experienced by students, patients, and supervisors. Describing howsupervisory support can facilitate this is another aim. A reflective lifeworld approach basedon phenomenological philosophy has been applied. Data were collected through interviews,participant observations with follow-up interviews, and narrative diaries.The result shows that caring and learning converge in those encounters between studentsand patients which are characterized by reciprocity, wherein the patient’s narrative is thepoint of departure, complemented by the student’s listening and inquiring attitude. It ishere, that the desire for and pursuit of health and understanding, give the reciprocalinteraction power. The common desire of those involved to know, to become accustomedto the new and unfamiliar, as well as the presence of a feeling of responsibility for oneanother, create questions which in turn create opportunities wherein students and patientsare available to one another.The dissertation shows that learning in a caring context can be complex. Despite theirbeing prerequisites for one another, competition and conflicts can occur when the caringand learning perspectives are not equally attended to. When they are placed counter to oneanother, there is a risk that reciprocal interaction is hindered, which can cause loneliness forall involved. For convergence to occur most propitiously, those involved must exist in acaring and learning togetherness. Responsible and present supervisors are needed, whocreate possibilities for the perspectives to converge through maintenance and monitoring, sothat caring and learning receive equal space.A didactic concept has been developed based on the dissertation’s result, focusing on themeaning of creating forums where students’, patients’, and supervisors’ caringconsiderations and reflections can intertwine