Clinical supervision as an emerging idea in nursing

Abstract

Writing a book about a constituent part of nursing which is perhaps enjoyed and experienced but not well documented might tempt us, like Leporello, into protracted description without enjoying the pleasures and pain of experience. Hopefully both these things are offered here. It is the intention of this book to demonstrate that exemplars and models of clinical supervision can now be described in nursing which provide both a means of obtaining clinical excellence and an enhancement of the experience of interpersonal relationships. The contributors to this book use the term ‘clinical supervision’ to embrace a range of strategies in nursing which include preceptorship, mentorship, supervision of qualified practice, peer review and the maintenance of identified professional standards, which gives some indication as to the breadth of subject definition.

Like Leporello, learned men keep a list, but the point is what they lack; while Don Juan seduces and enjoys himself, Leporello notes down the time, the place, and a description. (Kierkegaard)