Use of clinical space as an indicator of student nurse's professional development and changing need for support

Undergraduate student nurses undertaking their first clinical practice experience participated in an ethnographic hermeneutic study that explored the ways clinical practice in a small rural community influenced the way they shaped their professional identity. A key concern of ethnography is the way participants use space thus the theme described in this paper presents the ways students traversed space within the clinical environment and discusses how this use of space is indicative of students' professional development.