Nursing - Critical thinking in the clinical setting

I'm just getting started in the blogging world; I'm taking a "Women in Technology" online class and creating a blog site is part of our assignment. On top of this, I am a full-time nursing professor for beginning nursing students and working part-time as a bedside nurse. Yes, you could say that I'm a little busy. At one point, I was also considering training for a half marathon, but I came to my senses and decided to just continue to run to stay in shape (maybe next year I can take on that half-marathon) So, I am trying to figure out how best to use this assignment to help me in any one of these areas. I decided to focus on my students, and more importantly how to help them critically think in the clinical setting. Students are so focused on tasks and forget that there is so much more to being a nurse. Sometimes it can get very frustrating when you are trying to help them see the whole patient and not just an admitting diagnosis. I've started implementing critical thinking exercises each week for 1-2 students to do, instead of patient care, with the hope that they will begin to view a patient as more than an admitting diagnosis, as well as recognizing that underlying diseases and psychosocial factors play a major role in the healing process. My plan is to discuss, on my blog site, what I am doing and hopefully get feedback from other nursing professors in the blogging world. So, if you are out there reading this, more to come...