Over the past five weeks I have been working closely with Joe and trying to get his assessment skills and critical thinking skills up to that of a level 4 student. On April 4th Joe was caring for a patient with ulcerative colitis who received 2 units of FFP and PRBC\'s the day before clinical.  Joe was unable to tell me why his patient was on coumadin, why he received FFP, why his right leg was edematous and what the physicians were thinking as to the disease process. I went in to do Joe\'s assessment with him and showed him how assess for peripheral edema and reviewed a neurovascular check with him as the patient had a history of DVT\'s and it was felt that he developed one in his right leg this hospitalization as he was taken of Coumadin.  When the patient came back from his flex sigmoid, Joe never reviewed the orders, took a set of vitals, or read the progress notes.  I discussed all the above with Joe at clinical that day.  He was then assigned to the same patient on April 4th.  He failed to detect the patient plus one pitting edema now developing on the left  leg .  This was quite concerning as the patient has a history of DVT. He was also unable to verbalize his patients  Hgb and Hct for the day.  