Partnerships with Clinical Settings: Roles and Responsibilities of Nurse Educators. In your text, Teaching in Nursing and the Role of the Nurse Educator, the authors examine several different types of clinical partnerships and models of clinical education.
Partnerships with Clinical Settings
Partnerships with Clinical Settings: Roles and Responsibilities of Nurse Educators
Assignment Overview: In your text, Teaching in Nursing and the Role of the Nurse Educator, the authors examine several different types of clinical partnerships and models of clinical education. Clinical partnerships must meet the needs of the educational institution and the clinical agency. Colleges of nursing often compete for the same clinical slots and are dependent on effective clinical partnerships.
Sustaining good relationships is critical to providing optimal learning experiences for students. There is typically a clinical coordinator at the college and another at the clinical agency. The nurses in these leadership positions have the primary responsibility for negotiating partnerships and determining clinical placement.
For this assignment, put yourself in the place of one of these two individuals (academic or agency coordinator), whichever you prefer. Conduct research to better learn the roles, responsibilities, and challenges of the position. In addition to the book, which is fairly theoretical, find articles that might direct you in a more practical way as you negotiated clinical partnerships from either position.
Sources: You can use any of the posted articles and your books as references. Find at least two additional peer-reviewed nursing journal articles that relate to your area of focus.
OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, the reader will be able to:
- Discuss current trends for nurse faculty
- Compare and contrast roles of the nurse educator in service and academia
- Discuss requirements for nurse faculty in academia
- Discuss teaching, scholarship, and service expectations
- Identify key components of academic integrity and professional ethics
CURRENT STATISTICS AND PROJECTIONS FOR FACULTY
Historically, the role of the nurse educator can be traced back to Florence Nightingale, who has been identified as the “founder of modern nursing” and the “ultimate nurse educator” (Bastable, 2003, p. 4). Nightingale developed the first school of nursing in England in 1860.
It was named the Nightingale School for Nurses and its mission was to train nurses to teach and to care for the sick and the poor both in hospitals and in patients’ homes (Neeb, 2006). In 1873, the Bellevue Training School for Nurses was established in New York City. This school, along with several others established in the United States at that time, followed the educational principles set forth by Florence Nightingale (McCloskey & Grace, 1981).
According to the National League for Nursing (NLN; 2014) there are approximately 1,869 basic nursing programs, with 710 baccalaureate, 1,092 associate degree, and 67 diploma programs.
There are also more than 1,000 graduate programs (Grad Schools.com, 2010). Even with this number of programs, in 2016, more than 64,000 qualified applicants were turned away because of a shortage of faculty, budgetary constraints, lack of preceptors, and inadequate clinical sites (American Association of Colleges of Nursing [AACN], 2017).
This includes thousands of qualified applicants turned away from graduate nursing programs each year. Indeed, because of the current faculty shortage, 9,757 qualified applicants were turned away from master’s programs and 2,102 from doctoral programs in 2014 (AACN, 2017).
Currently, there are between 42,000 and 49,000 nurse educators/faculty in the United States. The current national vacancy rate for nursing faculty is 6.9%, and a recent survey of 714 nursing schools with baccalaureate/graduate programs reported 1,236 faculty vacancies (AACN, 2015).
The shortage of faculty is expected to grow, with current projections of a 12% shortfall of nursing faculty within the next 5 years. The faculty shortage is related to salary and educational requirements and is a contributing factor in both the number of applicants turned away from graduate-level programs and the current nursing shortage. In the United States, the current nurse turnover rate is 17.1% (and the registered nurse vacancy rate is 8.5%; Nursing Solutions, Inc. [NSI], 2016), with predictions of the need for more than 1 million nurses by 2022 (AACN, 2014).
Therefore, it is imperative to address the faculty shortage in order to increase enrollment in nursing schools around the country. The academic role is rewarding and challenging, and this is the perfect time to transition to a faculty position.
If teaching is your passion, there are several ways for you to become a nurse educator. The role of the nurse educator in service is quite different from the role in academia, but both are very rewarding.
EDUCATOR ROLES
Health Care Organizations/Service
All nurses have some responsibility to provide education throughout their careers. This is most often in the form of providing education to patients, families, and significant others.
Most nurse generalist programs offer a basic review and application of the principles of education and patient teaching, thus providing the nurse with the foundation required of all nurse educators.
Another informal way to teach is in the role of a preceptor or peer mentor for new graduates and newly hired staff. A preceptor development program will usually be offered to nurses who volunteer to become a preceptor. Often, this is the impetus for a nurse to decide on the path to becoming a nurse educator.
Attachments
