How long have we been saying this?

Susan Knowles, DNP, RN, CNEcl

1. “Nurse educators are the key resource in preparing a nursing workforce” (NLN, 2002).

2. All educators, including part-time, should be prepared to implement the role successfully (NLN, 2002; NCSBN, 2008).

3. Prepared clinical instructors can offer excellent student education, quality and safe patient care, and improved faculty retention (Kowalski, Horner, & Houser, 2011).

4. Clinical education of nursing students is the most expensive and is more important than what they demonstrate in the classroom (Gaberson et al., 2015, p. 21).

5. Clinical teaching requires a contrasting set of role expectations: Nursing proficiency and effective clinical teaching strategies (Karuhije, 1986; NLN, 2002).

6. “To justify the expenditures, teachers must have clear, realistic expectations of the desired outcomes of clinical learning” (Gaberson et al., 2015, p. 21).

7. “Students have a right to expect that their clinical teachers are competent, responsible, and knowledgeable” (Gaberson et al., 2015, p. 21).

8. Graduates tell us, “It was the quality of the clinical instruction that made the difference” (Cangelosi et al., 2009).

9. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (2014) reports a nursing faculty shortage related to a limited number of faculty candidates, faculty retirements, budgetary constraints, and lower salaries than clinical positions.

10. Registered nurses hired into part-time clinical teaching positions lack proficiency in teaching clinical skills (Cangelosi et al., 2009).

11. Novice educators report being underprepared and overwhelmed: Unsure about their teaching practices, about what to do, how to do it, and whether they were teaching correctly (Dempsey, 2007; Scanlan, 2001).