[hawkesbe]

So you will be a manger or an Educator?
My advice is to find out the salary range you will be on-
then you'll feel comfortable negotiating.
Ask for mid point of the range at least.

If you are going to be a manager, make sure they place you on the
manager scale.

Point out the benefits you bring to the job-
credibility w/MDs, how you will save them money through
increased nurse retention,how you plan to help
meet JCAHO standards, etc.

Sounds like they want you, so don't undervalue yourself.
Ask for other perks- education reimbursement, journals,
membership dues, etc

Good luck

[yumaRN1990]

Originally Posted by nservice

I'm a unit based educator for Med-surg. I am BSN prepared but plan to return for my MSN when my daughter gets older) I have @ 200 nurses on my units. I have two main jobs; educational classes and managing orientation of new hires. Other responsibilities include yearly competencies, CPR and ACLS instructor, JCAHO committee, Pain Expert (new program), Code Blue committee, Products, updating policy and procedure, orienting travel nurses. Although I'm not considered management, I have the job of counseling new hires and writing action plans when there are problems with their performance. There's more, but I can't think now! I would be glad to share any information with you about our program.

I am just taking over the job as unit based educator, I am currently working as resource co-ordinator ( charge nurse) on a med-surg unit. My job will be very similar to your's. We have not had a unit based educator in quite a while so any ideas you could give me would be helpful. I have my BSN and I have clinical educator who is master's prepared, but she is over several other departments as well as mine, and is new to med-surg.
Do you know of any on-line classes regarding education for educators? I had some information on one instution that was offering classes, but I have misplaced the information.

[errneducator]

Yuma,
IUPUI offers several different offerings for staff educators. I know they have one for the new staff educator. Here is the link. http://nursing.iupui.edu/LifelongLearning/default.asp
I am new to my position also and have been looking for info for myself.

[castens]

We have staff educators at our hospital, of which I am one.

Our educators aren't unit-based per se but have extensive clinical experience. Most have Master's degrees or are Master's-prepared. I am actually the exception (I have a post-bacc ADN), but since my career goal is actually DNP (starting school up again in the fall) I was hired in light of my experience.

Using myself as an example:

I report to the manager of Staff and Patient education who reports to the Director of Education and Clinical Practice. Since we're all in the same office, we all work together and I chat and receive guidance a lot from the director as well. (She is also the head of our CNS program - very busy).

I am the educator for Critical Care (Trauma-Neuro ICU, Cardiac-Medical Critical Care) and for our neurosurgery step-down unit.

I meet with the nurse managers of my units on a regular basis (weekly or so) and do unit rounds every day to resource my staff and find education needs (new equipment, procedures, etc). I work very closely with my CNSs and many time our roles get blurred - except in tasks clearly defined by the MN Nurse Practice Act, of course. I would say this is one-third of my duties.

Another third is the teaching of classes. I teach our hospital's EKG and rhythm interpretation classes and I also design/teach our critical care entry courses. I frequently help out with our new grad entry classes.

The final third is very much Human Resources support. I meet with all new RNs hired into my three units, do their initial hire assessments and guide their orientation with preceptors. I also do follow-up assessments if needed for performance improvement.

Hope this helps!