Nurse Educator Role - A Fifth Advanced Practice Nursing Specialty?

[llg, PhD, RN]

I voted "no" for a couple of reasons.

1. I support the opportunity to be certified in education, but would not want to see special licensure required -- and states are increasingly requiring special licensure for APN's. That would muck up a lot of stuff, make it hard to go from state to state and put more barriers up for people wanting to teach.

2. Different types of nursing educators would need to be distinguished. The skills required for bedside clinical teaching for beginning level students are very different than those required for graduate faculty (who have more than enough hoops to jump through at the university level and would not benefit by having to jump through more hoops with the state licensing board). What about distance learning faculty? (There again, there are totally different skills required.) And what about Staff Development Educators? They are as "legitimate" as educators as are university faculty -- would they be required to have the same special licensure as graduate faculty? What about LPN faculty? etc. etc. etc.

It's too messy to put all nursing educators under one set of requirements for special licensure. Lumping us all under one set of requirements would not work.

However, I DO support the recognition of nursing education as a specialty -- one with several distinct subspecialties. I would support efforts to have that specialty (or speciaties) recognized through certification or some other such mechanism.

llg (who has taught grad school, undergrad clinicals, undergrad lecture, distance education, and staff development)

[VickyRN, MSN, DNP, RN]

I voted "no" for a couple of reasons.

1. I support the opportunity to be certified in education, but would not want to see special licensure required -- and states are increasingly requiring special licensure for APN's. That would muck up a lot of stuff, make it hard to go from state to state and put more barriers up for people wanting to teach.

2. Different types of nursing educators would need to be distinguished. The skills required for bedside clinical teaching for beginning level students are very different than those required for graduate faculty (who have more than enough hoops to jump through at the university level and would not benefit by having to jump through more hoops with the state licensing board). What about distance learning faculty? (There again, there are totally different skills required.) And what about Staff Development Educators? They are as "legitimate" as educators as are university faculty -- would they be required to have the same special licensure as graduate faculty? What about LPN faculty? etc. etc. etc.

It's too messy to put all nursing educators under one set of requirements for special licensure. Lumping us all under one set of requirements would not work.

However, I DO support the recognition of nursing education as a specialty -- one with several distinct subspecialties. I would support efforts to have that specialty (or speciaties) recognized through certification or some other such mechanism.

llg (who had taught grad school, undergrad clinicals, undergrad lecture, distance education, and staff development)

Thank you for your comments, llg - excellent and insightful as usual. You brought up several points that I had not considered. I agree with you that it is time that nursing education be recognized as a specialty in its own right.

[llg, PhD, RN]

Oh ... and here is another reason to vote no:

If the practice of education is a form of "advanced practice" requiring special licensure ... what about preceptors? They do a lot of education. ... And what about patient education?

Also ... why would the practice of nursing education be "advanced practice," but not the practice of nursing research ... or nursing administration? It makes no sense to single out education in this way.

Education, research, management ... are all roles that nurses perform equally. Some do it at the staff nurse levle (precepting, research team member, charge nurse, etc.). Others perform those functions at a more advanced level -- staff develoment specialists, school faculty, principle investigators, corporate vice presidents, etc.

So ... where exactly would you draw the lines as to what functions/actions would require an "advanced practice" educator or manager or researcher -- and what actions could be taken by someone without a special license as an APN in any one of those specialties?

I believe that these things are role functions that can be performed at varying levels of sophistication by any RN. The level of sophistication depends on the education and experience of the RN. That's not exactly true of the existing APN's whose roles involve functions that are not included under the typical Nurse Practice Acts (which is why I never approved of CNS's being pushed into an APN role that included prescriptions righs, etc. It muddies the waters too much between CNS's and NP's.)

Let's not similarly muddy the waters among educators, managers, researchers, etc. Let's allow us to continue to function under the basic RN scope of practice and not over-complicate it. The benefits will not be worth the costs.

[elkpark]

I voted "no" before I saw llg's excellent posts -- because the four present "advanced practice" roles are all advanced clinical practice (the "clinical" has always been, at least, implied in the term), and I don't see education as clinical practice. I also agree with all the points llg made (as usual! :))

That is not to say that I don't support recognition of nursing education as a v. important specialty.

(BTW, since llg mentioned it, my teaching experience includes ADN and BSN programs and providing clinical supervision to grad students.)

[sirI, MSN, APRN, NP]

I agree with llg and elkpark for same reasons they cite.

Adding, Nurse Educator to the four (4) areas of CNM, CRNA, NP, and CNS, would muddy the waters in clinical practice.

I, too, am an educator as well as APN (NP) and completely support Nurse Educator as a very vital specialty area.

[cjcsoon2bnp, MSN, RN, NP]

My initial reaction was to say "Yes" the nurse educator deserves to be the fifth advanced practice nursing specialty. However, since reading some of the arguments made by other users it makes me wonder if making the nurse educator the fifth advance practice nursing specialty is such a good idea. How would this be structured? What types of nurse educators would be included under this umbrella? What kinds of rules, regulations and additional certification would our nurse educators need to have because they would be considered advanced practice nurses? As other users have mentioned we definitely need to recognize nursing education as a specialty but I think if we made nurse educators advanced practice nurses we would just end up adding more hoops and obstacles for them to encounter.

!Chris

[MNC_RN]

As a Staff Development educator, I would definitely say no. There are so many types of educators. Would academic faculty be considered advanced practice versus staff development and facility based educators? Would the same standards apply to both, even though their foci are different? (Staff development is more focused on application of knowledge and academia is more focused on delivery of knowledge; although, there is crossover, of course.)

I would definitely support a recognized specialty for educators. There is already a recognized specialty for Nursing Professional Development through ANCC.

[showbizrn]

hmmmm...

i initially voted "yes"

but after reading some posts

i don't know...

advanced practice nursing being understood

as advanced clinical practice

coupled with the various ways

of nursing education

being implemented and facilitated

how will this work?

what group of educators will be included

and what group(s) will be "kicked-to-the-curb?"

with the shortage of candidates existing in

any form of nursing education

if it becomes more regulated

who will be left to teach?

[4treasures]

I am a recent RN, and I really appreciate this info, as I am beginning to work on my BSN with plans to go into nursing education eventually. I see the points that the PP's have made.

[smarti15]

I just finished my LPN classes, and I am planning on continuing my education. I am very seriously considering becoming a nurse educator. I live in a small city, and the program has difficulty finding instructors if someone leaves. I would hate to see even more difficulty in smaller cities such as mine. Not only do I live in a smaller city, but it has an air force base, therefore, a lot of turnover. I agree that educators need more recognition for the work they do, but with an impending shortage of nurses, I only see this complicating problems.

[buransic]

With the current role and identity issues associated with patient recognition of advanced practice nurses, I'm inclined to think llg's points are well founded. Also, given that primary care providers (and all those lobbying to be providers) are beginning to use similar processes, I'm also inclined to think fewer specialties may be in order. The specialties for advanced care and anesthesiology should probably be the only two going forward. The care provided by CNMs would roll up under advanced care in a similar fashion where an obstetrician is a physician and still referred to as doctor. Simplifying the provider landscape would benefit the patient and practitioner alike.