Nurse Educators, Introduce Yourselves!

[VickyRN]

Welcome to the Nurse Educator Forum. It is my desire that you find this a warm, inviting place and will come here often for friendly, collegial discussions.

Let me introduce myself: I have been an ADN nurse educator in a small community college in North Carolina for the past two years. My areas of specialty are medical-surgical, OBGYN and immediate newborn, and cardiac nursing. In addition to teaching, I conduct clinicals on general medical-surgical, PEDS, postpartum, and cardiac step-down units. Along with being a full time nursing instructor, I am working on my Masters in Nursing Education. I am enrolled in a fully online curricula and have been very satisfied with this so far.

I have learned much these past two years but, I have so much more to learn! I look forward to hearing from you.

[oncnursemsn]

dabearrn- where are you located? This sounds very challenging! Where do your students do clinicals? Do you have more then 1 hospital to chose from? What language do your students speak? Fascinating!

I'm teaching at an ASN school just outside Boston and we have hospitals in town and in the community so the students get to see the difference between teaching hospitals and local private ones. Thank you for reminding us that we teach in very different situations!

[dabearrn]

I live on the US island of Saipan. About 90 miles north of Guam, and 1500 miles SE of Tokyo. Challenging would be a very politically correct term to describe our situation. There is only 1 hospital, 70 beds, no specialists, severely underfunded, and understaffed with MD's and RN's. Many of our patients would not be admitted into a US a hospital, but since there is very little medical or health infrastructure here, they are admitted to get even the most basic health care. 90% of our admitting diagnoses are r/t complications of DM. The local Chamorro race has the third highest rate of DM in the world. 99.9% of the nurses we work with were not educated in the US, so trying to teach US standards in the clinicals is quite difficult. :banghead:To make up for this weakness I have made the clinical experience forms quite difficult. I also interview (interrogate) each student about the whys and hows of their patients at each clinical. They balked at first, but they understand the reason behind my madness, :idea:and are OK with it now.

There are some other significant challenges, but it would not be prudent to put these into print.

We teach both the clinical and lecture portions of the class. In the last few years, probably only 2 students who have graduated actually speak English in the home. We have mostly Filipino, with some Koreans and local indigenous people in our classes.

To summarize, yes there are huge differences between what you do in the US and what we do here with almost no resources, and very limited experiences.

Thanks for asking.:onbch:

OMG!! I love the smilies this board has.!!

[michelleernurse]

I teach nursing at the undergraduate level (generic and RN-BSN) where I have taught in traditional, hybrid, and complete online courses. I have practiced nursing for 16 years with clinical background in emgergency and critical care. I received my BSN in 1993, MSN in 2001 and just recently DNP. I love teaching both traditional and online courses but I do have to admit that the I LOVE teaching online the most because the format and flexibility that it brings not to mention the new advances in IT for online environments.

Michelle

[Merced]

Hi everyone, I'm glad to find this forum. I just started teaching CNA students after 20 years of nursing. My background is primarily gerontology, home health case management and day health - after 8 years of hospital nursing (cardiac telemetry, med-surg, ortho, L&D, postnatal, some ICU/CCU).

So far, I have only taught the clinical component, at a Skilled Nursing Facility. I was sort of thrown in without training, learn as you go. I often feel unprepared, and unsure of what to expect of myself & my students.

Thanks for listening.

[Ace1Rnelp]

Hello,

Presently, I am an adjunct nursing faculty for a Community College in our place, since January of 2007. I am being paid by the acute care hospital I am working for to teach, to hopefully, get to know nursing students and get the "cream of the crop" ones to work with us when they graduate. I am also a part-time clinical instructor for the school of nursing University of Texas, since January of 2006. I absolutely love teaching and have learned a lot in the process as well. To those who do not think they can be very good teachers, I say "never say never". Who would have thought I will be in this position I am right now, when before, I could hardly ever talk and would rather be quiet, even if I wanted to say something?

Anyway, I am presently a clinical educator for the hospital I worked for and has been a CVICU nurse before I took on this position, which I absolutely love. Along with 2 other clinical educators, I get to teach critical care college, med/surg college, IV therapy class, hemodynamics, and a lot more. We teach classes year-round on a quarterly basis.

Another educator and I are also going to teach review classes for PCCN for our telemetry nurses this coming June.

Thank you so much for a warm welcome. i am eally new to the site.

[VickyRN, MSN, DNP, RN]

A warm welcome to everyone! :welcome: Look forward to your contributions in the forum :)

[QTBabyNurse, BSN, RN]

i've been reading this board for so long hoping that one day i would be able to post as a true nurse educator. i have always wanted to teach and now that i have 11 years of nursing under my belt, so to speak, i felt the time was right to begin my journey. i've applied for a position as a full time lpn instructor and i've been granted an interview for next week! i am so excited and only hope that this door is finally opening for me. wish me luck!!

[gbcteacher]

Wow! That is so great. I love getting up every day and knowing that I have the best job in the world. I love teaching nursing and I know you will too. Good luck on you interview!

[pojned]

Congrats on the new job!! I also will be starting my new job as a nurse educator August 1. I will be teaching ADN students at our local community college. I am excited, scared, nauseaous, jittery, etc..... Good luck to all. Any advice from seasoned educators out there?

[oncnursemsn]

I add my congrats on the job- do you have a faculty mentor? Mine helped me navigate this path when I was new- and helped me so much. What I have learned after 7 years (14 semesters- wow.) is to lay down "ground rules" at the very beginning and enforce them. We are all noticing the increased use of technology (texting, phones, etc) in the class and just general entitlement on the part of the students. So- in a respectful way- I insist that all are respectful. Of me. Of each other, and all other faculty. No talking over me or other students.

Our last class was very forceful and tried to walk all over us- so now we are addressing it first day, rather then wait till an exam review with some very loud voices. Sheesh. I graduated 26 years ago and would *never* have been bold enough to "get into a faculty member's face." It's a different day.... Any other seasoned faculty note this?

[QTBabyNurse, BSN, RN]

well...i had my interview the other day (i think i did well) and today i was phoned to come back in for a second interview next week. i hope a decision is made soon because the waiting is driving me c-r-a-z-y!!!

[woodies49]

Hello everyone,

My name is Greg and I am a clinical nurse educator in Victoria Australia. I am responsible for the continuing professional development of nursing staff who work in sub acute/rehabilitation/outpatient areas for a major regional health organisation. I have not been in the role very long (8 months) and Iam completing a Masters in Professional Education and Training. I am so glad to be able to tap into so many experienced minds as I take this journey. So thanks and I look forward to interacting with you all