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.

[cowboysandangels, BSN]

My dream is to become a nurse educator. I have my BSN and also my National School Nurse Certification. My background is pediatrics only. I worked at our local children's hospital for 12 years before taking a position at a school which houses a large population of children with special needs and complex medical needs. What are your thoughts on my dream? Is it a difficult transition from traditional nursing to educating? I realize that teaching in my elementary school is not the same as educating nurses but I would love to learn how to do so. Looking to start an online MSN program soon.

[NurseLizabeeRN, BSN, MSN, RN]

I am a novice educator; full-time faculty in TN since 2019. I teach in an undergrad BSN program. I have been a nurse for 9yrs with pediatrics and adult critical care as my background. Right now I teach in our Foundations Nursing course with beginner nursing students. It's definitely been a challenge and adjustment but I've learned a lot in the 3 terms I've taught so far. I would like to become well educated and trained in simulation education and get CHSE certification in the next year.

[Heylove, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

Hi there! I am a newer clinical instructor. I was a clinical instructor in fall 2019 for students in their psych rotation at the facility where I am a weekend option adolescent RN but I often float to adults, seniors and the ECT lab. I am in an MSN nurse educator program and expect to graduate in the spring 2022. I love teaching adults and taught childbirth education, CPR, and other community/family classes many years ago before I became a nurse. I knew I wanted to become an instructor in nursing school but needed some nurse experience first! I have only worked psych and plan to stay in psych although I'm not totally opposed to clinical instructing in other clinical environments later, after I graduate with my NE/MSN. I have been told that masters prepared mental health/psych instructors are not very easy to find. I haven't read through all 500+ responses of this thread (yet!) but I'm wondering if you all find this to be the case?

I just accepted another mental health clinical instructor position for spring but this one is not where I work. I really enjoyed last semester at my own facility because I knew all the staff and they were so kind to my students. I guess I'm just looking for advice who have "been there, done that" at facilities that they are not familiar with.

Thank you!