Nurse Educator Experience

Nursing is a second degree for me, I worked in health IT previously - I have been an ICU nurse for almost two years now - I recently also started a PRN PACU/Pre-op job. I really enjoy the Pre-op/PACU job and thinking of having that job as more of a full time job instead of my ICU job. I also am starting a clinical instructor position in January to get education experience. I was wondering if my ICU job would be more valuable as wanting to be a future nurse professor at a university after obtaining masters/doctorate degree. Or would getting different experiences such as working in PACU / pre-op be valuable as well?

5 Answers

Specializes in NCLEX Prep Expert - 100% Pass Rate!.

I found that I was very flexible and was able to accept more opprotunities due to the variety of settings I gained experience in over the years. While many of my colleagues were masters of their content areas (OR, L&D, etc.)  I was able to bounce around, change things up, and move away from areas that were not my favorite to teach. I've taught every level of nursing theory (except for doctorate level courses) and have facilitated the learning of students in lecture, skills lab, clinical and simulation. I was able to bring students to Long-Term Care, Subacute Rehab, Dementia Units, Inpatient Psyche Units, Intermediate Care Units, Orthopedics, Med-Surg, Telemetry, Oncology, Cardiac Observation, Emergency Department, Infusion Clinics, Community Family Wellness Clinics, and Hospice Care. I really enjoyed the diversity of experiences I was able to provide for students because I gained all of those experiences throughout my nursing career.

To answer your question:

On 9/2/2020 at 8:57 AM, amdrn19 said:

does it matter how many years I get in experience on a unit before I start a role as a nurse educator at a university?

Each university has their own criteria for this, but from my experience in the Baltimore and NYC areas, most schools prefer 5 or more years of experience for a faculty position. For clinical instructor (adjunct) positions, one to two years minimum is preferred. 

If you really want to get into a particular school - I'd reach out to them and start asking. It doesn't hurt for them to know that you are working towards a goal of working there. If I ran a program, I'd take it as a compliment.

Hope this helps!

Good luck!

-Damion

Specializes in Family Practice, Mental Health.

Years and years of Critical Care/Trauma ICU experience, then PACU phase I/II for many years and was tenure track faculty for a nursing program.  

What level of nursing do you wish to teach?  If you want to teach at the university level, you'll want a PhD and be expected to churn out a few scholarly research studies here and there in addition to teaching.  Or if you have the right kind of DNP where there is pedagogy included within your program, you will be expected to do D&I projects in addition to teaching.  

The ICU/PACU experience is nice and all, but it is extraneous to your ability to understand how to build lesson plans according to the KSA's of your educational program, serve on faculty committees, etc...

Hope that helps.

RN.

Thanks for your response! That is so helpful. I do serve on committees for my unit and also a part of sigma theta tau & other organizations in my community. I accepted the clinical instructor position to be able to start getting teaching experience. I’d like to go back to start my masters sooner than later, so I guess my schedule question regarding ICU / PACU would be ...

does it matter how many years I get in experience on a unit before I start a role as a nurse educator at a university?

Damion - wow, thank you so much for this response. It was extremely helpful. My goal is to get a variety of experiences as well - I went back to school for nursing after leaving IT because of the option to do so much in nursing. I will definitely reach out to schools I’m interested in and work towards gaining a lot of different experiences. 

Specializes in NCLEX Prep Expert - 100% Pass Rate!.
12 minutes ago, amdrn19 said:

Damion - wow, thank you so much for this response. It was extremely helpful. My goal is to get a variety of experiences as well - I went back to school for nursing after leaving IT because of the option to do so much in nursing. I will definitely reach out to schools I’m interested in and work towards gaining a lot of different experiences. 

You are very welcome!

Good luck to you.

-Damion

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