Nurse Educators, Introduce Yourselves!

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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.

Specializes in critical care.

Glad to meet yall, I'm from the south! The tips for new Educators were excellent, thanks. How do you find out what the average yearly salary is for beginning nurse educators?

thanks,

lisa

Hello,

I am a nurse educator in CT. I completed my MSN at University of Hartford in 1996 and must say that I did enjoy the classroom experience. There were 25 nurses working on that graduate degree and I was the only psych nurse. When I completed the program, I worked as an adjunct during the psych clinical and I loved it. I have been doing this for the past 9 yrs. with the state's community college system while also working as nurse educator for DMHAS. Two years ago, I decided to retire early from the full-time job but continue teaching nursing students with the community colleges. Well, this fall, I will have the opportunity to do two days psych clinical teaching at Quinnipiac University. I am thrilled about this. It has been my goal to teach students at this level.

Since I have worked in addiction since 1995, I have been teaching a 2-hour, powerpoint presentation on the subject to the nursing students at one community college. I get frustrated since 2 hours is not enough time to cover just the alcohol material. I complain about it each year but nothing ever changes. Trying to cut hours from other areas is impossible since those instructors are also complaining about the same thing. Giving each students the powerpoint seems to work for them. If students read every paragraph in those chapters of the textbook, they wouldn't have time for anything else. And many of them are taking other classes. So much material to cover in such little time. I constantly ask myself, how in the world do we do it?

As I said before, I teach psych and addiction but 2 years ago, I was asked to do a medical clinical with 1st year nursing students. I was apprehensive about it since I hadn't worked in an acute hospital in 25 yrs. I thought, as long as I got a good orientation to the unit, how difficult could Nursing 101 be. Well I must admit, the students kept me on my toes. There was not a dull moment. And I did it again last fall. It's amazing how quickly one can adjust to a new situation. There just aren't enough nursing educators out there, so we do what we can and hope for the best. The nursing programs are accepting more students with disregarding the number of instructors to provide the teaching. The demand to produce more nurses is imminent. I don't like the situation but if someone has an answer, please share...Hope to hear from others.

Rose...

It is nice to see so many responses.

I was a nursing instructor for 23 years and Director of the program (ADN) for 8 years. I retired from there and now work part time as a unit based educator for a homecare agency.

For those of you who are just starting as instructors, I have to tell you that I loved every moment of (and still do) my career. I think the best measure of your sucess as an instructor is what kind of graduates you produce. I have the priviledge of working with my former students everyday.

Specializes in Gerontological, cardiac, med-surg, peds.
Glad to meet yall, I'm from the south! The tips for new Educators were excellent, thanks. How do you find out what the average yearly salary is for beginning nurse educators?

thanks,

lisa

A good rule of thumb - commensurate to beginning salaries of ADN graduates. You can also check out: http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layouthtmls/swzl_compresult_national_HC07000184.html (although these estimates seem very high to me, for beginning nurse educators in the South - especially in the community college systems..)

To find out precise ranges of beginning nurse educator salaries, contact human resources at area community colleges and universities. Hope this helps :)

Specializes in Gerontological, cardiac, med-surg, peds.
It is nice to see so many responses.

I was a nursing instructor for 23 years and Director of the program (ADN) for 8 years. I retired from there and now work part time as a unit based educator for a homecare agency.

For those of you who are just starting as instructors, I have to tell you that I loved every moment of (and still do) my career. I think the best measure of your sucess as an instructor is what kind of graduates you produce. I have the priviledge of working with my former students everyday.

Welcome to the Forum!!! :balloons: We look forward to hearing from you :)

Specializes in Gerontological, cardiac, med-surg, peds.
Hello,

I am a nurse educator in CT. I completed my MSN at University of Hartford in 1996 and must say that I did enjoy the classroom experience. There were 25 nurses working on that graduate degree and I was the only psych nurse. When I completed the program, I worked as an adjunct during the psych clinical and I loved it. I have been doing this for the past 9 yrs. with the state's community college system while also working as nurse educator for DMHAS. Two years ago, I decided to retire early from the full-time job but continue teaching nursing students with the community colleges. Well, this fall, I will have the opportunity to do two days psych clinical teaching at Quinnipiac University. I am thrilled about this. It has been my goal to teach students at this level.

Since I have worked in addiction since 1995, I have been teaching a 2-hour, powerpoint presentation on the subject to the nursing students at one community college. I get frustrated since 2 hours is not enough time to cover just the alcohol material. I complain about it each year but nothing ever changes. Trying to cut hours from other areas is impossible since those instructors are also complaining about the same thing. Giving each students the powerpoint seems to work for them. If students read every paragraph in those chapters of the textbook, they wouldn't have time for anything else. And many of them are taking other classes. So much material to cover in such little time. I constantly ask myself, how in the world do we do it?

As I said before, I teach psych and addiction but 2 years ago, I was asked to do a medical clinical with 1st year nursing students. I was apprehensive about it since I hadn't worked in an acute hospital in 25 yrs. I thought, as long as I got a good orientation to the unit, how difficult could Nursing 101 be. Well I must admit, the students kept me on my toes. There was not a dull moment. And I did it again last fall. It's amazing how quickly one can adjust to a new situation. There just aren't enough nursing educators out there, so we do what we can and hope for the best. The nursing programs are accepting more students with disregarding the number of instructors to provide the teaching. The demand to produce more nurses is imminent. I don't like the situation but if someone has an answer, please share...Hope to hear from others.

Rose...

Welcome to the Forum, Rose!! :balloons: Thank you for sharing... I agree - students definitely keep instructors on their toes! There definitely aren't enough instructors to go around... Otherwise, we would have expanded our program many moons ago (385 applicants for 42 slots this upcoming year :uhoh21: )

Specializes in Education, FP, LNC, Forensics, ED, OB.
I am in an MSN/Education program, and will finish in 2 yrs. I am originally an ADN grad, then BSN. Most of my experience is in peds, with an emphasis on Oncology, and chronic/special needs kids. I have done some general peds and PICU. I have med/surg experience From 5yrs ago. I also just began per-diem supervising at the chronic kids facility. I am very excited about becoming an educator.

Now that I've given you guys my story, here's my question: since I have no OB experience, will this be an issue? I understand many programs lump peds and OB together. I really don't know anything (except for my very uneventful labor and delivery of my own child) about OB. It's not that I don't want to learn it, but it's not easy to transition again to a new specalty. Any advice? Will I still be able to teach without that experience?

Believe me, you will be able to teach OB without having clinical experience. You will have to study harder than the students, however . ...ha

I suggest going to a seminar for Labor and delivery nurses and getting some new ideas from that AND maybe accessing the AWHON site to order their CE's on Women's Health issues from pre-pregnancy through 6 weeks post partum. You could also attend forums given by residents at your hospital(if you have that).

I, too am an educator in OB-GYN (teach at the local University) part time and conduct cardiac emergencies seminars on the weekends. Up until recently, I had a practice in Family Medicine (for 10 years)....but gave that up to devote full time to medical legal consulting. I am an OB-GYN nurse practitioner and have little or no experience in pediatric oncology, so, I would also have to bone up on that material before feeding it to my students.

You may pm me if you should need some more advice..I will be glad to assist you.

I love teaching and have to study and attend updates constantly to keep abreast of new trends/issues.

Thank you for this thread...very nice to know ya'll are out there.

Specializes in critical care.

Thanks for the info! The estimates on the website were high compared to what I have seen. The department of labor had some statistical information.

Thank you for the responses.

lisa

A good rule of thumb - commensurate to beginning salaries of ADN graduates. You can also check out: http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layouthtmls/swzl_compresult_national_HC07000184.html (although these estimates seem very high to me, for beginning nurse educators in the South - especially in the community college systems..)

To find out precise ranges of beginning nurse educator salaries, contact human resources at area community colleges and universities. Hope this helps :)

I am the Nurse Educator at the Federal Correctional Complex in Butner. I have been in this role for nearly 4 years. I have 32 years experience in nursing - 12 of it in the education arena. I love almost all areas of nursing but am not an OB or ER nurse by any test. Do any of you have any that you might would share.

Hi everyone, I have just joined and I am really looking forward to upcoming discussions. I teach in a community college in Ontario, Canada in the Practical Nursing Diploma program. I have been teaching for 5 years, pathophys, skills labs and clinical.

Again, looking forward to the discussions.

Specializes in Education, FP, LNC, Forensics, ED, OB.
hi everyone, i have just joined and i am really looking forward to upcoming discussions. i teach in a community college in ontario, canada in the practical nursing diploma program. i have been teaching for 5 years, pathophys, skills labs and clinical.

again, looking forward to the discussions.

welcome, glad to have you with us. you can view our previous threads and see where we all are as various educators. hope you enjoy the site.

siri, crnp, clnc, rlnc

Specializes in critical care.

Vicky, I read your comments about loving education. I will be starting a full-time position in August at a 3 university consortium nursing school. We (the university) and I negotiated my salary. I am curious to know how I can impact and make my voice heard about the salaries of nurse educators? Many nurses in practice (including myself) have no idea what nurse educators make. I realize that I have great potential where I will be working, but I would also like to influence change for nurses that would like to go into education.

thanks,

lisa

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