Hospital Based Nurse Educators Role/Demands

[TGHMed]

Greetings! I have been looking for information on time constraints and added responsibilities put upon hospital based clinical nurse educators that detracts from their duty of educator, such as bedside shifts, being assigned patients, etc. I am looking for data and statistics but have been unable to find anything. Just as a note I am a medical librarian, not a nurse.

[llg, PhD, RN]

When you say, "hospital based clinical nurse educators, " what exactly do you mean? Different people might use that expression to mean different things. If you are using that expression in a computer search, you might be looking down the wrong paths.

Some people might think you mean faculty members who work for colleges/universities -- and who teach clinical courses in the hospital. Their students are college students and their employer is the school, but they are based on particular units in a particular facility. Such people would never be pulled into staffing the unit, taking a patient assignment, etc.

Other people might use that expression for people who are hired by the hospital to educate the staff -- Staff Development instructors or Nursing Professional Development (NPD) Specialists. Such people are often pulled into staffing and yes, it does interfere with their ability to focus on/perform their educational mission. If you are looking for information about Nursing Professional Development Specialists (or Staff Development instructors), then look for information from ANPD (the Association for Nurses in Professional Development) and in the literature focusing on the role of the NPD specialist or "staff development" instructors in general. I believe ANPD has included such topics in some of its studies, but I am not sure they have published their data.