dudette10

It's ridiculous that your colleagues are not sharing their materials with you. It helps to have a basic template that you can then revise to fit your style, especially for a someone teaching a course for the first time. My issue has always been (and still is) when my colleagues take my materials without asking, don't make changes to the materials but do remove my name from the materials and put their names on them. But, that's a whole different discussion...

I have taken care of AIDS patients and HIV positive patients. Standard precautions. I had a spot of blood come from a kinked catheter during IV removal on an HIV positive patient. It landed on my uncovered wrist above my gloves. He looked at me with an alarmed look on his face. I looked at him and said, "Your viral load is undetectable and my skin is intact. It's ok." I'm ok. You're ok.

Students LOVE skills labs because they feel more "nursey," and it increases their self-efficacy. They will love it, regardless. There are some teaching-learning strategies to consider. The most critical part of a skills lab is assessing the students' needs. Is it a required lab? If so, where are the students in the program (early...close to graduating)? Is it an open lab with students coming in for their own edification? Is it a structured remediation session? Another important point to consider is alignment with their classroom sessions, especially required labs. How closely is the required lab aligned with the didactic portion? Do you have access to the instructional materials for the didactic portion for reinforcement of concepts? One thing that is often overlooked in skills labs with new instructors is the entire nursing process. As nurses, we don't just go in and do a skill...we assess, teach, evaluate. Include that as part of your skills lab, as appropriate, based on where they are in the program. Also, be sure to reinforce good habits, such as hand hygiene and patient identification, and expect that to be a part of their return demonstration. By nature, skills labs are formative experiences; only skills check-offs are usually summative, so be sure to treat your skills lab that way. Consider debriefing sessions with the whole group. I've done them with simulation and lab...and, believe me, students are harder on themselves than we could ever be! Doing a debriefing of affective, psychomotor, and cognitive learning creates a judgment-free zone of learning. They will make mistakes, but you should see improvement over time. Those who make the same mistakes over and over may need remediation. I know my post didn't give you the information you asked for, but I hope it's helpful anyway.

Most brick-and-mortar schools use adjuncts for clinical teaching and full-time faculty for classroom teaching (along with clinical responsibilities). Online teaching may be a different situation for online only schools. Others may have input on that.

For academic nurse educator, it really depends on the type of program/school you will be teaching for to determine if you can get by with an MSN or need a doctorate to even get your foot in the door. An MSN is always required; doctorate is always encouraged and may be required. For programs, my opinion is to stay away from the for-profits. I know that some swear by them, but I've precepted a few from the for-profits, and it makes me wonder about the curricula. You will also be limited to what you can teach based on your job experience, as that is a requirement of the HLC. You must be credentialed to teach the classes you teach. Your experience would be very appropriate for community health classes and any of the three Ps (patho, pharm, physical assessment). Adjuncts get very, very low pay. You can't make a career out of it, but you could do it on the side. I work in a year-round program, so I don't have summers off. I work A LOT but mainly because I over-extend myself in committee work and the like, and I have a lot of grading in the classes I teach. There are so many variables to nursing education that it's difficult to give a single overview on it.

The burnout in academia is based on leadership decision-making to 1) let students slide through for things that are clearly expulsion-worthy (and stated as such in the student handbook) and 2) leadership decision-making to pass students who objectively did not meet the minimum requirements of the course. Then, everyone freaks out when the NCLEX pass rates drop. Duh. But, I do love academia, and I'm very, very good at it. Plus, where I work, I'm very well compensated with opportunities for pay above my salary. Last year, I made over 100K...at a non-profit.

This. Clinical sites require it. No vax; no clinical. You've entered the wrong profession.

Most things are definitely avoidable. If you saw the reasons for the 20 "exceptions" request per term, you would agree.

This is what you don't understand about teaching. I get about 20 requests for "exceptions" every single term. One out of the 20 is unavoidable. The rest are bad planning or special snowflake requests. The rules need to be applied in a non-arbitrary manner. So, if you want to talk about fairness, how is it fair to allow some to slide for bad planning when others are never late because they are good planners? I am not going into the details of when something is an emergency and when something is not. I am a compassionate instructor, but I'm often put into a position where I have to say no to ensure that my decisions are not arbitrary. And, I can tell you with 100% certainty that saying "no" to a student is not something I look forward to. However, I have to for fairness.

Yes, because of clinical hour requirements. Those requirements by the accrediting bodies are not a "monster" to keep nursing students in line. They are there to avoid predatory schools that do not provide the minimum standards of education to students. Most instructors try to be compassionate people, but an emergency is an emergency--and taking your sister to school is not an emergency--it's bad planning. Here's the other thing...as much as I hate it...we have to have rules for this stuff because if we don't, it gets a little chaotic. I have foregone rules about attendance, and every class has two to three stragglers up to 30 minutes late who then ask me to stay after class so they can make up for the missed quiz that I always give within the first 30 minutes of class. I have had rules about attendance in a classroom (no on-time arrival, no quiz makeup), and everyone shows up on time. Funny how rules actually work.

I earned my online nursing education degree from a brick-and-mortar in another state that had been around for more than 100 years. I had an excellent nursing education experience. I secured my own academic rotation and clinical educator rotation through networking. I would suggest that you change the questions you are asking, actually. Do the practicum experiences require deliverables? For example, in my academic rotation, I had to create a lesson plan, deliver a week's worth of didactic, and document my activities for clinical supervision. For my clinical educator rotation, I had to design and deliver an in-service. Everything was recorded and I sent the video file to my instructor. We also had an online component where we took a section of the CNE review book and created a course module on it, complete with lecture, activities, assignments, and grading rubrics for online learning. I ask that because I'm currently precepting a student in online nursing education, and she is not required to do anything for her academic rotation! There is no way I can evaluate her on the NE competencies with her just shadowing me all the time! So, I am requiring her to design a lesson plan and deliver one of my classes. In my opinion, her school is failing her.

Yes, yes, and YES!!!

It is well documented that expert nurses have a significant learning curve to be expert educators. And, the methods of teaching and assessment are the foundations of teaching....it's a specialty in and of itself with a body of research, so it's not as easy as just "direction." In addition, there is a substantial body of research on faculty on-boarding and how it is insufficient in institutions of higher learning.

I worked acute care floors, and I became a master at documentation. Determining what was necessary for the care of my patient and skipping everything else. The following was my standard routine. Of course, any significant events would be charted. Do and chart a complete H2T at the start of your shift. Know what you EHR considers "WNL" and chart exceptions only. Charting normals is a WASTE OF TIME. My unit required a second assessment to be documented. I did the assessment, but I did not waste time with the full H2T click boxes again. I documented changes from my previous assessment, if any. Then, I created a SmartText that essentially stated changes from first assessment were documented in the flow sheet. The office RNs want you to fill out extra paperwork for their audits with info already charted on the EHR as part of your normal documentation? Screw that. They can do the audits themselves. Chart pt-stated reasons for refusal and education interventions for those refusals. Chart the name of the RN you give or receive report, especially during transitions of care. Charting education in that stupid and unwieldy education module of the EHR is just for the Informatics and Reporting team. I know it's important during audits and everything, but it's a waste of time. Get in the habit of educating your patient on meds as you give them, on procedures as they are ordered, and then you can safely and truthfully create a SmartText on your usual education routine to drop into your end-of shift note. Make your After Visit Summary actually useful to your patients with written education on home care and times they should take their next doses of home or new medications. Go over it with them prior to discharge. Have them sign it. Your documentation is complete....no need to re-document what the system will save anyway. There are others, but those are my main time savers that provided accurate and complete documentation for the care of the patient....not the care of the Informatics team.

Yes, a million times. Depending on the way things are done on a particular unit, doing a CHG bath and making someone NPO overnight is no big deal, even if surgery is decided against or delayed. NOT doing it with all that information at your disposal would have put you in a heap of trouble. So physician notes, patient understanding of the plan, and off-going nurse confirmation of surgery isn't enough to implement simple prep, which leads to a delay of patient care? And the surgeons are cool with that? Really?