Shortage of nursing educators.Is this a problem in your coun

[bnewman]

Hi,
I am a PhD Graduate and a nurse educator in Australia and we have an abundance of nurse educators in Australia.

I am amazed that you have a shortage in the USA?
Regards,
Dr Barbara Newman

[bnewman]

Hi Fellow nurses International,
I am interested about the comments made on deficienct numbers of nurse educators across some countries. Is this in response to work force planning? Or economic rationalism from some countries ?

Regards,
Barbara Newman RN; MHPEd; PhD; FRCNA

[rgverian]

Hi Barbara,

Great to hear from a fellow faculty from down under.

The shortage is due to a lot of factors but I suspect that each state here has their idiosyncracies. The post that I placed is intended to find out how the other regions of the world are doing.

It's great to note that Australia is in the state of abundance for faculty members. How was this done? Do you have a current faculty to student ratio data available? Do you know of studies that have supported this abundance.

I look forward to corresponding with you.

Happy Holidays!


Ronaldo

[Je Kan]

Warm hello from a cold Japan. I am an ex-soldier, who trained as a military nurse and now works as an educator of nurses in Japan. I came to Japan from The United Kingdom to do my field research in a Japanese Nursing University for my PhD in 2000 I became a Buddhist monk and stayed!. Part of that project was to seek ways in bring touch, alternative forms of knowing and indigenous knowledge back into nurse education. I did this through designing a new curriculum for the healing and reflective nurse. I was awarded my PhD in Education from the University of Bath in 2007. I travel a lot seeking to help find ways of placing indigenous forms of knowing and knowledge from a cultural context into the dominate frame of western based forms of knowing. In many countries I have seen active colonization of education taking place. But have not heard many comments or views from nurses, nurse educators and nurse policy mangers at the colonization of nursing knowledge by the dominate view of western medicine in the literature. In fact it appears that many cultural practices which can and do enrich the lives of many are slowly being lost to the onslaught of science and the medical bio model of knowledge. Nurse Education is a science that explores the generation of knowledge that hopefully leads to greater innovation and understandings. Nursing is I believe a balanced mixed of the science of nursing, the art of nursing and the craft of nursing, the history of nursing and the Philosophy of nursing. I believe we as nurse educators are in danger of making a big mistake and that action is needed to bring back some balance. In Japan for example there were 10 colleges in 1975 and 190 colleges in 2010. Where did all the qualified faculty and teachers come from?? What has been the impact on Japanese health care, structures, delivery of care? Nursing in many of countries in now based in universities and has a four year curriculum. What evidence is there that says the four years of study are filled with the correct balances of education, art, science and practice? Who decides what core curriculum contents are relevant for the culture and needs of the people? Could it not be argued that the means within the cultural context of the nurse dictate the amount of time in training and practice? Some countries may fit a lot of practical nursing teaching into three years of schooling enough for the nurses to do their job well in their social context. Do we respect these nurses and their context? Or do we support the process that countries should follow the lead of other countries with richer resources or economies? Perhaps many of you can see similar issues in your countries. If so, then where are our voices as a collective profession in seeking to be professional and claim back a degree of common sense and practical applications to address the collective grand narratives of nurse education and practice that we can see going on all around us? Where are the debates? Where is the passion? Where are the stores of nurses in practice? I am sure they are there, for I have spoken with many nurses in many countries. I firmly believe in science walking along side health education and care. I also understand that there are no easy answers and all practice in the making of policy has to be able to be delivered in actual practice. I hope that someone will engage with me on these questions and look forward to being informed by my peers..smile.

[nancyberger]

Hi Everyone! I am Nancy, a nurse educator from New Jersey, in the United States. I notice that Butch had posted that in Virginia, nurse educators only need to have a degree higher than the students they are teaching. In New Jersey, the minimum requirement is a Master's degree in nursing. However, the push is for a doctoral degree.

I teach in an associate degree program, and we have not had a problem maintaining our full-time faculty. Our issue is the need for qualified adjuncts. I think one of the biggest issues has to do with salary. Unfortunately, many nurse educators earn only a bit more than the new graduates that they recently taught. We are generally paid less than nurse managers, nurse midwives, clinical nurse specialists, and others in the academic world. I think this is part of the reason that there is a nurse educator shortage. Thankfully this does not keep those of us who teach away from this aspect of nursing. I know that I absolutely love educating our future nurses.

Barbara, it is wonderful to hear that Australia has an abundance of nurse educators. What has been done to get to this status?

Nancy

[drggRN]

In response to Je Kan, I have more questions than answers and I am very pleased about his inquiry. First I am curious about your background from soldier to monk and then becoming a nurse educator. Would you please inform me about your journey to nursing education. You raised another very interesting question about the explosion of nursing education programs on the university level in Japan. From 10 colleges in 1975 to 190 colleges in 2010 is absolutely amazing. Who was responsible for such growth?

[TraceySiegel]

I would like to add to this disucssion as well. One of the major issues in the United States is that nurses with a masters can make more money working in a hospital and
want to work as an educator "on the side". Full time nursing educators typically make less money and despite the perception that the job is easy by many, I have to say it is the hardest job I have ever done as a nurse but I love every minute of it. This is an issue that is ongoing. I also think many people enter nursing education and think they can let their clinical skills laspe- as an undergradute teacher, I am in the clinical setting at least 2 days a week with my students performing hands on nursing care. We are also an aging group- in the US the average age is between 45-55 so many are retiring leaving this shortage. Just my musings! Tracey

[jansay]

Linda,
I am also engaged in doctoral research regarding the nurse educator role in Australia - this research has focussed on nurse educators in hospitals ( as opposed to those working in acadaemia). My research indicates that the hospital based nurse educator workforce is ageing and that nurses arent necessarily being attracted to the specialty. Barriers to the role relate primarily to role delineation resulting from changes in the nursing workfroce structure over recent years as other nursing roles assuming responsibility for nurse education.
Jan Sayers

[nancyberger]

Hi Jan,
As Tracey alluded to in her posting, the nurse educator work force is aging in the United States, with the average age being in one's 50s. One of the reasons that I went into nursing education (about 25 years ago) was because although I loved patient care, I found that I could not maintain my own standards. There was so much to do and not enough time to do it, and I felt that I was short-changing my patients at times. When I became a clinical instructor, I found that with the help of my 10 students, the patients received excellent care since they had a lot more time than the staff nurses did. I knew they were doing the care appropriately, too, because I would not permit them to do otherwise.

In the United States, there is a big push for nurse educators to have a doctorate. I have been to several seminars where this is discussed. There is a lot of grant money available to assist nurses to return to school. One issue I have with this, though, is that many of these nurses have limited or no experience. Many have graduated from their basic nursing education but have been unable to find jobs, so they have returned to school. I met one student who had just graduated a few months earlier with a Bachelor's Degree and was going straight through for his Master's and then PhD. His plan was to get a teaching job right away. My concern is that although I respect and applaud the desire to return for higher education, how can one teach others when one has NO personal hands-on experience? Has anyone else experienced this phenomenon in their part of the world?
Nancy

[Revlunn]

Briefly, I’m involved in a program that is providing a Masters in Nursing Education for the faculty currently teaching in the 8 school of Nursing and/or Midwifery in Liberia. We currently have 17 students using mostly a visiting expat faculty. Because these student, who are instructors, cannot be away from their school for a protracted period – the program is being offered in two full semesters, an intersession and summer session – then the final semester (after that year of classroom work) is a practicum. With the students returning to the institutions where they are faculty, with program faculty visiting and seminars. This current cycle started September 2010 and will be completed December 2011. The next cycle is slated to start February 2012 and will end in May or June 2013.

From this forum I'm hoping for two things. Our current faculty are PhD prepared professors from the US. We are very hopeful to include faculty from other parts of the world – especially the developing world. We provide transport R/T, housing, local transport, Visa assistance and a stipend that will provide for daily needs/expenses. We would welcome a visiting professor for the full semester (14 weeks) or would consider having them teach two courses over a 7 week period.

Secondly, we are looking at sustainability. We would like to send two Masters prepared nurses for a PhD program. The venue of the PhD program, if at all possible in a developing country – where English is the medium of study. We will look in the US and would consider other places – but feel that a developing country may be the most appropriate and in the end have the greatest effect. Would really appreciate hearing about institutions of excellence which offer PhD level study in Nursing that could be explored in the developing world? I’m pretty sure that we can come up with scholarships from here.

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