"Reflect on the attributes you wish to embrace and strengthen as you enact the role of clinical nurse educator. Explore your clinical knowledge and skills as well as your personal interactive style with the students. Will you be the kind of clinical educator that inspires students to be inquisitive knowledge seekers, clinical innovators, and committed patient advocates?"
Clinical Nurse Educator- Reflection
I have taken a slow journey to the person and nurse I am today. I started out in a Homemeker-homehealth aide (HHA) course that was 500 hours long that taught me the very basics of patient care. As an HHA I provided personal care to patients in both the home care and nursing home setting. One of the most valuable experiences while training to be an HHA was when our instructor rotated us through the kitchen and through the environmental services departments to teach us the value and contribution that every individual makes toward the success of a healthcare facility.
Two years later I went through the LPN program for 10 months and worked in long term care for 6 years. I remember how the instructor held my hand as I gave my first IM injection to a 90 pound woman who was six feet tall…hitting her bone and then pulling back a bit. It was as an LPN that I learned to be a team leader for 20 residents assigned to a team.
After about 4 years I began the Associated Degree in Applied Science RN program at Community College. I remember staying up until 2am to finish my pre-clinical assignments with 5 or 6 books open on my kitchen table, getting up at 5am to get to clinical, and leaving clinical without taking care of my own basic needs including eating, drinking, or and going to the bathroom. I remember being grilled in pre-conference and scared to death if I, or one of the students in my clinical group, did not have the answer readily available for the instructor.
Just prior to graduation I got a job on a telemetry unit step down and worked as a staff nurse for 3 years on the night shift. I had a wonderful preceptor that showed me the ropes. I reflect on that experience and think that I really got the fundamentals and knowledge in school but application of that knowledge was more deeply set once I began working. She effortlessly helped me put the pieces of the puzzle together in acute care.
Shortly after graduation I was called by the college and asked to teach in the lab part-time as a technical assistant demonstrating and evaluating nursing skills. I managed to get onto the day shift at the hospital and later took on clinical groups on the same floor where I worked. After learning about teaching in this Master’s program I now know what I feel was a poor job I did with those students. I was task focused and unapproachable. I moved up the ranks to assistant nurse coordinator and later, nurse manager. I have stood up to physicians, administrators and even other nurses in advocacy for my patients. 15 years after beginning my first job on that floor I felt I could almost do the job while sleeping. I was always looking for something more while keeping my job at the hospital I worked with the Shapedown program for obese youth, again in homecare and took on more lab and clinical rotations for Community College.
I finally decided to earn my BS I remember how enlightened I became through active learning in a small classroom setting using my own work cite as clinical experience to recognize some of the concepts that were presented. Additionally, the RN-BSN led me to spend time in the Native American community, the neighborhood health clinic serving the poor, and hospice house with beautiful end-of life care. My end of BS program project for Clostridium-difficile adding probiotics through yogurt was actually implemented in the hospital.
After earning my BS I was promoted to Director of Infection Prevention (IP). I experienced the horizontal violence that I learned about in my RN-BS program as I was oriented and I generally had to teach myself all there was to know about Infection Prevention and Control. I studied evidence based guidelines, regulatory expectations, emergency preparedness, and became involved in the professional organization Association for Professionals in Infection Control & Epidemiology (APIC). I expanded my RN-BS project during this time to include antibiotic stewardship and saved the hospital a ton of money. Because of the financial climate on the healthcare industry my hours were cut and I decided after 20 years in one hospital it was time to go.
I took a job with the VA and was specialed out to Batavia in the Veterans long term care facility where I put in an entirely new Infection Prevention Program because at one point they were in immediate jeopardy with the Office of the Inspector General (OIG). In less than a year after I went to the VA I got a call to work for RPCI with one of the most vulnerable patient populations (oncology) and decided to take on a new challenge and an entirely new learning curve. I learned all about oncology patients and Magnet designation. I headed up the implementation of the CAUTI project, wrote about it, and had my abstract accepted for a podium at the Magnet conference. Since going into infection prevention I have had three successful Joint commission surveys, one successful OIG Inspection, and one successful CMS survey and I am now board certified. I have served three years as the APIC chapter president, and four years on the New York State APIC Coordinating Council influencing legislation in conjunction with the department of health. My resume is four pages long and I have dropped the LPN experience from it.
Last year I decided that I mastered another specialty and decided to earn my Master’s Degree. I am again changing career trajectory into Nursing Education and beginning at NCCC this week and as Nurse Educator in long term care next week! Isn’t that one of the cool things about nursing? We get to specialize, change it up, learn constantly, and grow. My education through RN-BS and now MSNE has shown me that I cannot and will not go back to the same old thing to teach the way I was taught in the beginning of my path into nursing, but I need to take some of the lessons learned in the early days with me.
Every summer at RPCI, 20 students are selected for an internship for 10 weeks where they come to the hospital and pair with a nurse preceptor and then get to choose where to rotate to at least 2 areas of interest. One choice is Infection Prevention. I orient them to what I do on a daily basis and then turn the focus on them. I ask about their topic for the end of program presentation and we do a literature search together. Many times I receive e-mails for guidance on infection prevention topics because in a cancer hospital, infection prevention is of extreme importance to a patient’s journey. I have had the pleasure of precepting many of the interns in rotations through infection prevention and control. This is the first year that I attended their last day where they present their chosen topic to us, we have lunch together, and then they present the preceptors with flowers, a certificate, and say a few things about their experience. One thing that stands out to me and brought tears to my eyes as my students thanked me for the experience this year when they said “you never once talked down to us.”
My experience is vast and diverse and I feel that I need to pass this on to a new generation of nurses. Each time we change specialty we increase our body of knowledge. We aim to teach generalists in nursing and then nurses choose what to do with their careers. I think one of the most important aspects of nursing education is the clinical setting. Nursing faculty must role-model caring behaviors and keep the patient as the center of every single decision. Nursing faculty must be student/learner centered in order to foster patient-centered care. We must support their accountability by creating a just culture where they are not afraid to report mistakes. We must support their knowledge by showing them the path to evidence based nursing care. We must support the connection between classroom and clinical and seek out opportunities for active and innovative teaching techniques to make it real for the students. We must be welcoming into the profession, and dissuade horizontal violence if it occurs. We must advocate for our students, and treat them the way we would want to be treated. Utilizing a caring framework to teach students will free their minds and allow them to think critically and reflect on practice. We must continue to learn new technology so that we can impart that knowledge to students.
Next week I will begin again with beginning nursing students. What I do can influence the nursing students’ journey in terms of desire to stick with it and grow, and become. I wish to be the kind of instructor that inspires students to be lifelong learners, clinical leaders, and dedicated patient advocates.
Two years later I went through the LPN program for 10 months and worked in long term care for 6 years. I remember how the instructor held my hand as I gave my first IM injection to a 90 pound woman who was six feet tall…hitting her bone and then pulling back a bit. It was as an LPN that I learned to be a team leader for 20 residents assigned to a team.
After about 4 years I began the Associated Degree in Applied Science RN program at Community College. I remember staying up until 2am to finish my pre-clinical assignments with 5 or 6 books open on my kitchen table, getting up at 5am to get to clinical, and leaving clinical without taking care of my own basic needs including eating, drinking, or and going to the bathroom. I remember being grilled in pre-conference and scared to death if I, or one of the students in my clinical group, did not have the answer readily available for the instructor.
Just prior to graduation I got a job on a telemetry unit step down and worked as a staff nurse for 3 years on the night shift. I had a wonderful preceptor that showed me the ropes. I reflect on that experience and think that I really got the fundamentals and knowledge in school but application of that knowledge was more deeply set once I began working. She effortlessly helped me put the pieces of the puzzle together in acute care.
Shortly after graduation I was called by the college and asked to teach in the lab part-time as a technical assistant demonstrating and evaluating nursing skills. I managed to get onto the day shift at the hospital and later took on clinical groups on the same floor where I worked. After learning about teaching in this Master’s program I now know what I feel was a poor job I did with those students. I was task focused and unapproachable. I moved up the ranks to assistant nurse coordinator and later, nurse manager. I have stood up to physicians, administrators and even other nurses in advocacy for my patients. 15 years after beginning my first job on that floor I felt I could almost do the job while sleeping. I was always looking for something more while keeping my job at the hospital I worked with the Shapedown program for obese youth, again in homecare and took on more lab and clinical rotations for Community College.
I finally decided to earn my BS I remember how enlightened I became through active learning in a small classroom setting using my own work cite as clinical experience to recognize some of the concepts that were presented. Additionally, the RN-BSN led me to spend time in the Native American community, the neighborhood health clinic serving the poor, and hospice house with beautiful end-of life care. My end of BS program project for Clostridium-difficile adding probiotics through yogurt was actually implemented in the hospital.
After earning my BS I was promoted to Director of Infection Prevention (IP). I experienced the horizontal violence that I learned about in my RN-BS program as I was oriented and I generally had to teach myself all there was to know about Infection Prevention and Control. I studied evidence based guidelines, regulatory expectations, emergency preparedness, and became involved in the professional organization Association for Professionals in Infection Control & Epidemiology (APIC). I expanded my RN-BS project during this time to include antibiotic stewardship and saved the hospital a ton of money. Because of the financial climate on the healthcare industry my hours were cut and I decided after 20 years in one hospital it was time to go.
I took a job with the VA and was specialed out to Batavia in the Veterans long term care facility where I put in an entirely new Infection Prevention Program because at one point they were in immediate jeopardy with the Office of the Inspector General (OIG). In less than a year after I went to the VA I got a call to work for RPCI with one of the most vulnerable patient populations (oncology) and decided to take on a new challenge and an entirely new learning curve. I learned all about oncology patients and Magnet designation. I headed up the implementation of the CAUTI project, wrote about it, and had my abstract accepted for a podium at the Magnet conference. Since going into infection prevention I have had three successful Joint commission surveys, one successful OIG Inspection, and one successful CMS survey and I am now board certified. I have served three years as the APIC chapter president, and four years on the New York State APIC Coordinating Council influencing legislation in conjunction with the department of health. My resume is four pages long and I have dropped the LPN experience from it.
Last year I decided that I mastered another specialty and decided to earn my Master’s Degree. I am again changing career trajectory into Nursing Education and beginning at NCCC this week and as Nurse Educator in long term care next week! Isn’t that one of the cool things about nursing? We get to specialize, change it up, learn constantly, and grow. My education through RN-BS and now MSNE has shown me that I cannot and will not go back to the same old thing to teach the way I was taught in the beginning of my path into nursing, but I need to take some of the lessons learned in the early days with me.
Every summer at RPCI, 20 students are selected for an internship for 10 weeks where they come to the hospital and pair with a nurse preceptor and then get to choose where to rotate to at least 2 areas of interest. One choice is Infection Prevention. I orient them to what I do on a daily basis and then turn the focus on them. I ask about their topic for the end of program presentation and we do a literature search together. Many times I receive e-mails for guidance on infection prevention topics because in a cancer hospital, infection prevention is of extreme importance to a patient’s journey. I have had the pleasure of precepting many of the interns in rotations through infection prevention and control. This is the first year that I attended their last day where they present their chosen topic to us, we have lunch together, and then they present the preceptors with flowers, a certificate, and say a few things about their experience. One thing that stands out to me and brought tears to my eyes as my students thanked me for the experience this year when they said “you never once talked down to us.”
My experience is vast and diverse and I feel that I need to pass this on to a new generation of nurses. Each time we change specialty we increase our body of knowledge. We aim to teach generalists in nursing and then nurses choose what to do with their careers. I think one of the most important aspects of nursing education is the clinical setting. Nursing faculty must role-model caring behaviors and keep the patient as the center of every single decision. Nursing faculty must be student/learner centered in order to foster patient-centered care. We must support their accountability by creating a just culture where they are not afraid to report mistakes. We must support their knowledge by showing them the path to evidence based nursing care. We must support the connection between classroom and clinical and seek out opportunities for active and innovative teaching techniques to make it real for the students. We must be welcoming into the profession, and dissuade horizontal violence if it occurs. We must advocate for our students, and treat them the way we would want to be treated. Utilizing a caring framework to teach students will free their minds and allow them to think critically and reflect on practice. We must continue to learn new technology so that we can impart that knowledge to students.
Next week I will begin again with beginning nursing students. What I do can influence the nursing students’ journey in terms of desire to stick with it and grow, and become. I wish to be the kind of instructor that inspires students to be lifelong learners, clinical leaders, and dedicated patient advocates.