Nation’s Top Experts Re-Envision Clinical Education

Leaders in innovation, Yedidia, Weems, Teel, Murray, MacIntyre, and Joanne Fucello (L to R) exchange ideas during the Re-Envisioning Clinical Education conference.

Nearly 130 of the state’s leading nurse educators came together at The College of New Jersey on November 13 for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation New Jersey Nursing Initiative’s (NJNI’s) groundbreaking conference, “Re-Envisioning Clinical Education.”The day-long event brought together leaders in both clinical and classroom education for frank discussion on ways nurse faculty can focus on quality and safety, incorporate innovative teaching and learning methods, and promote greater collaboration between academia and practice in order to better prepare the next generation of New Jersey’s nurses.

We need to “encourage inquiry. Inquiry will drive practice,” said Gwen Sherwood, Ph.D., R.N., F.A.A.N., professor and associate dean for academic affairs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, School of Nursing. Sherwood encouraged participants to “begin to view the role of the nurse as the driver of quality” in health and health care and, as such, guide their curriculum and students toward quality and safety.

Cautioning against a “we have always done it that way” mentality, Teri A. Murray, Ph.D., R.N., dean of the Saint Louis University School of Nursing, said “it really is time in nursing education for us to give up our sacred cows… Our model of nursing education is born out of tradition; it has not been tested.”

Murray discussed the need to abandon the “mother duckling” model of clinical education where success or failure depends solely on the strengths of the individual clinical nurse faculty member working with a group of students. Instead, she offered examples of innovative academic-practice partnerships that strengthen the educational experience, including: Dedicated Education Units in hospitals devoted to collaborative teaching with schools, and clinical collaboratives that place students with preceptors in a single health care organization and foster relationships between the schools and clinical partners. These groundbreaking new methods are taking hold in schools and clinical settings across the country, she said.

Other presenters included Michael Yedidia, director of Evaluating Innovations in Nursing Education; LaNelle Weems, M.S.N., R.N., project director of the Mississippi Office of Nursing Workforce; Cynthia Teel, Ph.D., R.N., associate dean of graduate programs, University of Kansas School of Nursing; and Richard MacIntyre, Ph.D., R.N., F.A.A.N., professor at Samuel Merritt University School of Nursing.

Conference participants discussed innovative clinical education strategies currently being used in New Jersey, and provided suggestions for improving communication between academia and practice. Their recommendations included regional meetings between schools of nursing and clinical partner leadership; engaging staff nurses more in education and planning; and creating an online discussion board or forum to share ideas.