Educators are there to help future generations of RNs prepare for the modern requirements of the job. Not only do they teach best practices and professional expectations, but they do so with a constantly evolving understanding of what it takes to help nurses be successful. This is a consideration that changes regularly with time.
Where once the profession of nursing was shaped primarily by lectures and pen-and-paper-style learning, now it is much more nuanced.
There are technologies, including remote collaboration tools and even hospital simulation rooms, that have made it easier than ever to prepare for the working responsibilities of a nurse.
In this article, we take a look at how nursing education has changed and evolved over the years and why nursing instructors are more important than ever.
Why Nursing Educators Matter Now More than Ever
For years now, hospitals all over the country have been struggling with staffing and retention.
The problem began decades ago when the rate of nurses retiring surpassed the rate of nurses coming into the profession. However, it’s an issue that was exacerbated considerably by the stresses of the pandemic.
Today, virtually every hospital in the country is short at least a few nurses, and some are short many. This is a significant problem that not only slows the already often inefficient wheels of modern healthcare, but it also puts additional stress on nurses who would have otherwise stuck around.
Across all categories of business, it’s a simple fact that when turnover begins, people leave. And when they do, employees who would have wanted to stay are funneled out because there’s more pressure and responsibility put upon them.
What role do nurses play in reversing this problem? While they can’t fix everything single-handedly, they can provide the type of high-quality instruction that will accomplish two things simultaneously:
- They prepare students for the challenges of the job. Part of a nursing instructor’s responsibility is to ensure that their students understand how difficult the work will be. This way, they won’t be surprised during their first year on the job.
- They weed out bad-fit candidates. While this might sound counterintuitive given the scope of the problem, it’s ultimately better for everyone involved to funnel bad-fit candidates out before they ever begin nursing. Why? Well, for the individual, it gives them the opportunity to pivot into a better job before they’ve invested $60,000 in nursing education. For the hospital system that would have otherwise received them, it means that they don’t waste time recruiting and training someone who’s just going to turn out in one year.
That one-year estimate, by the way, is not an exaggeration. Bad-fit nursing candidates last one to five years on average. Nursing instructors serve, among other things, as gatekeepers to the profession.
Of course, the objective is never exclusion, but optimization. Or to put it simpler, everyone is better off when good nurses find the right placement. It’s that simple.
Teaching Nurses What to Expect
The fundamental responsibility of any nursing educator is to communicate the realities of the job as effectively as possible. If this sounds basic, understand that it is a good deal more complicated than many people at first assume.
No amount of lectures can completely communicate the pressure a person will feel on the job, nor can clinical rotations alone prepare someone for every imaginable situation.
There will always be obscure conditions or scenarios that simply don’t come up in a typical rotation.
Nursing educators are responsible for providing as much information as they possibly can. They do this through lectures, but also through simulated learning environments that have taken on particular importance in recent years.
Nursing simulation rooms are an emerging technology that can provide realistic and even emotionally volatile scenarios that can go a long way toward preparing a nursing student for the pressures of the job.
Not every school has access to these simulation learning environments. It’s a great feature that can help expose aspiring nurses to more situations than would otherwise be possible.
Bringing in a New Era of Medical Technology
Healthcare technology changes every year, and while not every tool is adopted immediately, it’s often at colleges where innovation spreads.
After all, nurses who have been working for twenty years aren’t receiving constant updates on medical technology. Probably they do know what’s happening.
This is a profession that requires continuing education opportunities, but their focus is primarily on day-to-day patient-side care.
It’s at schools where understanding is constantly refreshed. It’s through this kind of education that the proliferation of things like wearable health technology, big data, and even artificial intelligence is prioritized in healthcare systems all over the country.
Providing Mentorship That Lasts a Lifetime
Nurses, like people in any professional environment, will simply do better when they have a community of like-minded people who understand what they are going through and can offer emotional support.
Many times, the biggest impact of a nursing instructor is felt after graduation when the student is out in the professional world. Having the chance to reconnect with instructors in the context of mentorship can provide the sort of reinvigorating support that keeps people in the profession. Good teachers have an impact that can last for decades. They supply information, yes, but they do it in a way that is holistically targeted around compassionate support.
