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Kansas has a shortage of nursing educators and needs creative ways to assist "would-be" educators gain a teaching skill-set. New challenges often require new ways of doing things. This article discusses the need and one solution to providing a teaching skill-set to nurse educators.
Shortage of Nurse Educators
An inadequate supply of nursing faculty for the next decade and beyond has been well documented by respected sources including American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN). AACN notes a 7.6% faculty vacancy rate nationally with current openings for 336 faculty. They also note the percentage of master's nursing students pursuing academic careers is declining, with a 27.5 percent drop from 1997 to 1998. The report notes as well the national average age of full-time nursing faculty is 49 with a high number of retirements projected to peak in 10 years (AACN, 2001). With the ongoing retirement of the current faculty group, a problem will likely exist if those with advanced clinical knowledge are not prepared as educators to share their clinical expertise.
In the greater Kansas City area (Kansas and Missouri) as well as the state of Kansas, the need for nurse educators is significant. A recent survey trended both supply and demand for both service and academic sector in the greater Kansas City Area. Findings from the report noted the projected retirement of 100 of the current 187 faculty over the next fifteen years and limited local efforts to prepare advanced nursing educators. Schools in the greater Kansas City area indicated that only 33 of 492 current masters' students were pursuing an educator role (Bleich and Santos 2001). Discussions with nursing education program directors have included comments such as: "master's prepared nurses are going into clinical practice and not teaching" and "it's quite difficult to find qualified educators in rural Kansas, most are seeking their NP but not teaching credentials."
It has been suggested that as faculty shortages continue, more clinicians without nurse educator skills will be hired to fill these positions. Many schools are already experiencing this situation. These expert clinicians lack skills in areas such as educational theories, curriculum development, test construction, teaching strategies, teaching with technology, and evaluation. "Trial and Error" as the most common form of faculty role education...