Clinical Practice: A Dilemma for Nurse Educators

Abstract

Achievement of all aspects of the professional role is necessary in order for nursing faculty to attain and maintain collegial status with other health disciplines as well as credibility within the nursing profession. Practice can contribute to scholarship and, thus, provides a vehicle for achieving the goals of academia and promotion and tenure within the university system. Role fragmentation and work overload result when faculty attempt to address each function, separately, within the different social and bureaucratic structures of the university and the health care delivery system. Goals of Faculty Practice Faculty practice may be defined as the participation of nurse-faculty in activities related to client care. The goals of faculty practice are: to improve the quality of patient care and student learning; to promote professional development of nursing faculty and clinical staff; and to facilitate communication and co-operation between nursing service and education. Faculty practice provides a means of facilitating the development of clinical nursing research and the development and utilization of nursing knowledge. Fagin (1986) states that a further, often unstated goal of faculty practice is the empowerment of practising nurses and the nursing profession (p. 143). The level of power vested in nurses within the health care delivery system can be increased through clinical leadership and through demonstration of the full professional role of nursing.