Nursing Clinical Faculty Revisited: The Benefits of Developing Staff Nurses as Clinical Scholars

An innovative, collaborative project is described that purposefully prepares staff nurses to assume the role of clinical scholar and the breadth and scope of the described project with its multiple partners is unique.

Abstract

One of the major contributing factors to the nursing shortage in Colorado and nationally is a scarcity of clinical faculty required to prepare new nurses. This article describes an innovative, collaborative project that purposefully prepares staff nurses to assume the role of clinical scholar. Although there are several models that have sought to make clinically expert nurses available as teaching faculty, the breadth and scope of the described project with its multiple partners is unique. In the first year of this grant, the identified goals were achieved. In addition, there have been significant serendipitous outcomes.