Tripartite role of nurse educator

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Assessment 2 Context

The Tripartite Model For nursing faculty in colleges and universities, promotion and tenure will be partially determined by meeting expectations in all three areas: teaching, service, and scholarship. In many practice settings, including large health care systems, there is also often the expectation for educators and administration nurses to participate in service and scholarship.

Scholarship is sometimes thought of as contributing to the professional literature with articles, books, or Internet materials. This may be one aspect, but the field of nursing also considers scholarship from a broader perspective. Service refers to contributions beyond those that are expected as part of a position description. This might include volunteer work with health care groups or in the community. It might also include involvement with professional organizations in the form of holding office or serving on committees.

Nurse Educators As Change Agents Education is a powerful means for changing behavior and beliefs. As nurses, we have all engaged in patient education designed to help individual patients change behaviors that are damaging their health. We educate staff on new practices designed to engage them in a new approach to patient care. As nurse educators, much of our work is designed toward changes, either through adding to knowledge so that individuals are better informed in how to accomplish goals or in providing new knowledge to change behavior or solve a problem.

As academic nurse educators, we are engaged in adding to knowledge so that individuals can learn to be nurses or acquire specialty knowledge in nursing. In staff development, we are often involved in initiating new procedures and processes for carrying out health care initiatives. In patient education, we are teaching ways to improve health and change harmful behaviors. In all instances, change is the key word. Sometimes, the changes come easily and the learners are eager for new knowledge; however, sometimes, that is not true and we meet resistance from the learners. Finding ways to overcome that resistance is an important aspect of being a change agent.

References Institute of Medicine. (2010). The future of nursing: Leading change, advancing health.

Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Zorn, C. R. (2010). Becoming a nurse educator: Dialogue for an emerging career. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Assessment 2 Context

The Tripartite Model

Nurse Educators As Change Agents

References

Institute of Medicine. (2010). The future of nursing: Leading change, advancing health. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.