Future of the Nursing Profession - Essay Example

? Nursing Future Nursing Future Introduction Nursing is a divine profession as it alleviates the pain of an ailing soul.A nurse can be rightly called a God’s messenger. Hence, nursing education occupies an important position in today’s education system. Nursing education moulds of a confident nurse who contributes his/her abilities for the wellbeing of the patients. Today nursing education has grown from mere apprenticeship to the merging of theoretical and practical training with the help of experienced nurses and medical professionals. Nursing varies from general nursing to nursing specialties, and after the four year course a nurse gets autonomous registration. There is scope for diversification after the basic graduate degree in the form of postgraduate courses. An interview was conducted with Dr. Llasus & Dr. Dover on topics like Nursing Faculty Teaching Expectations, Nursing Faculty Scholarship Expectations, and Future of Nursing Education. Dr.Llasus is the Assistant Dean of the School of Nursing, Nevada State College. As an Assistant Dean he performs of a multitude of functions ranging from performing regular instructional teaching duties on a half-time basis, and collaborates with the Associate Dean and to oversee the academic program and ensures quality of faculty and student support services. In addition to these, Dr.Llasus coordinates courses and faculty to promote communication and consistency in meeting School of Nursing policies and procedures. He provides leadership in curriculum and course development, orients new faculty to the SON, and connects faculty with Course Coordinator or Mentor for course orientation. He conducts orientation for new students and prepares program-specific materials, leads orientation program for each upcoming semester, schedules and leads make-up orientations. He organizes Semester Faculty Meetings, schedules and attends meetings for assigned curriculum tracks, mediates student and faculty issues and problems, follows “chain of command” in BSN Student Handbook, Performs peer evaluation of faculty by visiting classes and reviews clinical site evaluations by faculty and students, recommends new clinical contracts, prepares student cohort numbers and availability in each cohort, prepares records of students going forward for Reinstatement. Apart from the above said duties as an Assistant, Dean Dr. Llasus shoulders the following general duties such as ATI Assessments (Regular, Accelerated and Part-time Tracks), sets up ATI semester fees/deadlines ,schedules ATI make-up tests at end of semester, collects end of semester ATI exam, analyses from faculty and post on X drive, CSCLV,CSCLV skills lab & room, schedules for upcoming semester, CSCLV simulation schedules for upcoming semester, arranges for Marlock keys and parking information, end of semester scheduling of simulations for clinical make-up, class schedules for upcoming semester--working with the Dean and Associate Dean. Dr. Cheryl Dover is the Program Chair of Nursing Department, Prince George's Community College, Maryland. He performs the following duties like scheduling all classes, appointment of classes, supervising day to day activities like budgets, grants, Committee activities, Faculty/student issues etc. Nursing Faculty Teaching Expectations Dr.Llasus explains the tenure track of Assistant professor Post and explains the responsibilities of an Assistant professor. According to him, Assistant Professors shall be appointed to the School of Nursing upon recommendation of the nursing faculty and the Dean of the School of Nursing. They shall hold an advanced degree in nursing and a doctorate. The responsibilities of an Assistant Professor are in accordance with college by laws. The position of Assistant Professor shall be primarily that of nursing faculty who teaches nursing courses under policy determined by the Faculty of the College, consistent with College-wide academic policy. An Assistant Professors shall aid in the planning, development, and teaching of nursing courses (didactic and clinical) consistent with School of Nursing and College policy. Assistant Professors shall provide for student advisement as assigned. Assistant Professors shall provide for oversight and maintenance of student records within their assigned teaching work load. Assistant Professors shall serve on School of Nursing and College-wide committees as required. Dr. Cheryl Dover says the academic ranks in his college are hired Assistant professor, Associate professor and Professor. Both the Professors explained the Tenure policies and stipulated time to achieve them. According to Dr. Llasus, the annual review criteria hold tenure-track faculty to very high standards of performance in teaching, scholarship, and service. It is not the intent of the School of Nursing to expect or require consistent excellent ratings on annual reviews in order to receive an overall Excellent rating in any of the three areas when applying for tenure. Therefore, annual review ratings must be contextualized to represent expectations for Unsatisfactory, Satisfactory, Commendable, and Excellent ratings in the tenure and promotion application process. These ratings will be based on the cumulative performance of faculty members during the time leading up to the tenure and promotion review. He said that the annual review ratings are used extensively in determining tenure and promotion ratings. But scholarships does not operate on yearly basis but are marked by projects that take many years. As a result, the tenure and promotion expectations for scholarship must be more independent of the annual review ratings and focus on the cumulative accomplishments of the faculty member in terms of both quality and quantity. The third year review is done to give faculty direction regarding their progress toward tenure, by evaluating their cumulative performance after three years in rank. All untenured faculty on tenure-track will meet with the Dean at the end of the third year for this evaluation. As per the NSC Promotion and Tenure Policy, “all full time tenure track faculty must apply for tenure no later than the beginning of their sixth academic year.” The expectations for performance at that time are the following. Typically, promotion to associate professor and tenure decisions occurs simultaneously. Dr Llasus says that to be promotion to professor rank occurs later in a faculty member’s career. According to the NSC promotion and tenure policy, criteria for promotion to the rank of professor include a rating of “excellent” in the area of teaching as well as “commendable” in either scholarship or service. Faculty members should demonstrate evidence of continued effective performance in teaching, scholarship, and service that includes and exceeds the criteria suggested by NSC promotion and tenure policy. Dr. Cheryl Dover agrees to follow the same policies as that of Nevada State college of Nursing headed by Dr. Llasus regarding tenure policies and their achievement period. Teaching Expectations The general expectation in teaching for promotion and tenure shall be based on the individual’s excellence in teaching according to Dr. Llasus. He says that the evaluation is done on the basis of a narrative which is critical and to provide justification or evidence of appeals to annual reviews that do not meet the requirements set forth in these standards. The evaluator can make exceptions to the requirements in the case of unusual circumstances as presented in the narrative. As outlined in the NSC Promotion and Tenure Policy, criteria for tenure include a rating of “excellent” in the area of teaching as well as a minimum rating of “satisfactory” in the areas of scholarship and service. He explains the meaning of the ratings. ‘Unsatisfactory’ means fails to meet expectations; ‘satisfactory’ means meets expectations. In the past three years there were no annual review ratings of Unsatisfactory. ‘Commendable ‘ denotes exceeds expectations. There were no annual review ratings of Unsatisfactory or Satisfactory in the last three years and there was atleast one annual review rating of Excellent in the last three years. ‘Excellent’ means exceeds teaching expectations in a sustained manner. From Dr. Dover’s side, the faculty is assessed in three areas like teaching, scholarship and service for their tenure and promotion. She did not did not elaborate this area. Instead she said, the faculty should show some proof or data (maybe in narrative form) in area of teaching for applying for tenure and promotion. Nursing Faculty Scholarship Expectations Dr. Llasus explains that faculty selection for tenure is done based on the scholarship they possess. External validation (peer reviewed, juried, or editor-reviewed) of one’s work in a published product is requisite for promotion and tenure at NSC. Tenure-seeking faculty members should plan out their scholarship agendas during their probationary period so they have time to complete the required expectations listed below. He says that The School of Nursing has set the following benchmarks for rating scholarship in the tenure review process. These benchmarks serve solely as a guide. According to the School’s criteria in assessing scholarly leadership of the faculty ‘satisfactory’ performance is active program of quality research or creative activity as exemplified by sustained involvement in the scholarly activities listed under annual review, and at least one published peer-reviewed article or peer-reviewed, discipline-specific equivalent. Commendable performance is evidence of quality peer-reviewed research accomplishment as evidenced by at least two published peer-reviewed articles and two conference presentations or peer-reviewed, discipline-specific equivalent. Excellent grade is characterized by the quality and quantity of contributions which advance knowledge, as indicated by at least three published peer-reviewed articles and two conference presentations or two published peer-reviewed articles and five conference presentations. Another alternative option is one peer-reviewed, discipline-specific book or peer-reviewed, discipline-specific equivalent. Dr. Dover did not elaborate much on general expectations on scholarly leadership evaluation of faculty members other than that the faculty is evaluated based on the proof of their publications. Future of nursing education Nursing education has undergone sea change in the recent years. There are various factors which contributed to the face lift in nursing teaching and training sector. Some of them are the change in student demographics. According to Heller, Oros, and Durney-Crowley (n.d.), today the biggest challenge is meeting and catering to the needs of students of diverse races. So the schools have to be well equipped to provide rich cultural learning environment to the students across the globe. Another factor is technological explosion. Nurses have to be proficient enough to handle computers and sophisticated programs related to the nursing field. Patient centered care should be the motto of all nursing education courses. Nursing education should foster professionalism at the highest. Professionalism means prime importance to patient care, respecting the dignity of patients and by standers, being committed to quality care. The future health care system needs graduate nurses to take up a variety of roles. There should be a variety of entry points and career pathways in to nursing. Universities should accept nursing as a research discipline and acknowledge its contribution to the community. According to the Wills Commission report (2012), Vice chancellors should work hand in hand with Nursing Deans to develop a collective narrative; and constant attention should be given to the nursing education sector at the national, regional as well as local levels to uplift the nursing workforce. As stated in the Institute of Medicine (2011) report, for the future nurses should be trained in competencies like decision making, quality improvement, systems thinking, and team leadership for professional excellence in the present era. Dr. Llasus points out that nursing education is at a very crucial stage at this period. He says that the techniques that worked in nursing education in the past were no longer relevant to meet the challenges in higher education and technology. According to him, new, innovative, contextual teaching and learning process to meet the demands of the competencies required of a nursing workforce. Dr. Dover says that in future the scarcity for nurse educators will worsen because young nurses prefer to work in clinical setting because of high salary. The average age of nurse educator is above 40. In her college all the teaching faculty is above 40 except one. She says that, “as BSN as entry level is gaining minimal momentum. Like in state of MD, the plan for BSN in 10 plans was rejected. I still see the Associate Degree Nursing as valuable to the current nursing shortage. There were actually thousand of applicants in the Associate program. The reason for this is that is not as expensive as BSN”. Conclusion The interview with Dr. Llasus and Dr. Dover was a revelation to the pros and cons in the nursing education sector. From their in-depth knowledge and experience in working as the heads of the nursing department in two reputed nursing colleges, they could provide valuable advices and suggestions. They could explain in detail the teaching expectations and the duties each person holding a particular designation should perform for the upliftment of the course. They explained the grading and ranking system of the faculty members and the criterion to be applied for higher posts. They also analyses the pits and falls in the nursing sector and the strategies to overcome them. They also tell us the challenges in the nursing sector and the plans to be adopted to overcome them in future. References Heller, B. R., Oros, M. T & Durney-Crowley, J. (n.d.). The Future of Nursing Education: Ten Trends to Watch. Retrieved from http://www.nln.org/nlnjournal/infotrends.htm Institute of Medicine. (2011). The Future of Nursing: Focus on Education. Retrieved from http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2010/The-Future-of-Nursing-Leading-Change-Advancing-Health/Report-Brief-Education.aspx Wills Commission. (2012). Quality with Compassion: the future of nursing education. The Royal College of Nursing. Retrieved from http://www.williscommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/486379/Willis_Commission_Report.pdf Read More