Advanced Practice Nursing Education: Challenges and Strategies

Abstract

Nursing education programs may face significant difficulty as they struggle to prepare sufficient numbers of advanced practice registered nurses to fulfill the vision of helping to design an improved US healthcare system as described in the Institute of Medicine's “Future of nursing” report. This paper describes specific challenges and provides strategies to improve advanced practice nursing clinical education in order to ensure that a sufficient number of APRNs are available to work in educational, practice, and research settings. Best practices are identified through a review of classic and current nursing literature. Strategies include intensive interprofessional collaborations and radical curriculum revisions such as increased use of simulation and domestic and international service work. Nurse educators must work with all stakeholders to create effective and lasting change.

Determining the effect of periodic training on the basic psychomotor skills of nursing students

“…Students find the opportunity to acquire the skills they have learned about throughout their 4-year training by repeating them in the clinical setting. However, often students are unable to find the opportunity to perform all the necessary skills in the clinical setting for several reasons, such as detriments in their instructors' theoretical knowledge-based applications; inadequate comprehension of how to use theoretical knowledge in practice; differences between what is taught in the classroom and what is taught in the hospital; inadequacy of time for practice; unsuitability of physical conditions; high number of students; and the challenges of moving from working with a manikin in the laboratory to practicing on real patients in the hospital (Aytekin et al, 2009;Fitzgerald et al, 2012). Furthermore, the relation established by medical staff with students and the negative attitudes they demonstrate toward students often affect how well students benefit from practicing in a clinical setting (Smedley and Morey, 2009;Aytekin et al, 2009;Karaöz, 2003).…”

Master’s programs in advanced nursing practice: new strategies to enhance course design for subspecialty training in neonatology and pediatrics

“…Constrained budgets often make higher-education salaries less competitive than those in clinical practice 2. In 2004, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing decided that the terminal degree for all nurse practitioners should move from the master’s degree to that of Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) by 2015 17.…”

“…Initially, the role was developed to improve service delivery and access in primary care pediatrics; however, this narrow focus quickly expanded to include a variety of settings and populations 1. More recently, APRNs have had to face the challenge of declining numbers in a difficult economic environment, and even hostile campaigns from US-based physician organizations 2. While the majority of APRNs working with children are in ambulatory pediatric settings, certain subspecialty areas have been particularly successful at developing an advanced nurse practitioner (ANP) role in the current climate – most notably in neonatal and pediatric intensive care.…”

Overcoming Reluctance towards High Fidelity Simulation - A Mutual Challenge for Nursing Students’ and Faculty Teachers

“…One challenge and a strategy to develop nursing students' clinical judgment may be through the systematic use of High-fidelity patient simulation (HFS) (Fitzgerald, 2012). Research on simulation has a long tradition, especially in North America.…”