The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) applauds Dr. Patricia Benner and her team at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching for recognizing the critical role education plays in a nurse’s ability to practice safely and achieve optimal outcomes in their new book titled Educating Nurses: A Call for Radical Transformation. Consistent with AACN’s calls to enhance the education of professional nurses, the landmark study recommends preparing all entry-level registered nurses (RNs) at the baccalaureate level and requiring all RNs to earn at least a master’s degree within 10 years of initial licensure.
“Moving to create a more highly educated nursing workforce is in the best interest of the patients we serve”
“Moving to create a more highly educated nursing workforce is in the best interest of the patients we serve,” said AACN President Fay Raines. “The new Carnegie report provides a clear blueprint for the important work that must occur to transform how nurses are prepared for contemporary practice and leadership roles. AACN stands ready to help move this agenda forward by working collaboratively with all stakeholders interested in striving for excellence and advancing the nursing profession in order to improve health care.”
The Carnegie report on nursing underscores that “profound changes in nursing practice call for equally profound changes in the education of nurses and the preparation of nurse educators.” The authors found that many of today’s new nurses are “undereducated” to meet practice demands across settings. Their strong support for high quality baccalaureate degree programs as the appropriate credential for RNs entering the profession is consistent with the views of many leading nursing organizations, including the American Nurses Association, the American Organization of Nurse Executives, and AACN. As the voice for baccalaureate and graduate nursing education, AACN was one of a handful of nursing organizations that provided survey assistance as well as consultation with the report’s authors.
In the report, Dr. Benner and her colleagues call for dramatic changes in how nurses are educated, including a stronger integration of clinical and classroom instruction as well as more rigorous scholarship demands on nursing students in several content areas, including nursing science and technology. Other recommendations include:
- Developing a set of prerequisites for all students entering nursing education programs.
- Recruiting more diverse faculty and students into nursing programs.
- Strengthening articulation agreements between associate degree (ADN) and higher degree nursing programs and creating more ADN-to-master’s degree programs.
- Immersing nursing students in the discipline during the first two years of study.
- Increasing the variety of clinical settings in which nursing students are educated.
- Requiring one-year clinical residencies for all new nursing graduates.
- Enhancing student competency in the areas of inquiry and research.
- Preparing nurses to be influential leaders and innovators in the political and public arenas.
Given AACN’s focus on faculty development and addressing the shortage of nurse educators, we were pleased to see a number of recommendations focused in this area including:
- Integrating teacher education courses in all master’s and doctoral nursing programs.
- Ensuring that advanced clinical practice preparation is embedded in master’s programs with a nursing education major.
- Addressing the nurse educator shortage by raising faculty salaries to keep them in line with clinical salaries and teaching positions in other disciplines.
- Providing faculty with significant resources to stay clinically current.
- Convening stakeholders to enhance the practice of teaching in the profession and improve faculty development incentives.
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