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An evaluation of lecturer practitioners in Ireland |
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| Authors: | Irene Hartigan MSc RNT H.Dip BSc Diploma in Nursing RGN Ann Cummins MSc BSc RCN RGN Diploma in Integrated Computer Applications Elizabeth O'Connell MSc H.Dip RGN Mary Hughes PhD Candidate MSc BSc H.Dip RCN RGN Claire C Hayes MSc BSc RCN RM RGN Brendan Noonan MSc H.Dip BSc Dip Nursing RGN Patricia Fehin BCL Diploma in Law BSc RGN |
| Affiliation: | Lecturer Practitioner, Catherine McAuley School of Nursing and Midwifery, Brookfield Health Sciences Complex, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland |
| Abstract: | Nursing continues to struggle to integrate the theoretical and clinical aspects of nurse education for the development of competent practitioners. Collaborative approaches to nurse education as well as the development of joint clinical-academic roles have had questionable success to date on merging the theoretical and clinical components of nursing. Lecturer practitioners' posts are new in Ireland. These posts were created as nurse educators were cognizant of the need for students to integrate theory to practice. The aim of the lecturer practitioner role was to increase the support forstudent nurses in both academia and practice. An evaluation of the impact of the lecturer practitioner role from three key perspectives was conducted in three Irish teaching hospitals in 2007. The results of this study suggest that as lecturer practitioners have both a clinical and academic remit they can integrate theory to practice through collaborative practice. |
| Keywords: | collaboration competent practitioners lecturer practitioner theory–practice |