Requiring nurse educators to hold a degree in nursing education: Evidenced based results or an air of lateral violence?

I can already feel myself getting in trouble for this post, because I am a nurse educator without a degree in nursing education… but I am unsure if I am willing to change that if need be. Honestly I am looking for some good, evidenced based feedback on this question/topic.

This past year there have been three monumental nursing activities that have pushed for increasing the education of nurses, revamping nursing education, and better preparation of nurse educators; the Tri-Council on nursing report, the printing of the Carnegie Foundation research on nursing education, and the I.O.M. report on the future of nursing.  While I agree with these I am seeing a nursing education movement that concerns me, for all nurses who teach in nursing education to hold a degree in nursing education.

Do not hear me wrong, I think nurses with graduate degrees in nursing education are critical to the education process.  However, I recently was made aware of one nursing program that openly told its faculty that they will not get promoted if they do not have a degree in nursing education. This proclamation was made after they had hired nurses with degrees in clinical areas like CNSs or NPs.  Those faculty members, some who are the most clinically competent that I have ever met, were basically told that they were second class citizens.  To me, and this is purely my observation, it had the feel of lateral violence.

To the evidence: Do we need to change how we are doing nursing education? Yes, change is good. However,  we do not need to throw the baby out with the bath water, but some good changes in education do need to be made.  Evidence so far provides that patient outcomes are better and nurses stay in practice longer with higher entry to practice degrees. The changes to nursing education need to happen to help support our students as they move forward into very challenging clinical areas.  Preparing our nursing faculty to better meet those challenges is always an excellent idea, but is the best faculty mix one that is only of one nursing degree? I am currently avidly and enthusiastically reading the recent publication of the Carnegie Foundation For the Advancement of Teaching, Educating Nurses: A call for Radical Transformation by Benner, Sutphen, Leonard, and Day.  The majority of the book speaks to issues and brings forth data that I can whole-heartedly support, like emphasis on good nurse educators who also have a clinical practice to draw upon in the classroom.  Yet, the developing air of superiority of the nurse educator graduate degree as the only one suited for nursing education is somewhat concerning to me.

I cannot find current evidence that nursing students who have instructors with graduate nursing degrees in areas other than nursing education do more poorly in job performance, school, and on state board licensure exams.  If some of you out there have evidence to support this I would be genuinely interested in it.   Further, some of the best faculty I have ever worked with have held nursing degrees with emphasis in family practice, public health, adult health, women’s health, pediatrics, and administration and leadership.  Likewise, I could argue that some of the poorest nurse educators have been ones with degrees in nursing education.  In fact, given the complexity of health care and the vast expansion of knowledge, one might argue that the best mix of nursing faculty would be a group that had diverse nursing degree backgrounds so that each person’s weaknesses could be supported with the strengths of the other.

I would go a step further and argue that disciplines like history, chemistry, and math do not require their faculty to have a degree in education to teach undergraduates…  What was that you said? Why,… no those professions are not ‘hands on’ like nursing… O.K. so let’s look at other ‘hands on’ professions.  Do physicians, respiratory therapists, physical therapists, pharmacists, and the like require their faculty to have degrees in education to teach? Rather, do they seek out a faculty set that are diverse in experience and background to provide thorough education in all aspects of their programs?

From what I have learned in nursing education I am concerned that either we are making this requirement for one or more of the following reasons (Some tongue and cheek, some honest): 1. We throw nursing faculty, like students, right in and then eat them alive or talk about them in the break room if they do not do well starting out instead of supporting them.  2.  Nursing education and curriculum design has truly become so complex that no one without a degree in nursing education can figure it out.  3.  The nurses we are hiring to educate our students, no matter their degree, really are not doing a very good job and the only way to remedy that is to require that they all hold the same graduate degree.  4. Educators really are too far removed from practice and need some way to feel good about the knowledge they do hold. OR, 5.  Students who come out of programs where the faculty all hold degrees in nursing education are much better nurses.

The way I see it we have a golden opportunity here with the push for change and advanced education to build some excellent places for nursing education.  Places where students are supported, encouraged to critically think, encouraged to have open/safe discussions that explore topics like bedside manner, ethics, communication, culture, spirituality, technology, and sciences.  We can create the best future clinicians the world has ever seen but to do this we must have competent and complementing teams of nursing faculty.  I am excited at the soon to be prospect of many new practitioners with doctorate of nursing practice degrees as NP’s move into this education mode.  I have thought all along that these nurses would also be a HUGE benefit to the basic nursing education programs, because advanced clinical degrees at the doctorate level would assist programs in their development and fostering of student use of evidenced based practice knowledge, clinical skills, and critical thinking.  With this push for change in education, which is wonderful to say the least, I was hoping to see more unity among nurses instead of greater divides.

It seems that I might be wrong and that the best nurse educators are ones who have a degree in nursing education.  Hmmmm…. looks like I and several others had better consider other options in nursing because I may not be qualified to teach.  It may be a good thing I can put my PhD to use in other areas.

Opinions or thoughts?