Three Nursing Skills that Transfer to the Classroom

Nursing is a highly skilled job. Some of those skills come from technical knowledge that you will learn and put into practice during your training. Other skills are personal qualities that you will hone and develop during both your education and your working life. While technical skills are often very much specific to the job you’re doing, qualities such as leadership, communication, patience and critical thinking transfer to many other careers.

One great thing about nursing, however, is that it encompasses many different career paths. Once you’ve qualified as a general nursing practitioner, you can continue your studies in a large number of different specialisms. One of the most rewarding paths is becoming a nurse educator.

In this role, you’ll be teaching and inspiring future generations of nurses, and potentially making a positive difference to the lives of millions of patients all across the world. As a nurse educator, you can affect so many more people than you would do as a regular nurse, because each of your students carries the seeds that you planted as they embark on their own career journey.

The best way to become a nurse educator is to take an online master in nursing education. This course from Cleveland State University lets you study part-time via the internet while you continue to work as a nursing practitioner. It is a two-year course that focuses on curriculum development, student evaluation and engaged learning. If all of this sounds a little daunting, then don’t worry – as a working nurse, you already have many skillsets that transfer perfectly from the hospital ward to the classroom.

Communication

Nurses and nurse educators must be excellent communicators. An important fact to remember about communication is that it’s a two-way process. Being a good communicator means being able to speak and write clearly and engagingly, but it also means being able to listen and to understand what’s being said to you.

Empathy is another factor in effective communication. Often, there are cultural differences or social preconceptions to be overcome. Being able to put yourself in another person’s shoes, however different they may be from you, is a big step toward achieving this.

Nurses must be able to communicate with patients about their treatment, and to hear and understand their needs and concerns. They also need to be able to talk to family members and to fellow medical professionals. Often, regular nurses act as educators to patients and their families, showing them how to manage a long-term condition, administer medicine, or operate healthcare technology in their own home.

Teachers and nurse educators communicate with their students as a whole, in the classroom or lecture theater, and individually in one-to-one sessions or when giving feedback on coursework. In all cases, communication means being approachable and able to answer questions effectively.

Patience       

Nurses and nurse educators must understand the virtues of patience and tolerance. In a hospital setting, patients are often distressed, confused, upset or angry. Sometimes they may take their frustrations out on the nurses who are trying to help them.

While nurses shouldn’t tolerate physical or verbal abuse from their patients, they need to continue to practice compassion and care even with the most difficult of patients. A good nurse will keep coming back and will keep caring, even with those patients who don’t seem to want to get better.

Similarly, not all students understand ideas and concepts at the same pace. A nurse educator has to make sure that every student in the class is on the same page, not just those who seem the brightest or the fastest to learn. In addition, many students may have special needs or learning difficulties that need to be accommodated – for example, dyslexia.

Using patience and encouragement and finding different ways to convey ideas can reap wonderful rewards in terms of student engagement and achievement. Helping students to overcome obstacles to learning, such as a difficult home life or excessive pressures at work, is also part of the role of a nurse educator or any teacher.

Leadership

As a nurse or as an educator, you may not feel like a leader. However, students and patients both need to feel that they are in the hands of someone they trust, who knows what they are talking about, and who they can rely on to make the right decisions quickly when needed. In this way, leadership qualities and skills are essential to both nurses and nurse educators.

A nurse should inspire confidence. Patients should feel safe in their nurse’s care and should be able to look to them for advice, guidance and medical assistance. If a nurse is seen to falter or appear unsure, this could undermine a patient’s confidence in them. For this reason, nurses must learn to be capable, decisive and empowering, even when they don’t feel this way inside.

Leadership shouldn’t be mistaken for arrogance. A nurse with strong leadership skills won’t always assume that they know best. They will listen to the truths of others and will take all sources of reliable information into account. Confidence must be partnered with critical thinking and a willingness to change course if the facts show that you’ve been headed in the wrong direction.

A nurse educator must develop these leadership qualities further. An educator isn’t just someone who passes on technical knowledge – they also need to communicate a passion for nursing and be able to light a fire of inspiration in their students. These students need to believe in their teacher just as much as patients need to believe in their nurses.

Conclusion

These are just three examples of the essential skills and personal qualities that nurses will have developed and that will stand them in good stead if they decide to become nurse educators. Becoming a nurse educator lets you pass on your skills and your love of nursing to a new generation of professionals.