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Background

The Canadian Nurses Association estimates that, by 2016, Canada will be short 113,000 nurses. As governments respond to this prediction by increasing undergraduate seats in post-secondary institutions, nursing programs are faced with a resulting shortage of clinical placements within health care agencies and a shortage of nursing faculty, including clinical educators who provide teaching and supervision for practicum courses.

In 2007/2008 decision makers from the University of Calgary, Calgary Health Region (now Alberta Health Services), Mount Royal College (now Mount Royal University) and Bow Valley College began meetings to develop a framework to recast the organization of clinical nursing education. The educational institutions shared the same issues: recruitment, utilization and professional development for clinical teachers; insufficient numbers of high quality clinical learning placements for nursing students; and the fact that existing approaches for arranging clinical placements could not address the additional needs resulting from program expansions planned. The group met extensively with one of the originators of a model of collaboration from Colorado Centre of Nursing Excellence that has been used in more than 30 American sites and specifically in Colorado for over two decades. That model developed a sustainable critical mass of clinical nurse educators and magnet clinical teaching units that enhanced the overall clinical teaching capacity for nursing education.

Phases of CTC (implemented over a three year period)

Phase I
Clinical Teaching Scholars (CTSs) – RNs with a Bachelor of Nursing degree who participate in a specially designed graduate level course prior to teaching undergraduate nursing students.

Phase II
Clinical Teachers (CTs) - Diploma prepared RNs who participate in a specially designed undergraduate level course prior to teaching practical nursing students.

Phase III
Under development
Clinical Teachers – LPNs who will take a specially designed undergraduate level course prior to teaching practical nursing students.

How does it work?
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