How to Become A Certified Nurse Educator or Tutor: A Simple Step by Step Guide

Contrary to popular opinion, not every nurse must end up in a hospital, This article on how to become a certified nurse educator or tutor challenges such a perspective, and helps you see that as a nurse you could train other nurses, especially if you enjoy the art of teaching and helping people. The field of nursing is broad enough to accommodate those who have a genuine desire to teach while also enjoying the lifestyle of a nurse and earning a good living.

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Nurse educator or tutors as they are called in some circles, is what these people are called. In this article, we would zero in on the profession of a nurse educator, what they do and how significant what they do is to general healthcare, and of course, we can’t forget the steps on how to become a nurse educator.

Who is a nurse educator ?

Nurse educators are health professionals who are skilled and trained at communicating their knowledge to students and nurses using their wealth of experience as a registered nurse. From this definition, we would understand as we progress, that nurse tutors are all registered nurses and in order for them to stay relevant in this specialized profession, they would have to keep treating patients.

What does a nurse educator or tutor do?

We have established that nurse tutors train students who have budding nursing careers and are looking forward to becoming experienced nurses. To achieve this, nurse tutors draw up and develop lesson plans and curriculum that cover the areas necessary for a successful nursing practice.

Just like a teacher would, stir up enlightening and relevant discussions in the classroom, nurse tutors do the same to ensure students aren’t distracted whilst they are in the class, besides, constantly pouring into students, without giving them room to stimulate their thinking can be counterproductive.
Nurse tutors, by virtue of their training, can supervise these students in clinical settings and measure their progress levels and milestones. The result of this would be that the learning areas in which students are deficient in can be augmented.

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Now, imagine if every nurse is streaming towards hospitals and clinics, who would teach those who are still in their undergraduate years? This singular reason underscores the importance of nurse educators in the healthcare industry.

How To Become A Nurse Educator In Seven Easier Steps

So far, we have discovered who nurse educators are and what their responsibilities are and the implications of their roles to the healthcare system. Now, it is high time, we headed over to how to become a nurse educator.

Become a Registered Nurse

This is the very first hurdle to scale through, if you have the dream to become a nurse educator. Have you asked yourself how you would be able to teach others if you don’t have a superior knowledge base? Becoming a registered nurse involves writing and passing licensure examinations which cover a great deal of coursework that someone who has only a Bachelor’s degree in Nursing isn’t exposed to.

Gain experience as a registered nurse

The drill is that before you wish to become a nurse tutor, you would have to take certain graduate nursing programmes, and the eligibility to take many of these graduate programmes demands that you would have clocked many hours of experience as a registered nurse. In fact, whilst gaining this experience, it is advisable you narrow down your focus at a specialty and get expertly good at it.

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Develop your skills

At this juncture, it is important you know that to become a nurse tutor, you would need to sharpen your communication skills amongst all other skills. Remember, you would have failed as a nurse tutor, if you can’t pass across your knowledge in a manner that students can understand. Hence, why, you would need to pay attention to your teaching skills, leadership skills and above all communication skills.

Earn your master’s degree

While this is the bare minimum for nurse tutors, it is critical that you begin by earning a Master of Science in Nursing if you want to work as a nurse tutor. Getting this master’s degree affords you the opportunity to widen your knowledge in the nursing profession.

Getting an additional certification

Competence is indeed a byproduct of exposure. The more exposure you give yourself in this journey to become a nurse tutor, the better. This is because certifications have unique emphasis which can come in handy in your career. For example, in the quest to get a job as a nurse tutor, chances are that everyone has got their master’s and doctoral degree done, what then would be the distinguishing factor in such cases? Of course, extra certifications like the Certified Nurse Educator (CNE) or the Certified Academic Nurse Educator (CNE-CL).

Apply for Jobs

You would be doing yourself a world of good to register your interest for jobs especially the ones you are qualified for. You can search for them online or go directly to academic institutions. Make your resumés standout from the crowd and also go for your interviews prepared to give answers to questions pertaining to the nursing profession.

Keep Learning to remain current and relevant

The world of science is an ever-dynamic field, and nursing is no exception at all. To stay relevant as a nurse tutor, you need to keep feeding that habit of continual learning that you began with when you chose to become a nurse tutor.

Conclusion

There are lots of benefits that can spur anyone to become a nurse educator or tutor, starting from the fact that you would say your byes to overnight shifts that is characteristic of conventional nurses to the good paycheck that comes alongside. All you would need, evaluate what you need to do where you are now, and in less than no time you would become a nurse educator.

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