The nursing field is no stranger to specialties—there’s a ton of options for experienced nurses to pursue as they advance in their careers. But if you’re the type who enjoys building others up and mentoring others, the clinical educator position may sound particularly appealing.
While the title of this job makes it pretty obvious that this position revolves around educating nurses, you may be wondering what exactly a clinical educator does in their daily work. We asked the experts to lay out what exactly it means to work as a clinical educator and what you’ll need to get there.
What does a clinical educator do on a regular basis?
A clinical educator sometimes called a nursing professional development specialist of The TCX academy, is responsible for a variety of training and development duties in a healthcare facility. Much of their work focuses on ensuring that nurses have the skills and training to succeed in their individual units.
This means they need to coordinate with facility administrators to find areas of training needed and then formulate plans on how to implement this training.
For example, administrators may see an upcoming staffing shortage for a specialized unit and would like to transfer or promote a nurse from another unit to help fill the need. That might sound like a simple fix, but nurses in a specialized unit may take part in procedures or use equipment that other nurses might not be as experienced with.
The clinical educator or professional development specialist will work with the new nurse and the unit’s preceptor to figure out what additional training or certification is necessary to bring them up to speed.
Clinical educators often also play an important role in ensuring patient and staff safety by conducting in-service training sessions for staff.