THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF CLINICAL EDUCATORS

This phenomenological study was undertaken to discover the everyday me anings which clinical educators of pre-registration Bachelor of Nursin g students attached to their experiences as clinical educators, The re searcher employed a qualitative design using audiotaped in-depth inter views with four registered nurses employed as clinical educators in fo ur different schools of nursing in Victoria, Australia. Using hermeneu tics, thematic analysis revealed five themes of meaning central to the lived experiences of clinical educators. They are: (a) being human, ( b) having standards, (c) developing own teaching style, (d) learn as y ou go, and (e) not belonging. The first three themes are described in the literature on clinical education, however, the latter two are uniq ue to this research. The results of this study indicate there is need for extensive preparation and on-going support of clinical educators. The researcher, who is respectful of the enormity of the task which ed ucators face in preparing students for practice, speculates whether cl inical educators are the vanguards of student learning in the clinical field. It is evident that the participants of this study did not poss ess many of the role requirements of clinical educators identified in the literature, Further studies are needed which explore the link betw een student learning and clinical educator support.