Becoming a Healthcare Educator
From Healthcare Professional to Educator: Transitioning to a Teaching Role in Healthcare
Clinical practice is deeply impactful, allowing hardworking professionals to connect with patients and help them lead healthier lives. However, not all worthwhile healthcare professions are strictly clinical. Educators share a similar desire to support patients but take a distinct avenue toward achieving this end, as they inspire and support the many clinical professionals, including nurses, pharmacists and other specialists, who then draw on their rich knowledge to improve patient outcomes.
This path can be rewarding but requires a major adjustment — shifting both mindset and routines from a fast-paced clinical setting to a slower yet still complex instructional environment. The right degree or certificate can promote a seamless transition, as we will reveal below:
What Is a Health Educator?
A health educator draws on an in-depth understanding of health, wellness, and the healthcare profession to promote positive outcomes and help a variety of people improve their physical and mental health. This is a diverse role that can include everything from health and wellness coaching to nursing education and even instructional design. While health education is a diverse field, these professionals share a common desire to share their knowledge and to empower the many people or communities they support.
Why Transition Into Healthcare Education?
As a nurse educator, you can play a crucial role in bridging the gap between clinical practice and education. Healthcare education encourages accomplished clinical professionals to continue doing what they do best, which is sharing their passion and expertise to drive positive change. However, who they support differs, as does their scope of work. Instead of working exclusively with patients, they can support fellow healthcare professionals. Reasons for navigating this transition may feel deeply personal, but many healthcare educators point to these key advantages:
Increased Demand for Healthcare Educators
There is a strong demand for expertise across all areas of the healthcare sector, with existing skill gaps often making it difficult for employers to meet staffing needs. This has led to a growing demand for healthcare educators who help bridge skill gaps by equipping aspiring professionals with the knowledge and competencies needed for success.
Opportunities to Impact Healthcare Professionals
Healthcare educators find their work deeply meaningful because they enjoy inspiring and empowering other healthcare professionals. With extensive first hand experience, they recognize the profound impact of healthcare workers on patients and communities. Their goal is to enhance these benefits by training the next generation of dedicated healthcare leaders.
Career Stability and Professional Growth in Education
Many people enter the healthcare field because they have a strong desire for career stability and advancement. Healthcare education can satisfy both needs. Strong demand means that educators are easily able to find meaningful work, but higher-level opportunities provide the ongoing satisfaction of achieving professional growth while climbing a unique yet gratifying career ladder.
Tips for a Smooth Transition
Are you excited to make a difference through the power of healthcare education? This transition could spark a rewarding career path, but you will want to plan carefully to ensure that you are fully prepared for the challenges that lie ahead. Follow these suggestions to make this transition feel as smooth and stress-free as possible:
Seek Mentorship From Experienced Healthcare Educators
All healthcare professionals, educators included, can benefit from mentorship, which provides sustained support. Experienced healthcare educators can serve as amazing mentors, drawing on first-hand experience regarding the unique transition between clinical care and instructional guidance. Inspiring mentors can be found through networking or by getting involved with formal mentorship programs.
Take Advantage of Faculty Development Programs
Bringing the power of continuing education into the academic world, faculty development programs encourage instructors to explore new techniques, offering a deeper dive into critical areas such as curriculum design or active learning. These programs aim to keep healthcare educators up-to-date with evolving instructional trends and standards. They may be offered directly through academic institutions or via relevant professional associations, but are always worth exploring.
Join Professional Organizations
As an experienced healthcare professional, you likely understand the value of professional organizations that offer valuable support and educational opportunities. Organizations such as the American Nurses Association (ANA) may have served you well throughout your clinical career, but now, you may need additional support from organizations more closely aligned with your future career path. Trusted organizations include the Society for Simulation in Healthcare (SSH) and the National League for Nursing.
Stay Connected to the Clinical Field
As you explore educational opportunities, don't forget about your clinical background. Staying connected ensures you fully understand what today's clinical professionals need, which new challenges they face, and how they can benefit from additional instruction. This can also be valuable for networking, uncovering opportunities in corporate training, or identifying professional development gaps you can effectively fill.
Where Can Health Educators Work?
Many healthcare educators pursue graduate degrees in higher education to refine their instructional skills. Health education opportunities abound. Passionate educators can share their knowledge and expertise in many environments, ranging from academic institutions to clinical facilities and even in corporate settings.
Universities and Colleges
As faculty members, health educators teach various foundational and specialized courses, exposing students to research-backed insights while encouraging them to develop soft skills such as critical thinking or communication. Higher education may embrace traditional classrooms but increasingly involves online programs, which maintain a high level of instruction while expanding access to diverse student populations.
H3: Vocational and Technical Schools
Many aspiring clinical professionals seek training through vocational programs, which emphasize hands-on skill development over theoretical coursework. Common examples include nursing diploma programs or bridge programs such as the LPN to RN. Other opportunities could involve training future medical assistants or other allied health professionals. In vocational settings, hands-on training is strongly encouraged, with healthcare educators providing direct support as students develop tangible skills.
Hospital-Based Education Programs
While clinical education largely involves academic settings (representing a marked shift from the hospital-based diploma programs of yesteryear), there is still a strong need for clinical learning experiences that help professionals transition from academic settings to real-world healthcare facilities.
This is where contemporary hospital-based opportunities come into play. These can expose aspiring professionals to practical challenges while making this transitional learning curve feel a bit less overwhelming.
Health educators may provide direct instruction to promote the hands-on application of clinical skills and theories or may coordinate with these hospital-based programs to ensure that clinical experiences align with conceptual or classroom-based instruction.
Corporate Training Roles in Healthcare Organizations
Healthcare employers recognize the value of continuous learning and are eager to bring professional development opportunities directly to current healthcare workers. This often involves corporate training, which addresses skill gaps while improving employee engagement. Healthcare educators can help design these programs or may deliver instructional experiences tailored to the unique culture or objectives of the corporations they serve.
Professional Development Programs
Offering structured and accessible opportunities for current healthcare professionals to refine and elevate their clinical skills, professional development programs acknowledge the need for ongoing instruction. These learning opportunities are provided through many institutions or organizations but frequently involve continuing education (CE), which may be required to maintain licensure. Healthcare educators may help design or deliver CE experiences that help experienced professionals keep their skills fresh and up-to-date with industry developments.
Pathways to Becoming a Healthcare Educator
Do you feel drawn to the health education opportunities highlighted above? Your shift from clinical care to education could prove deeply rewarding, but you may quickly discover that instructional skills are just as complicated as the clinical competencies you've already worked so hard to master. Multiple pathways encourage you to explore educational philosophies, assessment instruments, and evidence-based pedagogical strategies.
Education Requirements
Different healthcare education roles call for different levels of training. Health coaching, for example, may not involve strict educational requirements, but many academic or clinical instructors are expected to train at the graduate level. For instance, it is common to draw on a blend of clinical and pedagogical-focused training, combining a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) with an education-focused master's (such as the Master of Science in Education for Health Care Professionals). Depending on educational goals, a graduate-level certificate may prove sufficient, offering a basic overview of curriculum development and evaluation strategies, along with fascinating insights into instructional pedagogy.
Gaining Teaching Experience
Experience can dramatically improve instructional quality, allowing health educators to draw on their unique backgrounds and stories as they help students understand difficult concepts or learn from new perspectives. While many educators enter this field following years of clinical experience, additional teaching experience must also be pursued. This allows educators to discover which instructional strategies resonate best with different types of students.
There are many ways to gain teaching experience, and for many aspiring educators, the practicum forms the basis for applying theoretical concepts and actively implementing research-backed techniques. This is a critical part of the master's in healthcare education, offering valuable exposure to relevant academic or healthcare settings. Much like clinical rotations promote a seamless transition from classroom to clinic, practicums help future educators feel confident as they bring educational experiences to life.
Challenges and How to Overcome Them
The transition between education and healthcare can be deeply rewarding, but challenges should be expected along the way. These often relate to scheduling concerns, as aspiring educators often continue to work in the healthcare field while enrolled in master's programs.
It can be difficult to find balance when dealing with demanding work schedules and rigorous coursework, but online classes help. This limits the need for commuting while promoting a flexible schedule and encouraging graduate students to learn at their own pace. Other challenges may involve adjusting to the decidedly different pace of the academic environment while learning to meet new and decidedly different expectations. Real-world experiences such as practicums can make this transition feel less overwhelming.
Discover a Bright Future in Education and Healthcare
As you prepare to make your mark in healthcare education, consider how you will train for this new role. The right program can help you make a seamless transition, allowing you to expand your skill set as you find new ways to connect with students or patients. Whether you hope to eventually work as a clinical instructor, a nurse educator, or an instructional designer, you can look to graduate-level education to help you make a seamless transition.
Texas A&M can elevate this unique professional journey. Our Education for Healthcare Professionals (EDHP) programs are specifically designed for passionate healthcare professionals who want to expand their reach through the power of education. Reach out today to learn more about this exciting opportunity
Sources
https://medicine.tamu.edu/degrees/edhp.html
https://www.nchec.org/guide-to-health-education-careers
https://www.nursingworld.org/content-hub/resources/nursing-resources/becoming-a-nurse-educator/
https://www.myamericannurse.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/ant10-EDUCATION-Educator-919.pdf
https://www.aacnnursing.org/news-data/fact-sheets/nursing-faculty-shortage