| The current nursing shortage and nursing faculty shortage has created a climate where more students added to programs of nursing require extra clinical faculty to teach clinical courses. Emergency-hiring of clinical instructors, last minute, where demand is high and supply is low, creates situations where the new teacher is unprepared for the role. The purpose of this study was to investigate first-year learning by novice clinical nursing faculty hired into a program of nursing where clinical faculty positions were not filled within several weeks before the start of the semester.;The sample included 10 emergency-hire novice clinical instructors from 3 private West Coast Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) programs and 3 nursing program administrators from the same schools. In-depth interviews were conducted with each participant and data were analyzed seeking themes that resonated and emerged from the data.;Analysis of the data suggests that novice emergency-hire nursing instructors primarily relied on themselves, learned through trial and error, had limited support from the nursing program, employed past knowledge gained from former teacher education if present, and relied on peers in their place of nursing employment for advice and mentoring. Learning was influenced greatly by the clinical setting where they were placed and whether they were employed as a nurse there or not. Those who were not employed in their place of work had a more severe learning challenge as they began to negotiate two new employment settings simultaneously, the university campus and nursing program, and the unfamiliar hospital setting where they were responsible for teaching and learning experiences for up to 10 students. The new instructors saw themselves mainly as liaisons between the students and the nursing staff at the hospital, novice clinical instructors, and loosely as adjunct faculty of the university and BSN program. Performing student performance evaluations and correcting clinical paperwork were difficult for all instructors, and the lack of direction or help with this process continued throughout the semester or rotation. Program administrators added perspective to the faculty shortage impact on their nursing programs and how they are attempting to address the shortfalls related to orientation and mentoring of new faculty.;The findings of this study illuminate the trials of novice clinical nursing instructors' new-employee learning and inform programs of nursing about what support is required for the new hires to achieve success as clinical instructors in a program of nursing. Retention of new clinical faculty remains a high priority as the nursing faculty shortage and nursing shortage persist. |
