Getting to the root of it: How do faculty address professional boundaries, role expansion, and intra-professional collaboration?

Abstract

Background: Little research exists to guide nursing faculty to respond to the most recent entry-to-practice education changes and subsequent practice and knowledge expansion for nurses. The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of faculty as they teach about professional boundaries and role clarity to college and university nursing students and how this teaching is connected to in intra-professional collaboration.Methods: This qualitative research study used a critical feminist sociology to analyze interviews and relevant documents. Twenty-five nursing faculty from an Ontario, Canada school were interviewed.Results: Through our analysis we detected two main findings. The first was the activation of hierarchies positioning the university program with more status and legitimacy than the college program, and how this established power relations and impeded nursing education for role clarity. The second was the struggle to articulate the actual differences between the roles and contributions of the Registered Practical Nurse (RPN) and the Registered Nurse (RN) and how this struggle impeded education for effective collaboration and role clarity.Conclusions: Supporting faculty to recognize the distinct and overlapping contributions of each type of nurse can support educational reform that promotes competencies in collaborative care.

The Role of University Faculty in Degree Program Sustainability: An Experienced-Based Framework

“…Recognition of the distinct and overlapping contributions of each faculty member can support educational reform that promotes competencies in collaborative teaching (Limoges et al, 2018). University methods have been identified as critical for integrating sustainability in HEIs by linking diverse activities such as teaching, research, campus operations, and strategies targeted at community and stakeholder involvement and participation (Lozano, Ceulemans, Alonso-Almeida, Huisingh, Waas, Lambrechts, Lukman, & Huge, 2015;Sterling, Maxey, & Luna, 2013).…”

Investigating the Effects of Intraprofessional Learning in Nursing Education: Protocol for a Longitudinal Study

“…However, collaborative learning between nursing students is researched in few studies and therefore there is a critical need to conduct outcomes-based research in this area. The few existing studies that report the effect of IaPL in pre-registration nursing education courses are mostly from the USA or Canada (for example, [ 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 ]) but none are from Australia. To enhance collaborative nursing care, nursing education that emphasizes role clarity, promotes communication and develops scope of practice via various shared learning experiences, is required [ 16 , 20 , 21 ].…”

Interprofessional collaboration in home-based community care programs: A leadership imperative

“…Inter and intra-professional collaboration is a complex social process that requires careful and deliberate development. [14][15][16] Despite the willingness of health providers to collaborate, most do not know how to do so effectively and require education to learn this skill and about the contributions of other healthcare providers. [17][18][19] Interprofessional collaboration can be difficult when professional groups create boundaries around their work to protect their domain of practice and when services begin to overlap.…”

“…Leadership, policy and education can support effective inter-and intra-professional collaboration and assist professionals to work toward patient centered healthcare delivery. [1,15,16,23,24] This research begins to address these knowledge gaps.…”