International Perspectivesof Nurses, Midwives and Allied Health Professionals Clinical Academic Roles: Are We at Tipping Point?

Abstract

Healthcare research activity improves patient outcomes. Nurses, Midwives and Allied Health Professions (NMAHPs) make an important contribution to clinical research. Within the United Kingdom (UK), there is a 25-year history of increasing healthcare research capacity and capability through clinical academic roles. Medical colleagues were the first to introduce the role in 2005. In 2007, a national policy identified inequalities in access to and success of research training fellowships between medical and nursing healthcare professionals. This was followed by a number of national initiatives, which continue to evolve to the present day. There is evidence that the UK has reached the 'tipping point' to increase NMAHP research capacity and capability through clinical academic roles. Despite these initiatives substantial gaps remain. Outside, the UK, the term 'clinical academic' is not well understood. There is evidence of the presence of senior clinical academic roles, a clinical professor within Australia and the United States, for example, but there is a lack of opportunities and of a formulised research training pathway at a junior level. There is interest and appreciation of the NMAHP research-active clinical academic within the clinical setting in the Nordic countries and China, but the pace of change is slow due to co-existing priorities involving change and innovation. There is a need to develop and agree both national and international definitions that describes the NMAHP research-focused clinical academic role activity.

A qualitative systematic review and thematic synthesis exploring the impacts of clinical academic activity by healthcare professionals outside medicine

“…We acknowledge that the thematic analysis and coding of the extracted data may have been interpreted differently by reviewers from different backgrounds. Furthermore, the definition of clinical academic activity used in our review differs from that used elsewhere [ 45 , 52 ]. However, the absence of an agreed definition has been recognised [ 45 ] and the overlap of our findings with the existing literature support our review processes and findings [ 1 , 10 ].…”

What place does nurse‐led research have in the COVID‐19 pandemic?

“…For example, 306 nurses currently hold substantive chairs in UK Higher Education institutions, less than 0.05% of nursing and midwifery active registrants, and clinical academics make up 0.1% of the nursing, midwifery, and allied health professional workforce, compared with ~5% in the medical profession (Council of Deans 2018). The situation across the world does not seem any more favourable, with structural hurdles such as absent formal clinical academic training pathways in Australia, scarce –yet increasing – opportunities in the US (Carter et al 2020), or insufficient research investment and policy incentives in China (Carrick‐Sen et al 2019), to cite some examples. The acute shortage of nurses and nursing faculty afflicting African countries would limit opportunities to expand training, education, and research capacity due to few doctoral‐educated nurses, restricting even more the prospects for nurses to enrol in doctoral programmes (Bvumbwe & Mtshali 2018; Sun et al 2017; Sun & Larson 2015).…”

Addressing barriers to the conduct and application of research in complementary and alternative medicine: a scoping review

“…lack of dedicated research training for CAM disciplines) [81], in clinical practice (i.e lack of incentives and time, financial disincentives and the need to ensure financial survivability [82]) and the lack of a research culture [35]. Notwithstanding, these barriers are shared across several health disciplines, including medical [17,83] and allied health [84][85][86][87][88][89][90].…”