The life of a nurse preceptor can be demanding. Take students under your wing and teach them the ins and outs of being a proper nurse practitioner. Maintain the already-elevated patient load you were managing. Do it all for no additional pay.
Dr. Debra Casper wanted to come up with a way to thank them.
“We are extremely appreciative of our preceptors, and there was a lot of brainstorming about what we could do to engage them that they would want to continue to precept for us at Marquette,” says Casper, clinical instructor and program director of the Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner program.
Casper and adjunct faculty member Peggy Conroy devised a half-day continuing education conference for preceptors, which was held in Clark Hall in May. Advanced practice nurses who serve as professional preceptors at Marquette gathered in a lecture hall to hear from their colleagues on subjects ranging from pharmacologic treatment of acute psychiatric problems to geriatric health and medication management. The conference helps satisfy the continuing education requirement for nurse practitioners, which mandates at least eight credits of continuing educational units per year to maintain their Wisconsin Advanced Practice Nurse Prescriber licenses. Most often, these requirements are satisfied by attending conferences, which incurs travel, lodging and registration expenses for nurses and their employers.
Historically, there were no conferences in the Milwaukee area that satisfied these requirements — until now. Attendees received four CEUs at no cost. Kyle Paulsen, a neuro-ICU nurse practitioner at Advocate Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center who precepts Marquette students, says it was valuable to hear from nursing experts in a convenient setting.
“I think it helps me know what everyone else is learning and keeps me on top of my game, and it’s great that I get to pass some of that knowledge along to students,” Paulsen says.
Marquette nurse practitioner students are guaranteed a preceptor for each placement in their 18 months of clinical rotations, during which they must spend at least 750 hours in direct patient care. Each clinical instructor handles a group of nurse practitioner students no larger than eight. However, each graduate nurse practitioner student is paired with a practicing provider for a one-on-one preceptor placement.
Most nurses who become preceptors do it because, once upon a time, somebody did likewise for them.
“There’s this pay it forward philosophy of if somebody did it for me, I should do it for somebody else,” Conroy said.
“I think coming from parents who were both public high school teachers, there’s something down in my genes that calls me to it,” Paulsen says. “But I think more than anything, I chose to be a preceptor so I can help students take what is being taught in the classroom and apply it in real life.”
However, the nationwide nursing shortage is making it harder to recruit preceptors. Systemic understaffing means each nurse must handle more patients, leaving them less time and mental bandwidth to train others.
“We’re already seeing people struggling with work-life balance in the hospital and in the clinics. Providers are asked to do more and more in a shorter period,” Conroy says.
“Preceptors have so many other commitments, so if there’s anything that I can do as a Marquette faculty or program director to make it easier for my preceptors to meet their needs for recertification and re-licensure, it seems like such a small but important thing to do as a sign of gratitude,” Casper says.
There are other efforts underway to make the value proposition for preceptors more attractive. Some states have a preceptor tax credit, which would allow those who train nursing students to reduce their income taxes. (Casper says she would support such a law in Wisconsin.) In the absence of this legislation, Casper would like to expand her continuing education classes to two times per year so Marquette preceptors will be able to get all their credits within the local area.
Even though precepting can be a heavy lift for current nurse practitioners, they know that one day, they, too, will depend on the care of a nurse practitioner. Getting more people interested in mentoring the next generation is a crucial part of advancing the profession.
“We want the best care of our patients, but we want the best care of ourselves, too, so we are driven on multiple levels to have high performing students because we know that’s the future,” Conroy says.
