What does a clinical nursing instructor do?
Clinical nursing instructor responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real clinical nursing instructor resumes:
- Serve as clinical instructor for students in the process of achieving BSN degree, collaborating with doctorate prepare nursing professor.
- Complete clinical rotations in Med/Surg.
- Fall semester supervising and clinical instruction of entry level BSN students
- Focus: Educating/Mentoring/Training register nursing students in the medical surgical and ICU areas.
- Provide direct clinical supervision to associate degree nursing students for medical/ surgical and psychiatric patients.
- Teach Med-Surg lecture with assistance from faculty.
- Provide classroom and clinical instruction to ASN students.
- Coordinate recruitment and acceptance process of DNP students.
- Perform suctioning, tracheostomy, and gastric tube procedures.
- Provide instruction, guidance and perform evaluations for med/surg nursing students.
- Direct online MSN nursing course for pediatric nurse practitioner's program.
- Monitor patient's vital signs, response to surgery and anesthesia.
- Provide instruction for classes including health assessment, med-surg and childbearing nursing.
- Coordinate and provide clinical instruction during ICU rotation for senior nursing students.
- Lecture courses in medical-surgical, psychiatric, fundamentals of nursing in the classroom.
Clinical nursing instructor skills and personality traits
We calculated that 10% of Clinical Nursing Instructors are proficient in Patients, BSN, and Home Health. They’re also known for soft skills such as Interpersonal skills, Speaking skills, and Writing skills.
We break down the percentage of Clinical Nursing Instructors that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Patients, 10%
Educated and evaluated student nurses on nursing assessment and management of adult patients with selected acute and chronic illnesses/disease process.
- BSN, 8%
Coordinate and facilitate Hi and Low Fidelity Simulation experiences for BSN and Entry-Level MSN students and Kaiser Perinatal continuing education programs.
- Home Health, 6%
Varied home health agencies for clinical sites.
- Community Health, 5%
Provided clinical nursing instruction for senior students in their community health nursing rotation.
- Clinical Sites, 5%
Constructed psychotropic medication classroom teaching module for indications/side effects on medications commonly used at clinical site.
- Course Objectives, 5%
Communicated with students per course objectives and expectations and individual performance.
Most clinical nursing instructors use their skills in "patients," "bsn," and "home health" to do their jobs. You can find more detail on essential clinical nursing instructor responsibilities here:
Interpersonal skills. The most essential soft skill for a clinical nursing instructor to carry out their responsibilities is interpersonal skills. This skill is important for the role because "postsecondary teachers need to work well with others for tasks such as instructing students and serving on committees." Additionally, a clinical nursing instructor resume shows how their duties depend on interpersonal skills: "provided instruction regarding interpersonal communication with mentally ill patients. "
Speaking skills. Another essential skill to perform clinical nursing instructor duties is speaking skills. Clinical nursing instructors responsibilities require that "postsecondary teachers need good communication skills to present lectures and provide feedback to students." Clinical nursing instructors also use speaking skills in their role according to a real resume snippet: "addressed student learning differences and presented material in verbal, written and tactile formats. "
Writing skills. This is an important skill for clinical nursing instructors to perform their duties. For an example of how clinical nursing instructor responsibilities depend on this skill, consider that "postsecondary teachers need strong writing ability to publish original research and analysis." This excerpt from a resume also shows how vital it is to everyday roles and responsibilities of a clinical nursing instructor: "instructed bsn students in a clinical setting and evaluated student performance, graded student writing assignments".
The three companies that hire the most clinical nursing instructors are:
- WakeMed113 clinical nursing instructors jobs
- Adtalem Global Education32 clinical nursing instructors jobs
- Unitek Learning24 clinical nursing instructors jobs
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Compare different clinical nursing instructors
Clinical nursing instructor vs. Assistant professor of nursing
An assistant professor of nursing performs support tasks for professors and facilitates discussions for nursing students. They participate in creating lesson plans and coursework materials, organizing activities, liaising with internal and external parties, grading the students' performances, and teaching while under a professor's supervision. They may also facilitate laboratory activities and assist students in difficult areas. Moreover, an assistant professor monitors the student's progress regularly, all while helping professors maintain a safe and healthy learning environment for everyone.
There are some key differences in the responsibilities of each position. For example, clinical nursing instructor responsibilities require skills like "bsn," "home health," "program outcomes," and "long-term care." Meanwhile a typical assistant professor of nursing has skills in areas such as "dnp," "patient care," "curriculum development," and "medical-surgical." This difference in skills reveals the differences in what each career does.
Assistant professors of nursing tend to make the most money working in the health care industry, where they earn an average salary of $95,572. In contrast, clinical nursing instructors make the biggest average salary, $82,473, in the health care industry.On average, assistant professors of nursing reach similar levels of education than clinical nursing instructors. Assistant professors of nursing are 4.1% more likely to earn a Master's Degree and 6.8% more likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Clinical nursing instructor vs. Nursing department chairperson
Nursing faculty members are professionals who are responsible for providing education and instructional materials about topics that are related to the nursing profession. These professionals must maintain communication with the Director of Nursing to discuss the progress and concerns of their nursing students. They are required to facilitate professional development skills workshops among nursing students as well as participate in college and community service. These professionals must also negotiate and collaborate with hospital facilities to provide clinical experiences for their junior nursing students.
While some skills are similar in these professions, other skills aren't so similar. For example, resumes show us that clinical nursing instructor responsibilities requires skills like "home health," "clinical sites," "course objectives," and "mental health." But a nursing department chairperson might use other skills in their typical duties, such as, "educational programs," "ccne," "curriculum development," and "program evaluation."
Average education levels between the two professions vary. Nursing department chairpeople tend to reach similar levels of education than clinical nursing instructors. In fact, they're 2.9% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 6.8% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.What technology do you think will become more important and prevalent for clinical nursing instructors in the next 3-5 years?
Chris Robinson
Clinical Resource Director, NCOPE
Clinical nursing instructor vs. Nursing faculty
There are many key differences between these two careers, including some of the skills required to perform responsibilities within each role. For example, a clinical nursing instructor is likely to be skilled in "bsn," "program outcomes," "clinical teaching," and "long-term care," while a typical nursing faculty is skilled in "student learning," "course content," "curriculum development," and "course materials."
Nursing faculties earn the best pay in the health care industry, where they command an average salary of $69,115. Clinical nursing instructors earn the highest pay from the health care industry, with an average salary of $82,473.nursing faculties typically earn higher educational levels compared to clinical nursing instructors. Specifically, they're 10.4% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree, and 3.9% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Clinical nursing instructor vs. Nursing teacher
Even though a few skill sets overlap between clinical nursing instructors and nursing teachers, there are some differences that are important to note. For one, a clinical nursing instructor might have more use for skills like "patients," "bsn," "home health," and "community health." Meanwhile, some responsibilities of nursing teachers require skills like "patient care," "student learning," "in-service education," and "emergency care. "
The health care industry tends to pay the highest salaries for nursing teachers, with average annual pay of $95,761. Comparatively, the highest clinical nursing instructor annual salary comes from the health care industry.nursing teachers reach lower levels of education compared to clinical nursing instructors, in general. The difference is that they're 14.2% more likely to earn a Master's Degree, and 1.7% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Types of clinical nursing instructor
Updated January 8, 2025
