Entering 2025 with a renewed perspective

For me, 2024 was a tornado that enveloped me with great intensity, hung on for months, and then suddenly let go – leaving blue skies, sunshine, and a sense of peace. I am grateful to begin the New Year in a new environment, as it provides a fresh perspective on my personal goals.

A pic I took from the waterfront park in my new hometown.

As we approach 2025, however, I feel a professional obligation to advocate more for reform in nursing education. I believe we have moved beyond the knowledge-practice gap in nursing (which was first discussed in the 1960’s!), and it has been almost 15 years since Benner and colleagues published Educating Nurses – yet radical change has yet to occur.

When I decided to become a teacher, I felt compelled to pursue a degree in nursing education, as I wanted to make sure I was well equipped to serve in this role. Despite doing this, and after almost a decade of teaching in academic settings, I second guess myself more often now than I ever did at the bedside. Of late, this questioning mostly surrounds my own ability to effectively “walk the walk” of competency-based education.

At face value, competency-based education should be a commonsense approach for learning in nursing. Yet, there are so many questions and a good deal of confusion about its use, especially in relation to the competencies and sub-competencies put forth in the AACN Essentials. To better understand what concerns me about my own ability to teach for competency, I plan to explore some facilitators of competency learning over the next several blog posts. I’ll also appraise some of the obstacles that prevent competency learning from becoming the much-needed reform in nursing education. I hope you’ll engage and feel comfortable sharing your own ideas on these topics, because honest and open discourse is necessary for sustainable change to occur.

. . . trying to get more comfortable with AI in the new year too!

I am grateful that the CBNE network exists, because our grass-roots approach allows all who wish to promote change in nursing education to do so in ways they find personally and professionally meaningful. For some, involvement with the CBNE community includes participating in collaborative research, for others, learning about an innovative practice and integrating it into their teaching activities is a more comfortable approach. It’s all good though – because anything we do moves us forward in an educational environment that is stuck some 20+ years behind other health professions. Much like the tortoise and hare – slow and steady wins the race!

Wishing each of you a joyous holiday season and the happiest new year!