Should nurse academics engage in clinical practice?

The education of nurses has traditionally been conducted in the hospital based setting. This changed over the last few decades, with nursing education now being a tertiary based course in many countries. There were numerous reasons for this move, the main goal being to improve the educational experience of students and thus the competence of graduates. Nurse academics whose role is to educate students are faced with the challenge of ensuring their teaching reflects the contemporary nursing environment. One way of doing this is by actively engaging in clinical practice. However there are arguments for and against (as well as barriers to) them doing so and little empirical evidence to support either argument. Individually, nurse academics must make a decision about whether engaging in clinical practice is beneficial to their career and the students they teach.