New Clinical Nurse Faculty Orientation: A Review of the Literature

The aim of this literature review was to obtain relevant information and research findings about orientation for new clinical nurse faculty.

Hiring clinical experts as clinical faculty is common practice to address the nurse faculty shortage. As clinical experts do not possess the pedagogical expertise needed for effective teaching, they require specialized orientation when entering a faculty role. There is no consensus as to best practices for new clinical faculty orientation due to a dearth of research in this area.

A comprehensive search of the literature was conducted to obtain relevant information and research findings about orientation for new clinical nursing faculty.

Current orientation strategies include face-to-face, hybrid, and mentoring components. The limited empirical research is mostly descriptive or pilot studies.

More research is needed on the effectiveness of various forms of orientation for new clinical faculty to support clinical faculty competence, patient safety, and evidence-based practices in this area.