The clinical nurse specialist's role as coach in a clinical practice development model

Over the past 5 years, nursing leadership at St. Luke's Medical Center in Milwaukee has been considering various mechanisms in response to recurrent comments from nursing staff regarding our career ladder. A lack of satisfaction with our career ladder led to the adoption of a new model for nursing. This shift from a career ladder to a clinical ladder has taken place over many years. In April 1994 all staff nurses were staged and transitioned to a clinical practice development model (CPDM). The CPDM is based solely on nursing practice. Our new model was developed from more than 100 narratives of clinical practice submitted by nurses at St. Luke's. Narratives are first-person accounts of an actual clinical experience. The model is based on research conducted by Patricia Benner, PhD, RN, which focused on how nurses acquired their clinical skills and what characteristics are embedded in nurses' practice. This article describes the clinical nurse specialist (CNS) role as a "coach" in facilitating nursing staff transition from a career ladder to a CPDM. The CNS is in a unique position to contribute directly to quality patient care, and also indirectly by fostering professional growth and development of staff nurses. CPDM supports staff development along a continuum. The challenge for the CNS role is to further develop the coaching role to move staff along the continuum.