Advanced Clinical Practice Education: designing an academic model to support the reality of practice: A Case Study

There is a considerable amount of evidence within the literature relating to advanced clinical practice in nursing, its impact on service provision, challenges to role identity and the introduction of advanced practice roles into clinical environments. However, there is little evidence in relation to curriculum design to support such development. This study aims to develop an understanding of the educational and clinical needs of nurses in their professional development towards advanced nursing practice and utilises educational theory and proposed models to offer insight into advanced practice programme design. This is a qualitative case study using multiple embedded participants of student advanced nurse practitioners and clinical medical supervisors. The data is captured through semi-structured individual interviews and respondents’ diaries and analysed using thematic analysis. Four key themes emerged from the data analysis: Confirmation, Clinical, Academia/Education and Reflection. Analysis of the emerging themes and educational theory has allowed for the proposal of suggested models that reflect the reality of practice and will support future advanced clinical practice curriculum design. Education providers should collaborate with health care providers and create curricula that are focused upon the clinical need of student advanced practitioners. Learning within clinical practice, should be supported by an educational programme content that relates to the reality of practice, keeping the learning in context and applicable.