SPECIAL SESSION: The Practitioner-Teacher Model from Christman to Today: Practice Academe Innovative Collaboration Award

Description/Overview: A renewed interest in practice academe partnerships has evolved recently due to several forces promoting linkages to enhance nursing care and patient focused outcomes. The focus on performance improvement initiatives, quality monitoring requirements, integration of evidence based practice in clinical nursing, and Magnet Recognition are a few of the current driving forces sparking the renewed interest in practice academe partnerships. Rush University Medical Center, a 620 bed tertiary institution, and Rush University College of Nursing enjoy a long history of linking education and practice through the practitioner-teacher (PT) model. The PT model was developed not simply as a dual appointment role, but rather an opportunity for full professional nursing development – in which the four major components of service, education, consultation, and research are integrated. The evolution of the PT model from the initial work of Dean Luther Christman, PhD RN FAAN, in 1972 to current unique partnerships between academe and clinical practice is discussed and examples cited. Resources needed and initial obstacles and challenges encountered are discussed as well as the positive impact seen on patient outcomes. Ongoing evaluation of the education, service, clinical and research goals is an essential component in ensuring success of the PT model and examples are presented. The PT model has been extended to numerous clinical and academic sites throughout the United States as faculty, students, and clinicians who have moved to other institutions have continued to utilize the model to promote education and clinical partnerships. The PT Model has served to optimize the way nursing practice and academe work together to accomplish the Honor Society’s vision of creating a global community of nurses who lead in using knowledge, scholarship, service and learning and to advance the profession and the discipline of nursing.