Performing dual roles in education and practice Experiences of lecturers who also work as clinicians: a literature review and study

NURSING MANAGEMENT June 2016 | Volume 23 | Number 3 31 and potential conflicts of interest between meeting independent practice areas and HEIs’ expectations (Bower 2002), as well as the challenges of working across organisations with different structures and role priorities (Redwood et al 2002). There is a lack of research into the effectiveness of these roles in bridging the theory-practice gap (Carson and Carnwell 2007, Hancock et al 2007), but what is evident is that a variety of roles have been developed to try to enhance the clinical credibility of nurse academics. This study aimed to investigate the roles of educators who hold two distinct and independent contracts, one as a part-time lecturer employed by an HEI, and one as a part-time practitioner employed by an NHS trust. One criticism levelled at full-time HEI-based nurse academics is that they lack clinical credibility (Barrett 2007). Despite the requirement for Correspondence [email protected]