Commentary: Standing faculty clinician educator role should be adopted

Nursing schools and practice partners should adopt the standing faculty clinician educator role to integrate leadership, scholarship, teaching and clinical expertise seamlessly across academia and practice, states a Nursing Outlook commentary. Clinician educators hold academic credentials and institutional rights similar to tenured nursing faculty, with a portion of their salary attained through their clinical role. Through their positions in academia and practice, they align theoretical instruction with real-world clinical experiences to lead innovation. The clinical position enables them to augment nursing practice and research, improving outcomes, developing continuing education programming, identifying graduating nursing students for open clinical positions and offering clinical opportunities. Clinician educators benefit academia by identifying research questions based on practice, accessing participants for research and directly influencing clinical decision-making processes. (Nursing Outlook article, 4/20/26)