Clinical Scholar Workshop

February 13 – 17, 2023

 $1850 per student

Nursing Contact Hours are available for this workshop.

Contact Michelle Cheuvront: Michelle@ColoradoNursingCenter.org

Colorado Center for Nursing Excellence (CNE) Clinical Scholar Program

Are you ready to take your clinical expertise to the next level? Do you want to pay-it-forward to the next generation of nurses? Do you enjoy working with student nurses and wish you had more knowledge and skill on how to be more effective? If so,  the CNE Clinical Scholar Program is for you!

 What is a CNE Clinical Scholar?

The skills needed to lead a diverse group of nursing students in a clinical rotation are not inherent, even for the most experienced nurses. It takes specific preparation to ensure you are meeting the individual needs of the students.

• How do you organize the clinical day for students?
• What are the best approaches for dealing with “difficult” students?
• How do I evaluate student competency and ensure they are safe with patients?
• What support do students need to be successful?
• What are your legal and ethical responsibilities to the students?

A CNE Clinical Scholar is an experienced registered nurse (BSN or higher) who works with schools of nursing to instruct nursing students in a clinical setting and has completed the Center’s Clinical Scholar Program. Clinical Scholars assist with the valuable, hands-on instruction that can only be provided by skilled, expert nurses. Clinical Scholars are “real” nurses that provide expert guidance and mentoring to novice student nurses.

Who Should Attend?

The CNE Clinical Scholar Program was created to support the professional development of experienced nurses focused on supporting nursing students in the clinical setting.  In order to attend the program, you should hold at least a BSN, and be available to lead clinical rotations (please discuss with your current employer first).  Participants range from staff nurses to unit educators in the clinical setting, as well as clinical instructors and new clinical faculty from the academic setting.  Nurses from across the continuum of care can attend, as the content is not just focused on acute care. The 40-hour, weeklong program requires full and active participation, as the content builds each day and provides practice with a complete toolbox of strategies by the end of the program.

Program Background

In Colorado, the two main barriers to reducing the nursing shortage relate to the lack of clinical placements and lack of clinical faculty needed to support nursing student education. The Colorado Center for Nursing Excellence (CNE) has been leading a statewide initiative since 2005 focused on increasing the number and competency of nurses working with nursing students in the clinical setting.  The original program was started with a Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE) grant to train 45 Scholars and the program has been sustained with three courses a year annually and now over 1800 CNE Clinical Scholars have been trained.

The program has undergone continuous rapid-cycle process improvement to ensure the curriculum includes the best practices and evidenced-based strategies for educating students in the clinical environment and for growing nurses’ clinical judgement. Program outcomes demonstrate significant improvement in student learning with increases in quality and safety of patient care, improved satisfaction of staff nurses working with students, improved patient satisfaction, and improved nurse satisfaction and retention making the program a standard of practice for many schools and clinical agencies across Colorado. The content aligns to the National League for Nursing’s (NLN) Clinical Nurse Educator Competencies, the National Council of State Boards of Nursing’s (NCSBN) Clinical Judgment Model and state Scopes of Practice, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) Essentials and Core Competencies for Professional Nursing Education, the International Nursing Association for Clinical Simulation and Learning (INACSL) Standards and ensures the promotion and appreciation of diversity, equity, and inclusion aligned to the Future of Nursing Report and the National Commission on Racism in Nursing’s findings.

Since 2020, we shifted the delivery of this five-day program to virtual making this invaluable program easier to attend for those outside of the Denver area and beyond Colorado. The highly interactive and experiential program is presented by expert faculty and CNE Clinical Scholars representing both practice and academia and provides a complete toolbox of strategies to support clinical education.

For more information about the program, please email:

• For Logistics and Scheduling: Michelle Cheuvront, Senior Project Coordinator at Michelle@ColoradoNursingCenter.org
• For Content or Program Outcomes: Deborah Center, Chief Program Officer and Clinical Scholar Facilitator at Deb@ColoradoNursingCenter.org.

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Colorado Center for Nursing Excellence is approved as a provider of nursing continuing professional development by the Colorado Nurses Association, an accredited approver by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.