Facilitating clinical transition in the midst of cultural diversity: Challenges and strategies

The clinical facilitator (CF) role has evolved to enable the clinical transition of the growing numbers of culturally and linguistically diverse overseas qualified (CALD OSQ) nurses who have brought nursing experience and knowledge to Australia. The presence of CALD OSQ nurses in Australia reflected globalisation patterns of nursing which contributed to the imbalance of the distribution of global health service delivery. The continued reliance on CALD OSQ nurses has added to the overwhelming health workforce shortages in developing nations. However the World Health Organisation (2010) proposed the origins of the health workforce crisis stemmed from the gulf between health professional education and standards of health service delivery. This study aimed to describe participant CFs’ views of the clinical transition challenges faced by CALD OSQ nurses during clinical practicum and their views on strategies to address these challenges. A gap in research was found on this topic