Becoming a Health Profession Educator in Higher Education: The experiences of recently-appointed lecturers in Nursing, Midwifery and the Allied Health Professions.

This study was designed to investigate the experiences of new lecturers in higher education in the UK in the professional field of nursing, midwifery and allied health professions (occupational therapists, physiotherapists, diagnostic radiographers and therapeutic radiographers). The small body of existing research suggested that the transition for these practitioners as they become lecturers in higher education is challenging and that current forms of support during induction are not always effective. This study asks how new health care professional lecturers experience their transition from clinical to academic roles. It focuses on the first five years of experience after appointment to higher education and aims to inform strategies for academic induction. A number of key themes emerged from the analysis. In the UK new university lecturers in nursing, midwifery and allied health professions are generally appointed after establishing themselves as expert clinicians with associated practices and identities. They find the mid career transition to their higher education roles challenging. They generally enjoy the challenge, feel well supported and are highly motivated by nurturing new practitioners. They experience considerable tensions within their transition related both to managing their new role and the different workplace activities and priorities within it. Only a small minority of the new lecturers hold a doctorate on their appointment to higher education, they mainly see gaining a doctorate and becoming research active as an important ambition but the pressures of their working lives make this difficult to prioritise