Pedagogical Nursing Practice: Redefining nursing practice for the academic nurse educator.

The role of the nurse educator in the academy is one that is very complex in nature. It involves skills not only to be an effective educationalist, nurse researcher and active scholarly academic disseminating findings and new knowledge to enrich the healthcare arena, but still requires those skills that belong to that of an expert nurse. Academic nurse educators seem to have been distanced from the nursing discipline along the way. It is the author's intention to bring them back into the scope of the nursing profession, introduce and define her concept of Pedagogical Nursing Practice, and illustrate how much of a beacon the academic nurse educator truly is, in order for the profession to perpetuate and prosper.