First, I would like to apologise for the new-born cries that sometimes come up in the background during the podcast. It has been one of the biggest adventures of my life and I am loving every moment of it.

Second, I hope you enjoy this episode. It is the first one that I’m recording on my own and, as I’m editing, I realised that I have loads of “mannerisms” as I’m recording. Definitely something to develop and work on for future episodes.

The central concept is “role model” and, in this episode, I discuss my views on how to utilise this as a clinical post-registration education strategy in nursing. This goes through knowing the conceptual, the practicalities and the reflection elements of role modelling.

I touched on Bandura’s theory of social learning (Krapp, 2015) and how he explores role model as part of the learning process in its concept, including attention, retention, motor reproduction and probably the most important aspect in it, motivation. After that, I explore the more practical approach to role modelling coming from research and clinical environments, such as knowledge, teaching skills and attitudes that make a good role model. To rap it up, I talk about reflection as it is mention constantly throughout the literature as an essential aspect of effective role modelling.

For this episode, I used the following references:

• Baldwin, A. et al. (2014) ‘Role modeling in undergraduate nursing education: An integrative literature review’, Nurse Education Today, 34(6), pp. e18–e26. doi: 10.1016/j.nedt.2013.12.007.
• Beth Perry, R. N. (2009) ‘Role modeling excellence in clinical nursing practice’, Nurse Education in Practice, 9(1), pp. 36–44. doi: 10.1016/j.nepr.2008.05.001.
• Cruess, S. R., Cruess, R. L. and Steinert, Y. (2008) ‘Teaching rounds: Role modelling - Making the most of a powerful teaching strategy’, Bmj, 336(7646), pp. 718–721. doi: 10.1136/bmj.39503.757847.BE.
•  Gibbs, S. S. and Kulig, J. C. (2017) ‘“We definitely are role models”: Exploring how clinical instructors’ influence nursing students’ attitudes towards older adults’, Nurse Education in Practice, 26, pp. 74–81. doi: 10.1016/j.nepr.2017.07.006.
• Horsburgh, J. and Ippolito, K. (2018) ‘A skill to be worked at: Using social learning theory to explore the process of learning from role models in clinical settings’, BMC Medical Education, 18(1), pp. 1–8. doi: 10.1186/s12909-018-1251-x.
• Klunklin, A. et al. (2011) ‘Role model behaviors of nursing faculty members in Thailand’, Nursing and Health Sciences, 13(1), pp. 84–87. doi: 10.1111/j.1442-2018.2011.00585.x.
• Krapp, K. (2015) Psychologists and their theories for students: Albert Bandura. Gale.
• Nouri, J. M. et al. (2013) ‘Qualitative study of humanization-based nursing education focused on role modeling by instructors’, Nursing and Health Sciences, 15(2), pp. 137–143. doi: 10.1111/j.1442-2018.2012.00732.x.

Feel free to leave some feedback and your views on this topic in the comments section in blog Teach Me, I'm a Nurse.

Again, as I said in the episode, this is my view on topic and I’m sure, as I’m only now starting to explore this topic, I still have much to learn.