Teaching Basic (Biomedical) Sciences in Nursing Degrees: The Role of Registered Nurses | Biomedgrid

Background and Aim: Basic (Biomedical) Sciences are essential components of undergraduate and graduate Nursing curricula. Faculty members teaching Basic (Biomedical Sciences) in these curricula do not have nursing background and/or qualifications. The aim of this article is to shed the light on the importance of hiring registered nurses with postgraduate qualification in Basic (Biomedical) Sciences to teach in undergraduate and postgraduate Nursing curricula. Method: A detailed systematic search of the various nursing, health, and biomedical databases was conducted. These included PubMed, EMBASE, Medline, Web of Science, PsycINFO, ERIC, and the Cochrane Library. The time interval for the search was from 1970 until 2019. A combination of Mesh terms was used in our search, including Nursing, Nursing Degree, Nursing Curriculum, Contextual Learning, Experiential Learning, Teaching, Subject Expert, Biomedical Sciences, Basic Sciences, Anatomy, Physiology, Embryology, Pathophysiology, Histology, Pharmacology, Biochemistry, Microbiology, Immunology, Statistics. Results: Our results showed that, except for a few publications describing how some Basic (Biomedical) Science courses are taught in Nursing curricula, there were no publications analyzing the importance of hiring registered nurses with postgraduate qualification in Basic (Biomedical) Sciences to teach in undergraduate and postgraduate Nursing curricula. One publication focused on who teaches science to Nursing students. Conclusion: This area of research is still new and requires collaboration among Nursing schools to demonstrate the importance of hiring faculty members with dual qualification in Nursing and Basic (Biomedical) Sciences.