Montana State University is a key player in a major, multi-year grant that has helped train more than 450 nurses across six western states.
The Montana Office for Rural Health and Area Health Education Center (MORH/AHEC), which is housed in the Mark and Robyn Jones College of Nursing at MSU, received the grant in 2021. The Health Resources and Services Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, awarded $3.87 million to support training programs in Montana, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.
Montana State University is leading the regional effort, bringing together the six western states to address shared challenges in nursing education and workforce development. Now entering its final year, Montana leaders are reflecting on the importance and the impacts of the grant, titled the “Nurse Education, Practice, Quality and Retention: Clinical Faculty and Preceptor Academy.”
The program provides formal training for nursing preceptors and clinical faculty committed to developing future nurses, said Sara Schmidt, a graduate grant assistant with MORH/AHEC and nurse of 25 years.
Preceptors are registered nurses whom nursing students learn from during their clinical training. Often, nurses are selected as preceptors because of outstanding job performance and are expected to shoulder the responsibility of teaching students with no additional guidance or compensation, Schmidt said. The program aims to mitigate burnout by better preparing individuals who take on these added responsibilities.
“The challenge is that nurses are not necessarily trained on how to educate,” said Schmidt, who helped develop the preceptor trainings and has been a preceptor herself. “So how do we better equip people? Sometimes, it’s just giving people helpful information and resources, so they feel more comfortable and empowered.”
Making sure there are enough well-trained nursing preceptors is critical for nursing schools everywhere. Schmidt said that despite having qualified applicants, surveys from the six states in the program show that more than 65% of nursing schools have reduced their enrollments since 2020 due to shortages of faculty, preceptors and budget constraints.
“We have a situation where we have workforce shortages for nursing, and at the same time, nationally, schools can’t accept all of the really amazing applicants that are coming through because we don’t have enough faculty to support them,” Schmidt said.
That’s why MORH/AHEC has helped create and facilitate virtual courses that any level of preceptor can enroll in and receive a small stipend.
There are three course formats preceptors can choose from. All of them are virtual and span different lengths of time. One offering created by Montana leaders is asynchronous, so nurses can complete it at their own pace. That is key for nurses in rural areas, who often cannot break away during work hours or drive several hours to a physical classroom, Schmidt said. Each participant also receives a book called “Mastering Precepting” that they can keep for future reference.
The trainings have been attended by more than 450 nurses with a wide range of experience, from those who have been preceptors for decades to nurses who are just starting out. Several instructors at MSU have completed the program, Schmidt said.
One of them is Amanda Lucas, a nurse with 27 years of experience and a clinical instructor with the MSU Mark and Robyn Jones College of Nursing campus in Great Falls. In addition to teaching, she runs a palliative oncology clinical practice, putting her in the unique position of being both a teacher and a preceptor.
Lucas said when she learned of the course in an email announcement, she realized it had been “forever” since she’d received formal training for teaching. It felt like a good idea to brush up on her skills, and she enrolled in the course offered in spring 2025.
The course was self-directed and involved watching online lectures, posting reflections on readings, and reading the reflections of her peers. About 30 people were in her group. On average, the time commitment was about two hours per week for eight weeks, Lucas said. She received a stipend of $300 for finishing the course.
Her most significant takeaway was learning how to give feedback to students. One challenge of precepting is tailoring teaching to individual students who have different learning styles, levels of interest and background knowledge. That’s why working with students to figure out how they best learn is so important, she said.
The course taught her the value of taking time at the beginning or end of each day to discuss with students how the shift went. The goal is to help students reflect and assess their own performance, Lucas said. She’s also now more comfortable addressing conflict or safety issues.
“Even though I’ve had many years of experience being a preceptor, there was still so much new information that was offered in this class,” Lucas said. “It is very worthwhile for anyone, no matter the level of preceptor they are.”
Tabitha Normandeau, a registered nurse at a critical access hospital on the Flathead Reservation and current doctor of nursing practice student at MSU, also completed the course. She said it should be adopted in every hospital for nurses to learn how to be a good preceptor.
“Serving as a preceptor enhanced my leadership skills, deepened my understanding of the subject and cultivated meaningful professional relationships. However, balancing teaching with regular job duties can be stressful,” Normandeau said. “As preceptors, we must adapt to different learning styles and skill levels, often without formal training in education.”
That’s why this instruction is important, said Kaki Mendius, a nurse at Logan Health and director of the MSU Mark and Robyn Jones College of Nursing campus in Kalispell. Mendius was tapped this year to instruct the asynchronous online training created by MORH/AHEC. She joins the grant team with the goal of strengthening health care across all six states in the program, which face similar barriers related to rural isolation and nursing shortages.
In her instruction, Mendius will help preceptors teach students to think like a nurse and foster professionalism.
“We need more nurses and nurse practitioners to fill the nursing shortage and increase health care access in rural states,” Mendius said. “Preceptors and nurses help grow the nursing workforce, and we are dedicated to support these preceptors and increase the number of nurses that provide safe, evidence-based, patient-centered care.”
As the grant enters its final year, Schmidt and her team are working to summarize its impacts and develop sustainable program continuation. While researching how the program impacts student and preceptor outcomes will take some time – the research proposal must first receive Institutional Review Board approval – she said she knows, anecdotally, that the work is making a difference.
Many participants indicated that the course helped them advocate within their organizations to improve the experience for both preceptors and preceptees, Schmidt said. Additionally, one nurse wanted to participate in the course but was anxious about using technology. She received one-on-one support to get comfortable with the virtual format and is now considering going back to school.
“They had steered away from some opportunities, because they weren’t sure if they could manage the technological components of some of the online offerings,” Schmidt said. “But this course actually opened a door for future learning because it got them over that hurdle.”
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