Clinical Instructors play a critical role in shaping the future of healthcare by training on-site students to provide patient-centered, team-based care. Respiratory care clinical instructors play a vital role in preparing respiratory care students to become effective practitioners given that nearly 50% of the respiratory care curriculum takes place in a clinical setting under the supervision of clinical instructors . Professional competence, interpersonal skills, personality characteristics, and teaching ability are all qualities that clinical instructors must possess in order to provide students with quality clinical training experiences. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay The purpose of this mixed methods study was to (1) explore and compare respiratory care faculty and student perceptions of the most important characteristics of an effective clinical instructor, (2) compare faculty perceptions academic and clinical respiratory care students on the characteristics of an effective clinical instructor, and (3) compare respiratory care students' perceptions of effective clinical instructor characteristics as they progress through the respiratory care program. A solicitation letter containing the link to an online questionnaire was emailed to all respiratory care program directors in the United States. Program director emails were obtained from the Commission on Accreditation for Respiratory Care (CoARC) website, which provides an alphabetical listing of all accredited respiratory care training programs. The Clinical Instructor Effectiveness Questionnaire was used to collect the quantitative data. Three open-ended XII questions were also included to collect qualitative data. Data was secured for respiratory care faculty and respiratory care students. 176 teachers and 122 students completed the questionnaire. Respiratory care teachers obtained the highest mean in the professional competence subscale µ= (4.81) and the lowest mean in the interpersonal relations subscale µ= 4.5, while the Respiratory care students achieved the highest average in the interpersonal relationships subscale. relationship subscale µ=(4.58) and the lowest of the professional competence subscale µ=(4.52). An independent sample t test revealed nonsignificant differences between academic and clinical respiratory care faculty. A Mann Whitney U test revealed significant differences between respiratory care faculty and students in the Professional Competence (p = 0.001) and Interpersonal Relations (p = 0.01) subscales. The ANOVA test revealed a significant difference between students as they progressed through the program in the interpersonal relationships subscale (p = 0.02). The qualitative results of this study showed that respiratory care faculty prioritized assessment skills and professional skills as the most important characteristics of an effective clinical instructor. However, students prioritized personality characteristics and interpersonal relationships as the most important characteristics of an effective clinical instructor. Training clinical instructors to become familiar with the