The Art of Compassion: Educating Nurses for the World (Chapter in Awaken the Stars: Reflections on What We Really Teach)

Excerpt: A unique and perhaps subtle difference exists between educating the best nurses in the world and educating the best nurses for the world. There is a distinction between the two that is at the heart of what makes caring for someone in their time of need an incredible vocation. Think upon a time when you experienced the knowledge, skills, and care of a nurse! think each of us can identify or recall nurses who were proficient and effective coordinators of care. They were nurses who were professionals in the world, protecting and promoting health and safety for ind ividuals, families, and populations. You might also have vivid recollections of unforgettable, highly venerated nurses who were someth ing more for you; their presence seemed to make all the difference. There was something about them that activated the transition from good to great. That something, I believe, was compassion made alive by the nurse\u27s ability to engage in meaningful and transformative human connections. In nursing, compassion involves seeing the patients as more than the sum of their diagnosis, vita l signs, and laboratory results. A nurse who personifies compassion has cultivated a deep-rooted concern for the total well-being of others while also striving to alleviate their suffering

Untethered Lecture Capture: Stimulating Educational Affordances Through Technology-Enhanced Teaching

Untethered Lecture Capture (ULC) permits faculty to be freely mobile in the classroom (untethered) and synchronously create reusable learning media assets (lecture capture) through mobile technology resources. Integrating the cognitive theory of multimedia instruction with ULC creates affordances that facilitate learning. Anecdotal student comments indicate ULC supports accessibility, enhances personalized self-paced learning, and creates opportunities for academic success. Untethered faculty teach among students, enhancing in-class focus, time-on-task, and student-faculty engagement. Although all students may benefit from ULC teaching strategies, first-generation students and students whose first language is not English reported increased confidence, coupled with decreased stress

Improving Communication among Healthcare Providers: Preparing Student Nurses for Practice

Communication errors are identified by the Joint Commission as the primary root cause of sentinel events across all categories. In addition, improving the effectiveness of communication among healthcare providers is listed as one of the Joint Commission’s 2008 National Patient Safety Goals. Nursing programs are expected to graduate practice-ready nurses who demonstrate quality and safety in patient care, which includes interdisciplinary communication. Through objectively structured clinical assessment simulations, faculty evaluate each nursing student’s ability to perform many aspects of care, including the ability to communicate effectively with physicians via telephone in an emergent situation. This quality improvement project reports the results of a three-year review of undergraduate student nurse performance (n = 285) related to effective clinical communication. Changes in teaching-learning strategies, implementation of a standardized communication tool, and clinical enhancements which resulted in improved student competency, will be presented

Defining Professional Nursing Accountability: A Literature Review

Professional nursing accountability is described by both professional nursing organizations and nursing education credentialing agencies as a core aspect that underpins professional nursing practice. Although accountability is foundational to professional practice, a review of the literature revealed no consistent language or definition regarding professional nursing accountability. Instead, the literature itself reveals that professional nursing accountability is challenging to both describe and define. The ambiguity surrounding how to define professional nursing accountability contributes to challenges associated with both teaching and evaluating student nurse accountability within nursing education curricula. This article provides a reliable and comprehensive definition of professional nursing accountability derived from a synthesis of the literature. Recommendations for nursing education practice and recommendations for nursing education research are proposed

Patient & Staff Satisfaction with Integrated Services at Old Town Clinic: A Descriptive Analysis

This quality improvement project provided a descriptive analysis of the patient population that received integrated mental and physical health care at Old Town Clinic, and evaluated patient and staff satisfaction with this model of care. Seventy-three patients and seven staff members were surveyed, using two satisfaction surveys distributed in January 2003. Survey data revealed that the majority of Old Town Clinic patients were homeless. Patients indicated high levels of satisfaction with the clinic’s location, ease of accessing care, and health promotion and illness prevention education. Staff satisfaction with this model of care was reported to be moderate regarding accessibility, response time, communication, support, treatment, completeness of care, and education. Recommendations for further research and implications for practice are offered

Embedding Micro-Ethical Dilemmas in High-Fidelity Simulation Scenarios: Preparing Nursing Students for Ethical Practice

Background: Despite the inclusion of ethics education in the formal curriculum, students felt ill-prepared to manage ethical issues and protect patients’ health and wellbeing. Nursing students reported knowing what should be done to promote optimal patient care; however, they also reported an inability to act on their convictions due to fear of reprisal, powerlessness, and low confidence. Method: Bloom’s Taxonomy guided the development and implementation of experiential-applied ethics education via micro-ethical dilemmas embedded in existing high-fidelity simulation (HFS) scenarios. Students were unaware that ethical dilemmas would be presented, replicating complex and spontaneous practice environments. Results: Students reported that the educational strategy was powerful, increasing ethical decision-making confidence, empowering effective advocacy, and building courage to overcome fears and defend ethical practice. Conclusion: Simulation extends ethics education beyond the cognitive domain, ensuring the purposeful integration of affective and psychomotor learning, which promotes congruence between knowing what to do and acting on one’s convictions

Evaluating the Effects of Intimate Touch Instruction: Facilitating Professional and Respectful Touch by Male Nursing Students

Nurses are expected to touch areas of patients’ bodies that are considered private and emotionally sensitive (intimate), yet little is known about how nursing students learn, rehearse, and incorporate appropriate touch strategies. Although touch education is important to all nurses, male students face additional challenges due to gender roles and negative stereotypes. The purpose of this quasiexperimental pilot study was to evaluate whether a 3-hour intimate touch instructional laboratory with subsequent clinical experience (intervention group) facilitated male students’ development of intimate touch knowledge, skills, and attitudes, compared with having only clinical experience and no laboratory (control group). Findings revealed that intervention group participants were significantly more comfortable with cleansing genitalia, less apprehensive about touch being misperceived as sexual, reported less gender requirement rigidity, and scored significantly higher on measures associated with client dignity, comfort, and respect than control group participants in a simulated perineal hygiene demonstration

Using Multimedia Resources to Enhance Learning During Office Hours

According to Acitelli, Black, and Axelson (2016), instructional methods used during office hours should incorporate active learning strategies that improve the quality of learning. According to the cognitive theory of multimedia instruction (Mayer, 2008), multimedia resources reduce cognitive load and optimize learning when narrations simultaneously accompany corresponding illustrations (temporal contiguity), when essential text is written next to corresponding graphics (spatial contiguity), and when signaling is used to emphasize essential information (signaling principle). Student Reactions Anecdotal student comments endorsed multimedia resources as an active learning strategy, enhancing learning both during and after office hours

Using Simulation to Demonstrate and Practice Clinical Teaching

Many of us use role play in the classroom as a means to support new preceptors in developing skills in teaching and coaching others. It is with pleasure that we present the following exemplar that describes the use of high-fidelity simulation in preparing nurses as clinical instructors to support student learning. This best practice can be directly translated into preparation of preceptors to teach and coach newly hired nurses

Conflict-Handling Styles Demonstrated by Nursing Students in Response to Microethical Dilemmas

Undergraduate nursing students have reported feeling ill-prepared to handle the conflict that accompanies the routine exposure to microethical dilemmas. Microethical dilemmas, as first defined by Worthley (1997), are routine questionable practices that have the potential to compromise quality patient care, negatively impact workplace culture, and initiate moral distress. Nurse educators employ a variety of strategies to support students’ ability to effectively manage conflict; however, little is known about how students authentically respond to ethical dilemmas. The purpose of this pilot study was to describe the frequency of conflict-handling styles demonstrated by undergraduate nursing students who encountered microethical dilemmas embedded within high-fidelity simulation (HFS) scenarios in the academic laboratory