Seeing Potential: The Joys of Teaching Nursing

By Ruth Smillie, MSN, RN, associate professor of nursing at Saint Josephs College, Standish, Maine.

"Buck Up," by zenera / via Flickr. by zenera / via Flickr.

The day I come to class pregnant is one of my favorites. I really hate to be pregnant; I’m 55, grey haired, and way too old to be pregnant. My students are obviously surprised when I waddle in swaybacked with my sudden eight-month pregnancy. They snicker and smile, and then the magic begins.

As each one brings up the “change” they were assigned, I acquire the mask of pregnancy: larger breasts (made from paper bowls), kidney stones and gallstones (collected from outside), more blood volume (once, in a soda bottle), varicose veins (pipe cleaners or string), and so on—all carefully attached to me by duct tape.

I look and feel ridiculous and we all laugh a lot, but that’s not the point. The point is that they remember the changes of pregnancy. Embarrassing as it is, I would do it every day if it helped them learn. I love to teach nursing and it has been an amazing experience.

Students have no idea how incredible they are. Most of mine are just out of high school, young and unaware of their potential. But they have it, and I can […]

2016-11-21T13:02:34-05:00May 6th, 2015|career, Nursing, nursing perspective, students|10 Comments
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AJN’s Spring Break with the Student Nurses in Phoenix: Sunnier Job Outlook for New Graduates?

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, AJN editor-in-chief

PhoenixSkylineAfter a long winter in the Northeast, it was wonderful to visit Phoenix last week for the 63rd annual convention of the National Student Nurses’ Association (NSNA).

Like other meetings, this one was packed from morning to late evening with educational sessions, exhibits, resume-writing consultation, and for some, deliberating over 60 resolutions at the House of Delegates. Keynotes addressed:

  • health care reform (Gerri Lamb).
  • progress on implementing recommendations from the Future of Nursing report (Susan Hassmiller).
  • clinical ethics and moral distress (Veronica Feeg and Cynda Rushton).
  • and, the closing speech, a charge to continue nursing’s legacy into the future (yours truly).

Concurrent sessions, most of them well attended by Starbucks-fueled students, covered nursing specialties, exam help, licensure and legal/ethical issues, and clinical topics. (Betsy Todd, AJN‘s clinical editor, who is also an epidemiologist, led a session called “Is It Safe: Protecting Ourselves and Our Patients from Infectious Diseases.”)

Changing job climate? Several students I spoke with who were graduating at the end of the semester didn’t seem to have the anxiety of previous years’ students over securing a job. Maybe this is because things are looking up in the job market for new graduate nurses, at least according to recent figures in NSNA’s annual survey of graduates.

Reporting in the January issue of Dean’s Notes, researcher Veronica Feeg, associate dean of […]

2016-11-21T13:02:41-05:00April 17th, 2015|career, Nursing, nursing perspective, students|0 Comments
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AJN in January: Long-Term Complications of CHD Repair, Obesity Interventions, Nurses Planning for Retirement, More

AJN0115.Cover.OnlineAJN’s January issue is now available on our Web site. Here’s a selection of what not to miss.

Complications after cardiac repair. Nurses often encounter patients with complications that occurred years after congenital heart defect (CHD) repair. Yet many patients whose CHD was repaired in childhood have not had regular follow-up. Our CE feature, “Long-Term Outcomes After Repair of Congenital Heart Defects: Part 1,” the first in a two-part series, reviews six congenital heart defects, their repairs, and common long-term outcomes, as well as implications for nurses in both cardiac and noncardiac settings. This CE feature offers 2.5 CE credits to those who take the test that follows the article.

To further explore the topic, listen to a podcast interview with the author (this and other free podcasts are accessible via the Behind the Article podcasts page on our Web site, in our iPad app, or on iTunes). A video of an atrial septal defect device placement is also available in the iPad edition of this article.

Obesity interventions. Patients with obesity often face stigma and bias, even from the nurses who care for them. “The Obesity Epidemic, Part 2: Nursing Assessment and Intervention,” the second article in a two-part series, presents a theoretical framework to guide nursing assessment of patients with obesity and their families and reviews the most common lifestyle, […]

2016-11-21T13:03:17-05:00December 29th, 2014|Nursing, nursing perspective|0 Comments
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Don’t Write Off Community College to Start a Nursing Career

By Karen Roush, MSN, RN, FNP-C, AJN clinical managing editor

KarenRoushMy daughter is about to start her nursing career. She’s got all her prereqs out of the way and she’s waiting to hear from the half-dozen colleges she applied to. Among them is the community college where I started my career 35 years ago. That’s right—a community college that confers an associate degree.

I hope she gets in.

Community colleges are seen by many as the bottom of the ladder of desired schools of nursing. Not only do they offer only a two-year degree, but they’re not seen as being as selective as four-year colleges and they don’t have the big name professors.

But community colleges can and do produce great nurses. Programs are rigorous, so a more liberal admission standard at the onset doesn’t necessarily change the caliber of student who graduates at the end. And once they graduate, they must meet the same standards as students from four-year schools to attain licensure as an RN—everyone takes the same NCLEX. At the time of my graduation, my school had a 98% pass rate, one of the highest in the country.

Community colleges even have some advantages over a lot of four-year programs. They may not have the big names—but really, how many of those big name […]

2016-11-21T13:05:07-05:00March 26th, 2014|career, nursing perspective, students|12 Comments
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Future Nurses—No Shrinking Violets

Thelma Schorr and Kathryn Brownfield. Thelma Schorr and Kathryn Brownfield

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Last week I had the opportunity to meet several members of the National Student Nurses Association (NSNA) board of directors when they were here in New York for a board meeting. As is custom, NSNA chief executive officer Diane Mancino invites many of the NSNA sponsors and supporters to dinner to meet the new board.

I had the pleasure of meeting Kathryn Brownfield, the nursing student editor of Imprint, the NSNA’s official publication. She’s a nursing student at Nash Community College in North Carolina. We sat with Thelma Schorr, AJN’s former editor and publisher (and a consulting editor at Imprint) and Florence Huey, a former editor of AJN and of Geriatric Nursing (and a former president of the NSNA). It was like homecoming!

I was impressed—as I always seem to be—with these aspiring nurses. Many of them are second-degree students and come into nursing with work experience, a family, and a maturity that was lacking in my cohort, which was largely younger, right out of high school, with little work experience.

I wonder how these nursing students will fare in their first nursing jobs. One hears a lot about bullying and lateral violence and how it’s driving some new nurses away. I can’t imagine any of the students I met being cowed by overbearing coworkers.

In November, NSNA will host its mid-year conference, which typically draws 1,500 attendees; this year, it will […]

2016-11-21T13:07:11-05:00June 24th, 2013|career, nursing perspective, students|2 Comments
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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