Get to know Laurie Gross, an emergency department nurse in a rural area diverse patient needs. Hear her talk about her experiences in the role of a rural nurse.

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Make sure you check out the entire June 2013 issue of Nursing Notes, looking at nursing in rural areas. You can read the entire issue online at www.discovernursing.com and don’t miss the other Nursing Notes Live episode this month bringing you a panel discussion with rural nurse leaders where we’ll discuss their unique role in patient care in the communities they serve. You’ll find this and other podcast episodes at the Nursing Notes by Johnson & Johnson Facebook page, and in the podcast area in iTunes.

Meet Pamela Stewart Fahs, holder of the Dr. G. Clifford and Florence B Decker Endowed Chair in Rural Nursing at Binghamton University, and Editor-in-Chief for the Online Journal of Rural Nursing and Health Care, and Audrey Snyder, an Assistant Professor of Nursing at the University of Virginia and nurse coordinator for Community Outreach at UVA Health System. Here’s what they have to say about the role of the rural nurse.

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Jamie Davis:         Hi and welcome both of you to Nursing Notes Live. One of the things I like to do at the beginning of each of these interviews is just ask you each to briefly share your background in nursing: why did you become a nurse and what led you through your career path to where you are today. Audrey, why don’t you go first?

Audrey:                 My experience with healthcare started with my grandmother being cared for in our home four about nine years. She was on a hospital bed and required nursing care that was provided by public health and home health nurses as well as the family. I learned a lot about nursing before I became a nurse. That really is what influenced me to take that career path. My background has been mostly in emergency critical care flight. Until about the last 10 years when I really began to identify a lot of the issues in the emergency department of reasons why patients were continuing to come back or why patients were coming in and being critically ill and having to be admitted to an ICU. A lot of them focused on patients just not getting access to healthcare. If a patient may have seen a physician yesterday or last month or three months ago or even last year, it may not be in the shape they’re in at this admission or at this time for us to actually have to admit them. So I have evolved in my work to focus more on access to care and how patients receive that care in trying to work with underserved areas. I’m currently teaching at the University of Virginia and I’m working with a nurse-managed clinic to actually improve access to care especially in regards to cardiovascular disease and pulmonary disease for patients. We’re also using that clinic as a site for our students who are going into predominantly family nurse practitioner as an educational degree. I also now work in a community hospital that’s in a rural area, part-time as a hospitalist as well.

Jamie:                   Fantastic. Pam, go ahead.

Pam:                     Well, I started in nursing about 30 years ago. I grew up in southeastern Kentucky, Harlan County, a small coal mining area. And I probably became interested in nursing because of the nurse that worked in our local clinic. She was an African-American woman who was very well-versed in nursing. I think the first thing that really attracted me to her role was how professional she looked when she went to work every day. Back in those days, there was the blue cape and the white uniform. I was very impressed with that. But then over the years, as I grew up in that community, I saw how she actually functioned in the clinic and she became a manager of the clinic. So she went from being a staff nurse to actually managing most of the patient care that occurred in that clinic. I had a very disconnected past into nursing. I was a high school dropout. I was in radio for a while. I did a lot of odd jobs. When I was 26, I decided I really needed to do something with my life and I kind of always thought about nursing and looked into getting into nursing and wound up going back and getting my associate degree and then my Bachelor’s and my Master’s and finally I finished my...

As the nursing profession continues to grow and develop, mentoring of our new nurses is essential to developing the nurse leaders of the future. Hear what Mary Terhaar, DNSc, CNS, RN, Director of the Doctor of Nursing Practice Program and Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing in Baltimore, Maryland, and Angela Barron McBride, Ph.D., RN, FAAN, and Chair of the National Advisory Committee of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Nurse Faculty Scholars program have to say about nurse mentoring.

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Jamie Davis:         Angela and Mary, welcome to Nursing Notes Live and I guess I’ll start with you, Angela. Would you like to share with us a little bit about your background in nursing, why you became a nurse and what led you to where you are today?

Angela McBride: I am someone who became a nurse in part because all through high school, I worked as a nurse’s aide. I had a great-uncle who was good friends – he was a priest – he was good friends with a nun who was the head of a hospital and he actually was instrumental in getting me to do nurse’s aide work. But this was at a time in the ‘50s when you wound up doing really quite a large range of things even though you were not educated. And I was just intrigued with the range of what kind of things you could be doing as a nurse. I wound up eventually specializing in psychiatric mental health nursing. I wound up after that then getting into university teaching. So, for me, it’s been a route from liking to work with people and their families, liking the idea that every day is different, there’s so many things that you can do, and then being increasingly interested in preparing nurses for tomorrow. I’m old enough that my whole career has been spent with a lot of what was the development of nursing, the development of advanced practice programs, the development of doctoral programs, the development of post-doc research training. I continue to really be loving nursing for the range of what you can wind up doing so the – I think when I was growing up, it was the notion of a nurse is a nurse is a nurse. So one thing I know is whatever your talent, there’s a spot for you in nursing.

Jamie:                   I love the way you say that, whatever your talent is, there’s a spot for you. I’d certainly never thought I’d become a nurse journalist when I got started and yet I really love what I do now. So that’s very interesting you say that. Mary, what about you? What was your background in nursing? Why did you decide to become a nurse?

Mary Terhaar:     Well, it was fun to listen to Angela describe hers. My grandmother was a nurse at the end of the war and at that time the training wasn’t the same but I always admired her work and so that got me started. Much like Angela, I worked as a candy striper in a hospital. So I guess I think I’ve always been a nurse as far back as I can remember. So that gave me this appetite for nursing all across the house. So I was the person who always volunteer to go wherever there was help needed and that always gave me the chance to see nurses working in different settings, solving different kinds of problems and meeting different kinds of needs. I’ve always been attracted to that. So when I was in nursing school, and I’m a three-year grad, when I was in nursing school I worked in labor and delivery and NICU and I loved it and I still went wherever was needed. But my heart really was in the NICU. So all throughout my career, I’ve been in NICU and labor and delivery. I’ve been somebody who could solve problems when I finished my doctorate,

Get to know Kayla Hanson, a recent graduate of Liberty University’s Department of Nursing and a 2012 TYLENOL Future Care Scholarship recipient. Hear Kayla talk about her nursing school experiences and the importance of strong nurse mentors for her as a student nurse.

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Make sure you check out the entire May 2013 issue of Nursing Notes, examining mentoring in nursing. You can read the entire issue online at www.discovernursing.com and don’t miss the other Nursing Notes Live episode this month bringing you a panel discussion with nurse leaders on mentoring and fostering others in their nursing careers. You’ll find this and other podcast episodes at the Nursing Notes by Johnson & Johnson Facebook page, and in the podcast area in iTunes.

Meet nurse Hermine Levey Weston, Facility Engagement Manager with Practice Greenhealth, and Laura Wenger, a registered nurse and Executive Director of Practice Greenhealth. Here’s what they have to say about environmental sustainability and healthcare.

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Make sure you check out the entire April 2013 issue of Nursing Notes, looking at nurses and environmental sustainability. You can read the entire issue online at www.discovernursing.com and don’t miss the other Nursing Notes Live episode this month bringing you our Get to Know Nurse, Charlotte Wallace, who won an environmental sustainability award for her efforts in her facility. You’ll find this and other podcast episodes at the Nursing Notes by Johnson & Johnson Facebook page, and in the podcast area in iTunes.

 

Get to know Charlotte Wallace, RN. She recently received the Nursing Leadership in Environmental Health Award from the Maryland Hospitals for a Healthy Environment. Here, she discusses her initiatives and how other nurses can learn how to duplicate what she’s done to reduce waste and environmental impact.

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Make sure you check out the entire April 2013 issue of Nursing Notes, looking at nurses and environmental sustainability. You can read the entire issue online at www.discovernursing.com and don’t miss the other Nursing Notes Live episode this month bringing you two nurses who are very active in supporting initiatives around greener healthcare settings. You’ll find this and other podcast episodes at the Nursing Notes by Johnson & Johnson Facebook page, and in the podcast area in iTunes.

With 26 million adults and children struggling with diabetes and millions more at risk for developing the disease, nurses who specialize in diabetes care and education have their work cut out for them. Our panel discussion this month includes Marjorie Cypress, President-Elect for Health Care and Education with the American Diabetes Association, and Cynthia Watson, a nurse practitioner specializing in caring for patients with diabetes. Hear what they have to say.

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Don’t forget to check out the March 2013 issue of Nursing Notes, highlighting the work of nurses in caring for and educating people with diabetes. You can read the entire issue online at www.discovernursing.com and don’t miss the other Nursing Notes Live episode this month with our “Get to Know” nurse Lynda Stallwood as she shares her path as a nurse and how she became involved with caring for diabetic patients. You’ll find this and other podcast episodes at the Nursing Notes by Johnson & Johnson Facebook page, and in the podcast area in iTunes.

 

Get to know nurse Lynda Stallwood, and hear about her nursing career and her important work with patients living with diabetes.

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Jamie Davis:         Lynda, let’s start off with asking you how you decided to become a nurse. What encouraged you that nursing was a career you wanted to follow?

Lynda Stallwood:     As a very young girl, my sister and I always knew in our hearts, as very young children, nursing was what we wanted to do. We grew up wearing nursing uniforms. I’m not exactly sure why I knew that. I’m not even sure I knew what a nurse was at the time. But it was in my heart to always provide care. We took care of sick animals, dead flies, all kinds of things. It was just that caring gene perhaps that my family has.

I am one of many nurses in my family. So it was just only something that was deep within my heart. I didn’t have the opportunity to go to nursing school until after my children were born. But once I did, I went into it full-fledged. I knew it was just what I needed to be. I think even as my children were born and growing,

I saw that there tended to be a gap sometimes between the medical profession and taking care of your child at home. And I felt like if I could help bridge that gap as a nurse with educating my patients, empowering them to answer my questions, of your healthcare provider, that that’ll be very gratifying. Perhaps as important in their care is providing the correct medication is also providing them the tools that they need to navigate the healthcare system.

Jamie:                   I agree completely. There’s so much about our current healthcare system that requires even more skills and navigating it. So it’s really important. I agree that nurses need to be the pilots for our patients to navigate that system.

Lynda:                   Yes, absolutely.

Jamie:                   So tell me a little bit about how you decided or what drove you into becoming a diabetes care specialist. There’s a lot of things that nurses go through and we come in contact with a lot of different specialties but something in diabetes care keep your interest.

Lynda:                   It is. It was a particular young woman, I was working at a general peds unit at the time. This was over 25 years ago. She came in – she was about 10 years of age – she and her parents came in with a diagnosis of “rule out diabetes.” And they were very calm. They were very attentive. They presented themselves as very confident. That no matter what they will be able to handle the diagnosis which is wonderful. As the care progress and lab tests revealed it was in fact this young woman had Type 1 diabetes.

So we started all the education. She was learning how to draw for insulin, test her blood sugar. She was going on a diet and exercise and lifestyle changes and all of those things that are part of diabetes care and management. Her parents were very active, very supportive. Everybody was just – “We can handle this, everything is fine.” And so I was taking [the cues 0:05:01.5] and trying to just continue to support them but listening very carefully to what they were saying and how they were saying it.

I was working the afternoon shift at the time and before I left for the evening, I wanted to check in on this young woman to make sure she was resting comfortably. I could hear her crying very softly but she was crying. So I just went in and asked her what I could do to help. And she started to open up about how frightened she was and how she didn’t like it and how this was going to affect her the ...

We feature nurses who give their time and passion for helping others by volunteering. What is it about nursing that encourages philanthropy? In this episode I interview a panel of philanthropic nurses including Gay-Lynne Jones, RN, Regional Director of Cancer Services at Altus Healthcare Management Service in Beaumont, Tex., an American Cancer Society Relay For Life Advisory Team Member; we also have Jenny Flynn, an RN at Children’s Hospital Colorado and volunteer with the St. Baldrick’s Foundation; and last, joining us is Dr. Cheryl Schmidt, nurse educator and American Red Cross National Volunteer Lead and Subject Matter Expert on Nursing Education. Let’s jump into that panel discussion now.

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Jamie Davis: I want to welcome you all to the call and start off with you, Cheryl, if you would like – could you share a little bit about how you became a nurse. What helped you to decide that nursing was your career path and how you reach the point where you are today?

Cheryl Schmidt: Sure. I started out as a diploma nurse back in 1970 but my first role model was my mother. She taught nursing and was a nurse. My earliest memories with her in her uniform and being so happy in her career. So I had no other thoughts at all about a career other than nursing. And then when I got my diploma, I went to get a BSN and Master’s and then started teaching. So I’ve been teaching nursing since 1975. And I teach Community Health Nursing which gets me out in the community and it’s a fantastic career. I can’t imagine doing anything else.

Jamie: Jenny, how about you? So I guess I’ll ask you the same question: how did you get started in nursing and how did you reach the point where you are today?

Jenny Flynn: Well, actually, my mom has a journal from – when I was in kindergarten that says I want to be a nurse when I grow up. So I wanted to be one since I was a kid. I actually went to college knowing I wanted to be a nurse. Got my Bachelor’s degree. And then during the summer of my college career, I went and worked as a nurse apprentice in Boise, Idaho and worked in a bunch of different units and found that oncology was a population I was drawn to and I always wanted to do pediatrics. So I kind of wrapped those two together and did that in my leadership on rotation in nursing school and that’s what I’ve been doing since 2004.

Jamie: So we’re going to be talking this month in both the newsletter and here on Nursing Notes Live about volunteerism in nursing and philanthropy. And one of the things that came up was the definition of philanthropy and saying that it’s the promotion or the desire to promote the well-being of quality-of-life of human beings. And I find that really a great definition. But it could also be the definition of nursing.Cheryl, what are your thoughts about that? Because they seem to be two things that really work well together: nursing and volunteering.

Cheryl: I definitely believe that. I think people go into nursing because they want to help people. It’s not just in a hospital setting. It could be anywhere. In community health, I happen to do a lot of my volunteer work with the Red Cross and disaster response. That seems to be part of the personality of a person who chooses nursing. So it’s a perfect fit: volunteerism, philanthropy, and nursing.

Jamie: Jenny, your thoughts?

Jenny: I think Cheryl said it really well. Nursing is a caring profession and wanting to volunteer just kind of goes hand-in-hand with that.

Jamie: So, Jenny, tell us a little bit about how you got steered into volunteering in the ways ...

Get to know nurse Lynn Erdman. She is Vice President of Community Health for Susan G. Komen Global Headquarters and I got the chance recently to chat with Lynn about how she got started in her nursing career and what she sees as the reasons nursing and philanthropy go hand in hand.

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Jamie: I’m here with Lynn Erdman, our Get-to-Know Nurse this month and, Lynn, thank you so much for being on Nursing Notes Live.

Lynn Erdman: Well, thank you for inviting me.

Jamie: So why don’t you take a few minutes and tell us, first of all, what encouraged you to become a nurse?

Lynn Erdman: My encouragement started during my college years. I actually served as an intern at a local hospital and wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do. I thought I would enjoy the health field like the sciences and my college education. By doing that, ended up working as a nursing aide or nursing assistant and really, really enjoyed and was in awe of what the nurses did with patients on the floor and how they interacted. That’s really what piqued my interest and caused me really to move in that direction.

Jamie: So where did you go to nursing school? Did you start off in a diploma program or did you move right in to a BSN program?

Lynn Erdman: I was in a BSN program. The first two years, obviously, I was looking – “What do I wish to do?” And so the way it was set up is the – you apply during your second year, your sophomore year, to be in the BSN program starting in your junior year. So that’s what I did. Taking all the preparatory courses. So I finished with a BSN the first time out.

Jamie: And then after you got your nursing degree and passed your boards, what was your career path from then on out? I know you’re an oncology nurse by profession now but did you start out in oncology care?

Lynn Erdman: I did not. I thought I wanted to be a NICU nurse or a Neonatal Intensive Care nurse and started in that area with working on the night shift as many young nurses do and actually really liked working with the small babies and working with their parents. But about six months into my stint there in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, I got a call from the chief nursing officer, the Director of Nursing there at the large hospital where I was working and got a call to her office and I thought, “What have I done wrong?” As a novice nurse I thought it has to be – it can’t be something good.

But anyway I showed up in her office and she said, “I’m getting ready to start an Adult Oncology Unit at the hospital and I need a few energetic bright young nurses to help me start that area because there’s a lot of learning to do. If you will go work on that unit for six months, then you can choose anywhere in the hospital and any shift you wish to work. So being the young, naïve nurse that I was I thought, “Well, I can do anything for six months.” So I actually took the offer. I always credit her believing that she was wiser than I was and thought that I would have a passion for that area. I never looked back and I have continued in oncology since that time. So it’s been an amazing career and I really thank her for seeing the path more clearly than I could at that point in time.

Jamie: It’s amazing how the nursing leaders in our lives have really influenced our paths and that wisdom become so important as we look back and see where we are today.

Lynn Erdman: Oh, it is. It is. And I’m so grateful for them and try to share some of what I learned from many mentors in my life with the nurses that I encounter. Anytime a nurse calls me and says,