Minority Nurse Magazine (Winter 2015)

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The Career and Education Resource for the Minority Nursing Professional • WINTER 2015

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+The Evolution of NursingPROVID ING END-OF-LIFE CAREHOSTILITY IN THE WORKPLACE

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25NURSING

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Table of Contents

Cover Story

28 Top 25 Nursing Employers of 2014

By Ethan LaCroix

For the second year in a row, we reached out to our readers to

find out what they look for in a workplace and how their current

employers stack up. Find out whether yours made the list!

Features

10 Baby Boomers and Beyond: The Evolution of Nursing

By Leigh Page

As more baby boomers prepare to retire and more Americans gain

health coverage, how will the nursing profession keep pace with a

rapidly evolving health care system?

16 Best Practices in Hospice Care

By Sonya Stinson

Sometimes the most compassionate care a nurse can give to a

dying patient is to quiet the room. Learn why communication is

key to providing quality end-of-life care.

22 Bullying in a Least Expected Place

By James Z. Daniels

Hostility in the workplace is increasingly common in the health

care sector and diverse studies identify nursing as a risk group.

What can we do about it?

In Every Issue3 Editor’s Notebook

4 Vital Signs

7 Making Rounds

52 Highlights from the Blog

56 Index of Advertisers

Academic Forum39 Bridging to Higher Education in Haiti

By Susan S. Sawyer, PhD, RN, CPNP, and Allison Bernard, DNP, MSN

Providing sustainable nursing education to a

developing country is the cornerstone to the

betterment of health care delivery.

Second Opinion44 Discovering the Possibilities:

Where Can I Go From Here?

By Samantha Stauf

If you are struggling to make a change, take a look at

your strengths and the environment where you feel you

could thrive.

Degrees of Success46 Transitioning from Clinical Nurse to Educator

By Deborah Dolan Hunt, PhD, RN

Looking to join the world of academia? There are

several paths you can follow to get there.

www.minoritynurse.com Minority Nurse Magazine @MinorityNurse 3

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Teresita Bushey, MA, APR-BC Assistant Professor, School of Nursing

The College of St. Scholastica

Wallena Gould, CRNA, EdD Founder and Chair

Diversity in Nurse Anesthesia Mentorship Program

Constance Smith Hendricks, PhD, RN, FAAN Professor

Auburn University School of Nursing

Sandra Millon-Underwood, PhD, RN, FAAN Professor

University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, College of Nursing

Tri Pham, PhD, RN, AOCNP-BC, ANP-BC Nurse Practitioner

The University of Texas-MD Anderson Cancer Center

Ronnie Ursin, DNP, MBA, RN, NEA-BC Parliamentarian

National Black Nurses Association

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Editor’s Notebook:The Pursuit of Career Satisfaction

In our second annual best companies survey, we asked Minority Nurse readers to tell us about their current employers. What qualities matter most to you when it comes to career satisfaction? It should come to no surprise that salary and benefits topped the list. However, our readers also considered the bigger picture. Quality of

life factored heavily into their decisions as well, such as a friendly work environment and flexible hours. Nurses may work longer hours than the 9-to-5 crowd, but they still want a proper work/life balance. Is your employer on our top 25 list? If not, ask yourself whether they deserve to be—and if not—consider applying to one of these standout organizations.

As a nurse, helping people likely tops the list of reasons you got into the profession. Are you ready for a change and looking for a deeper connection with your patients? Consider a career in hospice nursing. Helping dying patients is not for the faint of heart, but easing them in their transition can be extremely rewarding. Read Sonya Stinson’s article on what it takes to provide quality end-of-life care and decide whether this is right for you.

Alternatively, consider joining the world of academia, which comes with its own set of challenges and rewards. Not sure how to make the transition from clinical prac-tice? Deborah Dolan Hunt, author of The New Nurse Educator: Mastering Academe, acts as your guide and gives you practical advice for taking the steps necessary to make this transition.

As the baby boomer population comes closer to retiring, we’ll start to see a surge of new nurses in the workplace. For many, the nursing shortage has seemed like a myth, but as Leigh Page indicates in his article, it’s still on the horizon. It’s only been delayed due to a weak economy and uncertainty over our new health care law. But as baby boomer nurses retire and a new wave of patients seeks health care services, there will be sweeping changes to the profession. Read Leigh’s article to find out more.

We’ve all heard the expression that nurses eat their young. But if you’ve ever been on the receiving end, you know it doesn’t get any easier the older you are. Workplace bullying in health care is alarmingly common, and nurses in particular are at risk. James Daniels investigates why this is and what we can do to make the work environ-ment safer—and happier—for all.

The next time you find yourself wanting to point the finger at someone who made a mistake, take a moment to consider what’s going on in your colleague’s life first. Maybe she’s going through a divorce, getting over the loss of a loved one, or dealing with a health issue of her own. If anger has a domino effect, why can’t kindness too? Apply the Golden Rule to your workplace, and everyone—including your patients—will benefit.

— Megan Larkin

Vital Signs


Even With Equal Health Care Access, Cancer Survival Rates Are Worse in American Indians and Alaskan Natives

Five- and 10-year cancer survival rates were lower among American Indians and Alaskan Natives (AIANs) compared with non-Hispanic whites even when they had approximately equal access to health care, according to data presented at the American Association for Cancer Research conference on The Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved.

“Our preliminary analysis sug-gests that with presumed equal

access to health care, fi ve- and 10-year cancer survival among mostly urban-dwelling AIANs was lower than among non-Hispanic whites,” says Marc Emerson, MPH, a cancer re-search training award fellow in the Division of Cancer Con-trol and Population Sciences at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. “Our

study focused on AIANs who live largely in urban areas, a population often hidden to researchers.

“The AIAN population ex-periences some of the great-est disparities in health and health outcomes, yet this re-mains an understudied area of research,” adds Emerson. “Future research should focus on factors other than health care access that may be driving disparity in the cancer out-comes observed.”

Emerson and colleagues found that the top four cancer diagnoses among AIANs and non-Hispanic whites were the same: prostate, breast, lung, and colorectal cancers. The fi fth most common cancer type among AIANs was non-Hodgkin lymphoma, while it was melanoma for non-His-panic whites.

The researchers also found that the fi ve-year survival rates for AIANs and non-Hispanic whites were 52% and 58%, respectively, and the 10-year survival rates were 37% and 44%, respectively.

The most common comor-bidities were the same for both races—chronic pulmonary dis-ease, diabetes, and congestive heart disease—but the rates of these comorbidities were high-er among AIANs compared with non-Hispanic whites.

“In future analyses, we will examine the extent to which prevalence of comorbidities and other factors may account for the survival differences ob-served,” says Emerson.

The researchers collected data from Kaiser Permanente Northern California electron-ic health records for 1,022 AIANs and 139,725 non-His-panic whites diagnosed with primary invasive cancer be-tween 1997 and 2012. They used sociodemographic and health data of the study par-ticipants, including age at di-agnosis, race, cancer site, type of treatment, comorbidities, and treatment follow-up time, for their study.

This study was funded by the Na-

tional Cancer Institute.


Vital Signs


Millions of US Women Are Not Getting Screened for Cervical Cancer

Despite evidence that cervical cancer screening saves lives, about 8 million women ages 21 to 65 years have not been screened for cervical cancer in the past five years, according to a new Vital Signs report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). More than half of new cervical cancer cases occur among women who have never or rarely been screened.

“Every visit to a provider can be an opportunity to prevent cervical

cancer by making sure women are referred for screening appro-priately,” says CDC Principal Deputy Director Ileana Arias, PhD. “We must increase our ef-forts to make sure that all wom-en understand the importance of getting screened for cervical cancer. No woman should die from cervical cancer.”

Researchers reviewed data from the 2012 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System to determine women who had not been screened for cervical can-cer in the past five years. They analyzed the number of cervical cancer cases that occurred dur-ing 2007 to 2011 from CDC’s National Program of Cancer Registries and the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program. Cervical cancer deaths were based on death certificates submitted to the National Vital Statistics System.

Key findings include:• In 2012, 11.4% of wom-

en reported they had not been screened for cervi-cal cancer in the past five years; the percentage was larger for women without health insurance (23.1%) and for those without a regular health care pro-vider (25.5%).

• The percentage of women not screened as recommend-ed was higher among older women (12.6%), Asians/Pa-cific Islanders (19.7%), and American Indians/Alaska Natives (16.5%).

• From 2007 to 2011, the cervical cancer incidence rate decreased by 1.9% per year while the death rate remained stable.

• The Southern region had the highest rate of cervical cancer (8.5 per 100,000), the highest death rate (2.7 per 100,000), and the largest percentage of women who had not been screened in the past five years (12.3%).

Using the human papillo-mavirus (HPV) vaccine as a primary prevention measure

could also help reduce cervi-cal cancer and deaths from cervical cancer. Another recent CDC study showed that the vaccine is underused; only 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 7 boys had received the 3-dose series in 2013. The HPV vaccine is rec-ommended as a routine vac-cine for children 11–12 years old. Modeling studies have shown that HPV vaccination and cervical cancer screen-ing combined can prevent as many as 93% of new cervical cancer cases.

Even with improvements in prevention and early detec-tion methods, most cervical cancers occur in women who are not up-to-date with screen-ing. Addressing financial and non-financial barriers can help

increase screening rates and, in turn, reduce new cases of and deaths from this disease.

Efforts to Prevent Cervical Cancer

CDC’s National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detec-tion Program provides low-income, uninsured, and un-derinsured women access to breast and cervical cancer screening and diagnostic services in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, five US territories, and 11 American Indian/Alaska Native tribes or tribal organizations.

To learn more about recom-mended ages and tests for cervi-cal cancer screening, visit www.cdc.gov/cancer/cervical.

Vital Signs


Stronger Collaboration between RNs, Employers Encouraged to Reduce Risks from Nurse Fatigue

The American Nurses Association (ANA) calls for stronger collaboration between registered nurses (RNs) and their employers to reduce the risks of nurse fatigue for patients and nurses associated with shift work and long hours, and emphasizes strengthening a culture of safety in the work environment in a new position statement.

ANA contends that e v i d e n c e - b a s e d strategies must be implemented to pro-

actively address nurse fatigue and sleepiness. Such strategies are needed to promote the health, safety, and wellness of RNs and ensure optimal pa-tient outcomes.

“Research shows that pro-longed work hours can hin-der a nurse’s performance and have negative impacts on pa-tients’ safety and outcomes,” says ANA President Pamela F. Cipriano, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN. “We’re concerned not only with greater likelihood for errors, diminished problem solving, slower reaction time, and other performance deficits related to fatigue, but also with dangers posed to nurses’ own health.”

Research links shift work and long working hours to sleep disturbances, injuries, mus-culoskeletal disorders, gas-trointestinal problems, mood disorders, obesity, diabetes mellitus, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and adverse reproductive out-comes.

ANA offers numerous evi-dence-based recommendations for RNs and employers to en-hance performance, safety, and patient outcomes, such as the following suggestions:

• Involve nurses in the de-sign of work schedules and use a regular and predict-able schedule so nurses can plan for work and personal responsibilities.

• Limit work weeks to 40 hours within seven days and work shifts to 12 hours.

• Eliminate the use of man-datory overtime as a “staff-ing solution.”

• Promote frequent, uninter-rupted rest breaks during work shifts.

• Enact official policy that confers RNs the right to accept or reject a work as-signment based on pre-venting risks from fatigue. The policy should include conditions that a rejected assignment does not con-stitute patient abandon-ment, and that RNs should not suffer adverse conse-quences in retaliation for such a decision.

• Encourage nurses to man-age their health and rest, including sleeping seven to nine hours per day; de-veloping effective stress management, nutrition, and exercise habits; and using naps in accordance with policy.

The position statement was developed by a Professional Issues Panel, established by the ANA Board of Directors.

The panel was comprised of 15 ANA member nurses with expertise on the issue, with additional input from an ad-visory committee of about 350 members who expressed interest in participating. The statement was distributed broadly for public comment to nursing organizations, fed-eral agencies, employers, in-dividual RNs, safety and risk assessment experts, and oth-ers, whose suggestions were

evaluated by the panel for in-corporation in the statement. The new position statement replaces two 2006 position statements—one for employ-ers and one for nurses. The statement clearly articulates that health care employers and nurses are jointly respon-sible for addressing the risks of nurse fatigue.

Source: American Nurses Association


Making Rounds

February25-28Southern Nursing Research Society29th Annual Conference: Conducting Research in Difficult Times: Come Revitalize your Research SpiritSaddlebrook ResortTampa, FloridaInfo: 303-327-7548E-mail: [email protected]: www.snrs.org

March11-14Advanced Practice Neonatal Nurses12th Annual ConferenceSheraton Chicago Hotel & TowersChicago, IllinoisInfo: 707-795-2168E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.academyonline.org

21-24American Association of Colleges of NursingThe Fairmont Washington Washington, DCInfo: 202-463-6930E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.aacn.nche.edu

24-28International Society of Psychiatric-Mental Health NursesISPN 17th Annual Conference and 8th Psychopharmacology Institute The Grand Hyatt Seattle, WashingtonInfo: 608-443-2463E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.ispn-psych.org

27-28Asian American Pacific Islander Nurses Association12th Annual ConferenceDoubleTree Las Vegas AirportLas Vegas, NevadaE-mail: [email protected] Website: www.aapina.org

April14-17Nurses Improving Care for Healthsystem Elders Annual ConferenceWalt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Orlando, FloridaInfo: 212-998-5445E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.nicheprogram.org

20-22Visiting Nurse Associations of America33rd Annual ConferenceThe Roosevelt HotelNew Orleans, LouisianaInfo: 888-866-8773E-mail: [email protected] Website: http://vnaa.org

23-25American Nursing Informatics AssociationLoews Philadelphia HotelPhiladelphia, PennsylvaniaTel: 866-552-6404E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.ania.org

23-26The Dermatology Nurses’ Association33rd Annual ConventionRio All-Suites Hotel & CasinoLas Vegas, NevadaInfo: 800-454-4362E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.dnanurse.org

29 - May 2American Conference for the Treatment of HIV9th Annual ConferenceRenaissance Dallas HotelDallas, TexasInfo: 540-368-1739E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.ACTHIV.org

May18-21American Association of Critical-Care NursesThe National Teaching Institute & Critical Care ExpositionSan Diego Convention CenterSan Diego, CaliforniaInfo: 800-899-2226E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.aacn.org

June12-17American Holistic Nurses Association35th Annual ConferenceChateau on the Lake Resort and Spa Branson, MissouriInfo: 800-278-2462E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.ahna.org

July7-10National Association of Hispanic NursesAnnual ConferenceHyatt Regency Anaheim, CaliforniaInfo: 501-673-1131E-mail: [email protected] Website: http://nahnnet.org


LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

The changing demographic of the United States popu-lation requires a response from nursing professionals.

I currently—and in the future—commit to helping oth-ers help themselves by becoming a champion of cultural sensitivity and diversity. In the world of political correct-ness and the changing face of America, I often listen for thoughts and attitudes on diversity and cultural compe-tence in the workplace.

The health care arena is my workplace, located in a hos-pital at a micropolitan area on the border of Virginia and North Carolina. Being in the southern USA with its past history of slavery, civil war, and Jim Crow, one can expect some residual attitudes on diversity. Nevertheless, in this quantum age, especially amongst medical professionals, one would believe and expect that health care profes-sionals would possess knowledge and sensitivity when it comes to cultural competency and diversity. One event in particular stands out in my mind, about a health care professional’s lack of knowledge and sensitivity regarding cultural competency and diversity.

The hospital that I work at embarked upon a medical residency program. The program ushered in medical doc-tors of diverse backgrounds and cultures. One particular doctor wore a turban, a Middle Eastern male headdress. In passing amongst some employees I would hear com-ments such as “towel head.” To my surprise, I heard a member of administration having the following exchange with a patient’s family member:

Family member: “So many foreign doctors around here, and you can’t tell them apart. I can’t understand them, and did you see the one with the head wrap?” Administrative employee: “Yes, I did.” [laughing and smiling]Family member: “You don’t know if he is a terrorist and will blow up the place.”Administrative employee: [nodding head in agreement with family and smiling]

The irony? The resident physician was born in America and raised in Los Angeles.

The changing face of America dictates that nursing must respond to the changing demographics of diversity within the nation. This demographic trend has signi� cance to nursing, and in� uences the way nurses must deliver care to a diverse society. This trend also dictates inclusion of diversity into all facets of the health care workplace. Nursing must address diversity with cultural-competency programs that assist workers in the development of cul-tural awareness and sensitivity. Diversity must be infused into nursing practice, addressing the cultural perspec-tives of health care workers, health care organizations and settings, as well as the diverse clients they serve.

With the globalization of health care, increased diversity in the workplace, and multicultural emphasis in society, cultural awareness has become one of the most impor-tant facets in almost every health care industry. Under-standing cultures of those around you will enhance com-munication, productivity, and unity in the workplace.

You can prepare yourself to be a culturally competent nurse by avoiding ethnocentric behavior (e.g., being totally unaware of other cultural beliefs and values—or assuming your beliefs and values are the only correct perception). Additionally, avoid behaviors of cultural im-position or imposing your cultural beliefs on others.

An intervention to promote cultural competency in the workplace involves the development and implementation of a pilot presentation on diversity, cultural competency, and cultural sensitivity. This was presented to a group of nurses in the Post Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU). Post presentation, the PACU staff was given the option to as-sess their awareness of personal culture, values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. Nurses could view the National Center for Cultural Competence website (www.nccccur-ricula.info) and complete module 1. This activity will allow them to assess their awareness of cultural competence.

—Leslie M. Waller, MSN/Ed, RN PACU

MINORITY NURSE


I was reading an article in the Fall edition titled “Nurs-ing and the Table of Brotherhood and Sisterhood.”

I noted how the writer mentioned how dif�cult it was being an African American student on a predominately white campus, which is something I can relate to when I was at University of Rhode Island for my undergradu-ate, now as a graduate student at UCONN, and even in my workplace as the only African American nurse on my �oor. However, I will say that there are some efforts being made to help increase the diversity of nursing at UCONN through a grant that I am currently working on with one of the professors. With this grant, we work with students in underserved populations/inner city (i.e., Hartford, CT) trying to show them that there is a way and that support is available. I think the tough part is actually getting the students to work hard in high school, unless it is some-thing they truly want, like the mentee mentioned in the article. Another thing I help out with is working with the undergraduate students in regard to classes, study tips, clinical concerns, and transitioning to working as a nurse. I agree that there needs to be an increase in diversity and programs that support this cause because when the students see a familiar or similar face to their own, it only reinforces that they are capable of achieving this goal as well. Recently, I met with a state representative to advocate for the need for increased diversity in nursing, which is something that is important, especially with the enrollment of the Affordable Care Act. At the meeting, it was stated that although there are funds allocated for this purpose, organizations have not created an effective way of utilizing and implementing this change. Overall, I en-joyed the article and agree there is a big need for mentor-ship in nursing because this could help so many students in the long run and create a positive cycle!

—Paulina LaCossade, RN, BSN University of Connecticut

NURSING OPPORTUNITIESThe University of Connecticut Health Center is a leading health-care, educational and research facility offering challengingnursing positions in all specialty patient care areas as well asCase Management, Nursing Informatics, and OutpatientServices. We are an equal opportunity employer with a strongcommitment to diversity and provide:

• Competitive Benefits • Competitive Salaries• Upward Mobility • Excellent Training

Department of Human Resources16 Munson Road 860.679.2426 phoneFarmington, CT 06034-4035 860.679.1051 fax

For a complete listing of all open jobs visit our website:www.uchc.edu

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Hamilton Square, NJ 08890 E-mail: [email protected] Phone: 609-890-2190 Fax: 609-890-2108

10 Minority Nurse | WINTER 201510 Minority Nurse | WINTER 2015

BEST PRACTICES

IN HOSPICE

CAREBY SONYA STINSON

www.minoritynurse.com Minority Nurse Magazine @MinorityNurse 11 www.minoritynurse.com Minority Nurse Magazine @MinorityNurse 11

“Sometimes death is such a new ex-perience to fam-ilies that they

don’t know what to expect or what to ask for, so we have to dig deeper into what their beliefs are,” Thaxton explains. “Some people want privacy in the moment of death. They don’t want someone coming into the room to change the garbage can or bring a lunch tray. They see this moment as sacred, and they want to have prayer or peace without inter-ruptions.”

Among Asian Pacifi c Island-ers (APIs), choices about end-of-life care often are made by the family as a whole, or by a designated decision maker within the family, says Merle Kataoka-Yahiro, DrPH, MS, APRN, an associate professor of nursing at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

“There needs to be improved crosscultural intervention—us-ing culturally appropriate and sensitive communication and behavioral change approach-es—for health professionals

as they interact and engage with API patients and families on topics related to palliative, hospice, and end-of-life care,” says Kataoka-Yahiro.

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) counts attention to patients’ cultural, social, reli-gious, and spiritual needs as core components of quality end-of-life care, along with management of pain and

symptoms and support for family members. This holistic view of hospice care lends itself to a collaborative, team ap-proach that’s guided by respect for each patient’s identity and autonomy.

The State of Hospice CareIn 2012, 1.5 million to 1.6

million patients received hos-pice services, according to the most recent report from the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO).

The number had steadily in-creased since 2008, when it stood at 1.2 million. About 66% of hospice patients re-ceived care where they lived, whether that was a private resi-dence, nursing home, or resi-dential facility. Roughly 27% were in a hospice inpatient facility, and nearly 7% were in an acute care hospital. The me-dian length of hospice service

in 2012 was 18.7 days, while the average was 71.8 days.

In 2012, 57.4% of hospices were freestanding, indepen-dent agencies; 20.5% were part of a hospital system; 16.9% were part of a home health agency; and 5.5% were part of a nursing home, according to NHPCO.

The NHPCO report found that 56.4% of hospice patients were female, 43.6% were male. More than 6% were of Hispanic or Latino origin (with Hispanic

origin reported separately from race). Eighty-one and a half percent were White/Caucasian; 8.6% Black/African American; 2.8% Asian, Hawaiian, or Other Pacifi c Islander; 0.3% American Indian or Alaskan Native.

While cancer patients made up the largest percentage of US admissions when hospice care began in the 1970s, today cancer diagnoses make up only about 37% of hospice admis-sions. Unspecifi ed disabilities accounted for 14% of admis-sions in the NHPCO survey. Dementia was 12.8%; heart disease, 11.2%; and lung dis-ease, 8.2%.

These changes are having an impact on access to hos-pice care, says Brian Guthrie, MD, associate medical director at Burke Hospice & Palliative Care in Burke County, North Carolina. The standard of eli-gibility for hospice care ben-efi ts from Medicare is that the patient must have consulted two doctors who agree that life expectancy is six months or less if the illness progresses normally.

Sometimes the most compassionate care a nurse can give to a dying patient is to quiet the room.

BEST PRACTICES

IN HOSPICE

CAREBY SONYA STINSON

Sometimes the most compassionate care a nurse can give

to a dying patient is to quiet the room. Cheryl Thaxton, RN,

MN, CPNP, FNP-BC, CH-PPN, a nurse practitioner on the

supportive and palliative care team at the Baylor Regional

Medical Center at Grapevine, says when a patient is near

death, care providers need to be attentive to personal desires

and family traditions regarding those fi nal moments.


“That’s easier to do with can-cer than it is with heart or lung disease, and it’s especially dif-fi cult to do with people with advancing dementia,” says

Guthrie, who is board certi-fi ed in hospice and palliative medicine. “There are admis-

sion guidelines with as many numbers and algorithms as we can fi gure out as to who might die in six months, but it’s a bigger challenge all the time.”

Guthrie’s wife, Birgit Lisan-ti, RN, MSN, MBA, is CEO of Burke Hospice. With an aver-

age daily census of about 120, the facility employs another physician who works full-time, while Guthrie fi lls in when needed. Guthrie was formerly a hospice physician at Tidewell Hospice in Sarasota, Florida, which had an average daily census of 1,200.

“The tremendous growth of hospice nationally has been a challenge for [the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Ser-vices] because they had not planned that it would be this big an industry—and that they would be fi nancially re-sponsible for so much care,” Guthrie says. “They’ve had to be vigilant—or you could say heavy-handed if you want—in trying to ensure that we don’t treat people for years and years on hospice when they are con-tinuing to survive.”

Jennifer Gentry, RN, MSN, ANP-BC, ACHPN, FPCN, presi-dent of the Hospice and Pallia-

tive Nurses Association, says one of the biggest changes in hospice care is that it is now viewed as part of a continuum that begins with earlier stages of palliative care. She notes that a number of hospice agen-cies have added nonhospice palliative care to their services.

“The unfortunate thing is that sometimes we don’t rec-ognize the benefi ts of hospice soon enough, and patients are not referred for hospice care until days before they die,”

says Gentry, who is a clinical associate at the Duke Univer-sity School of Nursing. “They don’t get the full benefi t of what hospice has to offer, not only for the patient but for their family unit.”

Holistic, Patient-CenteredBoth palliative and hospice

care are most effective when they take into consideration the patient’s physical, emo-tional, social, and spiritual needs, says Maureen Leahy, RN, BSN, MHA, CHPN, clinical nurse manager in the Wiener Family Palliative Care Unit at The Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.

Staff for the 13-bed unit includes nurses, physicians, geriatric and palliative care fellows, a nurse practitioner, and art, music, and pet thera-pists. There are even doulas that Leahy calls “midwives to the soul.” Rather than help-

ing women give birth, these volunteer doulas are trained to help patients and their families transition to the end of life.

“They may serve coffee,” Leahy says. “They may sit a vigil with a dying patient. They may spend time with grand-children of the patient doing painting and drawing.”

Guthrie notes that Medi-care-approved, independent hospice agencies are required to have a multidisciplinary staff that meets at least ev-

“Sometimes death is such a new experience to families that they don’t know what to expect or what to ask for, so we have to dig deeper into what their beliefs are,” Thaxton explains.

Both palliative and hospice care are most effec-tive when they take into consideration the patient’s physical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs, says Maureen Leahy, RN, BSN, MHA, CHPN, clinical nurse manager in the Wiener Family Palliative Care Unit at The Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.


ery two weeks to discuss each patient.

“The social workers, chap-lains, aides, nurses, and phy-sician all meet together and talk about the plan of care, challenges, what we expect to see next, and they try and work together to ensure that all of the patient’s needs—medical, emotional, spiritual, and so-cial—are met,” Guthrie says. “The focus is on the family as well.”

Listening is one of the most important services end-of-life caregivers provide, in Leahy’s view, but time-pressured health care professionals don’t always do it well.

“We sometimes dictate to them what they need in terms of their health care, their med-ical treatment,” says Leahy. “Patients lose their autono-my very quickly when they become sick. . . . They often lose the sense of their ability to decide for themselves what is right or good.”

As professionals who “lay hands on people,” as Leahy says, nurses are in a unique position to hear the needs and wants of dying patients.

“The ethical constructs that drive our care are things like autonomy and justice and be-nefi cence, our duty to do good and . . . to do no harm,” says Leahy. “Nurses often can iden-tify early on when our well-in-tended treatment and care . . . become harmful, when people stop living and begin dying.”

Thaxton says nurses and other care providers at Bay-lor Regional Medical Center help patients and their families with advance care planning. They discuss choices, such as whether the patient wishes to have intertracheal or long-term feeding tubes.

“We can offer a lot of things, because we know a lot of things and we have the tech-nology,” says Thaxton. “But are those really benefi cial, and are those things what the patient and family really want?”

Pam Malloy, project direc-

tor and co-investigator for the End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC), says patients have become more knowledgeable about the op-tions they have.

“They’ve heard lots of horror stories about people not dy-ing well,” Malloy says. “It gets them thinking: I don’t want to die in the ICU with tubes in me. . . . They realize that if they don’t make their own decisions about their end-of-life care, someone else will.”

Regulatory change—espe-cially the requirement to pro-vide measurable evidence of quality—is one of the biggest issues in hospice care today, says Danielle Pierotti, RN,

MSN, AOCN, CHPN, director of clinical practice and chief nurse at HCI Care Services, an independent hospice agency in West Des Moines, Iowa.

“Hospice is probably the last frontier for the cost-qual-ity revolution of health care,”

Pierotti says, noting that hos-pitals, nursing homes, home health agencies, and physi-cians’ offi ces faced the issue years earlier.

She says hospice agencies are taking “baby steps” to learn how to collect data that will help them demonstrate their value in ways that can be measured. They are learn-ing a lot from the experience of quality experts in hospital settings.

“There are a lot of great con-versations happening at the national level to help decide what those indicators are and help to put our arms around what it means to provide good end-of-life care,” Pierotti says.

Training End-of-Life Caregivers

“Dying in America,” a new study from the IOM released in September 2014, lauds the improvements over the last few decades in the education of health professionals providing

end-of-life care. Unfortunately, the IOM committee also found that “recent knowledge gains have not necessarily translated to improved patient care,” and that the small number of hos-pice and palliative care special-ists in the fi eld means patients are often treated by clinicians who lack suffi cient training and expertise.

“The committee recom-mends that educational in-stitutions, professional societ-ies, accrediting organizations, certifying bodies, health care delivery organizations, and medical centers take measures to both increase the number of palliative care specialists and expand the knowledge


base for all clinicians,” the report states.

Since 2000, ELNEC has been developing curricula for nurs-ing students, nursing faculty, practicing nurses, and nursing researchers, says Malloy. With a

reach that extends to 84 coun-tries, the consortium has taught more than 19,000 profession-als over the last 14 years in its train-the-trainer courses.

“Our goal is to promote this education,” Malloy says. “We will never change practices un-til people are educated.”

Patricia Ropis, MSN, RN, teaches the “Dying with Dig-nity” course at the College of Nursing at Seton Hall Uni-versity in South Orange, New

Jersey. The two-hour class fo-cuses on a different topic each week—for example, holistic health care; religion, culture, and ritual; grief theory; com-forting the dying; pain and symptom management; and

communication. That last topic is one Ropis believes is especially important for hos-pice nurses.

“In caring for the dying, communication is our tool,” Ropis says. “People often don’t realize when they take care of the dying that the support we give to other people is a nurs-ing intervention. You need to be very skilled in commu-nication to take care of this population.”

HCI’s continuing education program, the Hospice of Central Iowa Institute, presents educa-tional conferences to nurses,

home health and hospice aides, and other health care profes-sionals.

“Educating the communi-ty—meaning everybody, in-cluding health care providers . . . lay people, patients, fam-ilies, and neighbors—about what end of life is and what it means and how hospice can be supportive in that period of time has always been a central tenet of what we do,” explains Pierotti.

Hospice and palliative care providers have entered the spe-cialty via many different paths, but they seem to share the view that what they do is not just a career but a calling. Years ago, when Guthrie was a physician in an emergency department in his native Saskatchewan, Canada, he became involved in treating the husband of the ER director for kidney cancer. Guthrie began working with the hospital pharmacist to try to control the patient’s tremen-dous pain.

“Very quickly, I realized the pharmacist had a set of knowl-edge I didn’t even know about,” Guthrie recalls. “He started tell-ing me that he was from Mon-treal and that he’d studied un-der Cicely Saunders, the very famous British nurse/doctor/social worker who started hos-pice and palliative care in Brit-ain. We worked together and did what we could to make this

guy comfortable. I thought, ‘If I ever get a chance, I’m going to do this full-time. This is the best medicine I’ve ever seen.’”

Pierotti began her career as an oncology nurse, a specialty she notes is often intertwined with hospice care.

“As a frontline nurse, what impressed me over and over again was how much impact I could have for people at the end of their life,” says Pierotti. “I think that was a surprise to me at the beginning, and it’s continuously a surprise to pa-tients and families.”

Thaxton became a palliative care nurse about five years ago, after 23 years in ICU nurs-ing. She notes that nurses who are new to the death experi-ence need special attention to ensure they are emotionally prepared.

“Some people think: Am I still a good nurse if this pa-tient is going to die on my watch?” Thaxton says. “The first death experience for a nurse can be really life-chang-ing. We get into medicine and nursing because we want to save people. But helping them to die peacefully and free of pain, respecting their dignity, and making sure their wishes are honored, is a noble thing to do.”

Sonya Stinson is a freelance writer

based in New Orleans.

“As a frontline nurse, what impressed me over and over again was how much impact I could have for people at the end of their life,” says Pierotti.

“In caring for the dying, communication is our tool,” Ropis says. “People often don’t realize when they take care of the dying that the support we give to other people is a nursing intervention. You need to be very skilled in communication to take care of this population.”

Join Our Community. Get your Free Subscription!Visit www.MinorityNurse.com and subscribe today!

Dedicated to Diversity

Minority Nurse magazine is committed to increasing diversity and inclusiveness in academics and nursing practice.

Diversity is more than a check box on a form, more than a dry statistic hidden in a table of demographic data. It is more than the color of one’s skin, the nation of one’s heritage, or the origins of one’s social beliefs.

Diversity celebrates culture.

Diversity is inclusive.

Diversity is the catalyst for the collaboration and discovery that is essential for an understanding and appreciation of the human spirit. Diversity allows us to engage with our differences and provides the mechanism that leads to acquiring cultural sensitivity and achieving cultural competence.

We honor the individual and the community.

We encourage ourselves and others to behave equitably.

We promote acknowledging and respecting different beliefs, practices, and cultural norms.

We uphold academic excellence, celebrate best practices, honor traditions, and embrace change that advances our objectives of caring for ourselves, advancing our educational and career opportunities, and providing quality health care for our patients.

We are Minority Nurse magazine.

11 West 42nd Street, 15th Floor, New York, New York 10036Tel 212-431-4370 • Fax 212-941-7842


Join Our Community. Get your Free Subscription!Visit www.MinorityNurse.com and subscribe today!

Dedicated to Diversity

Minority Nurse magazine is committed to increasing diversity and inclusiveness in academics and nursing practice.

Diversity is more than a check box on a form, more than a dry statistic hidden in a table of demographic data. It is more than the color of one’s skin, the nation of one’s heritage, or the origins of one’s social beliefs.

Diversity celebrates culture.

Diversity is inclusive.

Diversity is the catalyst for the collaboration and discovery that is essential for an understanding and appreciation of the human spirit. Diversity allows us to engage with our differences and provides the mechanism that leads to acquiring cultural sensitivity and achieving cultural competence.

We honor the individual and the community.

We encourage ourselves and others to behave equitably.

We promote acknowledging and respecting different beliefs, practices, and cultural norms.

We uphold academic excellence, celebrate best practices, honor traditions, and embrace change that advances our objectives of caring for ourselves, advancing our educational and career opportunities, and providing quality health care for our patients.

We are Minority Nurse magazine.

11 West 42nd Street, 15th Floor, New York, New York 10036Tel 212-431-4370 • Fax 212-941-7842


Bullying in a Least Expected PlaceBY JAMES Z. DANIELS


After completing her nursing degree, Lynn went to work as a reg-istered nurse in the

emergency department at a suburban hospital in North Carolina. For the next two years, she was abused, intimi-dated, openly berated, and hu-miliated by staff nurses with more seniority and the nurse manager.

“What was that like?” She said it was just how

you were treated. “You were made to feel stupid when you sought clarifi cation of a physi-cian’s charted instructions, for example, or asked for input to correctly respond to a patient’s request. Eventually, I left.”

What happened to Lynn is not a rare occurrence among nurses, unfortunately. On July 9, 2008, The Joint Commis-sion, which provides oversight to over 20,000 hospitals and other care facilities, issued a policy directive to its member-ship called a Sentinel Event Alert. Its instruction was to have procedures in place to deal with “behaviors that un-dermine a culture of safety” by January 1, 2009. It described “intimidating and disruptive behaviors” in great detail, which is the most widely ac-cepted defi nition of bullying. Its rationale was clearly em-bedded within the body of the policy: “There is a history of tolerance and indifference to intimidating and disruptive behaviors in health care.”

With mounting evidence that bullying was surprisingly prevalent within the health care sector, the intended pur-pose of the Sentinel Event Alert was to amend its lead-ership standards. Accredited health care organizations would be required to create

codes of conduct that defi ne disruptive and inappropriate workplace behaviors as well as establish and implement procedures for managing such behaviors. Additionally, the institutions The Joint Com-mission accredits were expect-ed to make their data available for review, according to Ge-rard M. Castro, PhD, The Joint Commission’s project director for patient safety initiatives.

Nursing’s Dirty Little Secret “Nurses eat their young,”

wrote Theresa Brown, a reg-istered nurse, in an article in The New York Times in February 2010. “The expression is stan-dard lore among nurses, and it means bullying, harassment, whatever you want to call it. It’s that harsh, sometimes abu-sive treatment of new nurses that is entrenched on some hospital fl oors and schools of nursing. It’s the dirty little secret of nursing.”

Her story is not exceptional, and it prompted me to con-tact Gina, a clinical nurse in Worcester, Massachusetts, with a master of science de-gree in nursing education and 35 years of experience—15 of which were on a nursing school’s faculty.

“There are nurses that I do not assign a new-to-nursing nurse to because of what I know would be their experi-ence,” Gina tells me. Then, she describes her very recent experience where she accepted a per diem assignment in the operating room (OR) of a local hospital with which she is very familiar: “I almost never sur-vived a month because of the bullying that went on. I had never seen anything like it and never experienced anything like it in my years in nursing.”

It was an intentionally

simple question the clinical

nurse in the examining room

heard. “Lynn,” I said, “Have

you ever been bullied?” There

came a pause. Then, she

responded with a torrent of

emotions refl ecting anger and

disappointment that took her

back to the start of her career

23 years ago. I posed the

question as she prepped me for

the ECG my doctor ordered.


It seems that there had not been an assignment of someone new to the OR in 10 years, so Gina was treated as an outsider and not part of the clique. So targeted was the hostility that after three

months of enduring the treat-ment, she says, “I began to feel myself spiraling down, losing my self-confidence. I endured badgering criticism; I couldn’t do anything right; there was an absence of kindness.”

Fortunately, there was a change of supervisor who observed the climate in the OR and stepped in to end the intimidation by referring the preceptor for retraining.

An Occupational HazardScenarios similar to the one

Gina describes must have been alarmingly common to have prompted The Joint Commis-

sion to issue a specific direc-tive regarding workplace bul-lying, or lateral violence, as it is technically referenced. Di-verse studies identify nursing as a risk group for workplace bullying; further, they confirm

that the problem of hostility in the workplace is very com-mon in the health care sector.

Indeed, health systems are aware of this hostility and re-

sponding to the Commission’s directive. Duke University and the University of North Caroli-na, for instance, have policies and procedures to deal with

workplace behavior. Duke shies away from describing intimidating and disruptive behaviors as bullying per se—and perhaps may have tacitly not reinforced the implica-tions that bullying is specific

and disruptive conduct that impacts the delivery of care.

Carole Akerly, BSN, director of accreditation and regula-tory affairs at Duke Univer-

sity Hospital, responded to my inquiry. “Duke,” she says, “has identified behaviors that are appropriate and has not specifically described intimi-

dating and disruptive behav-iors, and I don’t know whether we have identified it as that close.” But if bullying is as prevalent as the research and reports indicate—and there are many—it is unlikely that Duke and other health care provid-ers have an incident pattern less than the norm.

The University of North Carolina Health Care System, on the other hand, provides a detailed description of intimi-dating and disruptive behavior and a very specific description of what constitutes appropri-ate behavior, so the employee has no room to allege ambi-guity. The rationale for its disruptive and inappropriate behavior policy admits that disruptive behavior “intimi-dates others and affects morale or staff turnover [and] can be harmful to patient care and satisfaction as well as employ-ee satisfaction and safety.” Fur-ther, the policy acknowledges the possible presence of such behavior: “While this kind of conduct is not pervasive in our facilities, no hospital or clinic is immune.”

Carol F. Rocker, PhD, RN, the lead investigator of a study of nurse-to-nurse bul-lying and its impact on re-tention in Canada, reported in OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing in September 2008 that Canadian nurses are not alone when it comes to workplace bullying and emphasized that workplace bullying among nurses is now recognized as a major occu-pational health problem in the United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia. Why did The Joint Commission go to the trouble of defining bullying if it was not to delineate behav-iors that threatened patient

Diverse studies identify nursing as a risk group for workplace bullying; further, they con�rm that the problem of hostility in the workplace is very com-mon in the health care sector.


safety and care quality? The answer is embedded in what led the Commission to do this in the first place. It’s found in

the promulgation of the Uni-versal Protocol (UP).

In addressing the need to create a climate of safety re-lated to wrong site, wrong pa-tient, and wrong procedure within a health care facil-ity, the Commission became aware that one of the con-tributing factors was the fail-ure to speak up. What stops a clinician from speaking up? Oftentimes, it’s the deference to the physician and other clinicians.

“We have heard of abu-sive behavior by physicians when clinicians in the operat-ing room, for example, have corrected the physician. Not speaking up is the result of deference to the physician,” says Castro. The UP team be-came aware at that time that this harmful behavior within care facilities was a safety is-sue.

A 2003 survey on workplace intimidation conducted by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices found that 40% of clinicians have kept quiet or remained passive during pa-tient care events rather than question a known intimida-tor. Elaborating on this issue, the Commission’s Sentinel Event Alert cites several rea-sons why disruptive behaviors

go unreported, such as fear of retaliation, the stigma as-sociated with “blowing the whistle” on a colleague, and

leniency towards physicians who generate high amounts of revenue.

But, so serious is the epi-demic of workplace bullying—with particular emphasis on the nursing sector—that 26 state legislatures have pro-posed legislation to address this concern, beginning with California in 2003. The model, the Healthy Workplace Bill, provides very specific employ-ee and employer remedies, protections, and sanctions. There is clearly a movement to expand safety in the work-place from the purely physical aspect to the equally impor-tant emotional and psycho-logical aspects.

When Nurses Hurt NursesKathleen Bartholomew, RN,

MN, renowned for nursing consulting and training, cites episodes of nurse bullying that astonishes: a nurse hides a sur-geon’s favorite instrument when a substitute fills in as the scrub; a circulator, a nurse who makes preparations for an operation and continually monitors the patient and staff during the surgery, doesn’t tell a new nurse who is scrubbed that she knows the shunt the surgeon selected has fallen on the floor; a newly hired RN

who was previously a scrub technician is shunned by both camps. These episodes, Bar-tholomew says, pose the ques-tion whether this is what life is like in the OR.

When the administration at Indiana University Ball Memo-rial Hospital studied the issue of bullying, it was clear that the problem existed beyond nursing units. “It starts with physician to physician and then trickles down the chain of command,” says Renee Twibell, PhD, the lead investigator and an associate professor of nurs-

ing at Ball State University. “If the doctor kicks the nurse, that nurse turns around and kicks the new nurse or the CNA.”

The consequences of adult bullying have led investigators to name it as a significant oc-cupational stressor in the work-place. Moreover, the Center for American Nurses labels work-place bullying a serious issue affecting the nursing profession in particular, and defines it as any type of repetitive abuse in which the victim suffers verbal abuse, threats, humiliating or intimidating behaviors, or be-haviors that interfere with the victim’s job performance and are meant to place the health and safety of the victim at risk.

Are all nursing sectors equally at risk? Specifically, I was curious to know whether military nurses have a simi-

But, so serious is the epidemic of workplace bul-lying—with particular emphasis on the nursing sector—that 26 state legislatures have proposed legislation to address this concern, beginning with California in 2003.

In addressing the need to create a climate of safety related to wrong site, wrong patient, and wrong pro-cedure within a health care facility, the Commission became aware that one of the contributing factors was the failure to speak up.


lar experience. Having spoken with Lieutenant Colonel Ange-lo D. Moore, PhD, the deputy chief for the Center for Nurs-ing Science and Clinical Inqui-ry at Fort Bragg Womack Army Medical Center for a previous story, I remembered what he

had said. Moore turned my inquiry around and wondered whether gender issues might be at work in some bullying episodes. The ratio of male to female nurses in the military is thrice that of the nonmilitary nursing sector and, according to Moore, the combination of having been to war and the culture of the military con-tributes to very few incidents where bullying was alleged.

Still, bullying is a complex phenomenon. Although bul-lies are responsible for their behaviors, investigators have analyzed several potential fac-tors that prime the workplace for bully behaviors, which in-clude organizational leader-ship and culture, the social system, character traits of the victim, and character traits of the bully. Bullying clearly qualifies as hostile workplace behavior, and if the target can claim protected class status, it becomes a major legal issue for hospitals and care centers. A 2011 study of student nurses by the American Nursing As-sociation reported that 53% of study participants had been “put down” by a staff nurse, and 52% had been threatened or experienced verbal violence at work.

Cheryl Dellasega, PhD, fac-ulty member at the Penn State University College of Medicine and author of When Nurses Hurt Nurses: Recognizing and Overcoming the Cycle of Bullying, provides significant research that led her to state that there

are cases where the nurse man-ager or charge nurse—often a highly competent, valuable nurse that the administration does not want to lose—may act as a bully, playing favorites when it comes to assignments or time off. “If they are role modeling this stuff, it will be worse among the staff,” Del-lasega told NurseZone.com. “If they get the message that it’s OK to treat people like this, everybody will.”

Moving Forward So, what’s the remedy? Bul-

lying in the workplace is both an awareness and a leadership issue. Moreover, as is so often the case in workplace prac-tices, the leadership should be careful not to be caught being party to making case law by a complainant seeking to link hostile workplace to bullying as a protected class member. Hospital manage-ment might address the pres-ence or prevalence of bullying behavior by examining how it is factored into their training in root-cause analysis, as well as what their whistleblowing protection policy provides.

Nurse leaders must establish clear guidelines about what behaviors will not be toler-

ated and what is unacceptable, Dellasega believes. She also recommends creating a sug-gestion system so nurses can anonymously report things

that happen on the unit, and asking for feedback about what would make the work environment better.

Gabriela Cora, MD, takes a harder stand, saying hospital administrators should have zero tolerance for bullying behavior. “Lay a plan for im-provement,” Cora adds. “Re-ward them when they improve their behavior and be ready to fire them if they continue the bullying behavior. Second,

avoid praising or rewarding nurses for their work perfor-mance if they are bullies. In-stead, respectful treatment of patients and positive interac-

tions with colleagues should be rewarded.”

Ultimately, it’s all about modeling positive behaviors and holding employees ac-countable. If the policy is zero tolerance for bullying, it should mean just that—zero tolerance.

James Z. Daniels is a consultant

and writer who lives in Durham,

North Carolina, and frequently

contributes to Minority Nurse.

Ultimately, it’s all about modeling positive behaviors and holding employees accountable.

Nurse leaders must establish clear guidelines about what behaviors will not be tolerated and what is unacceptable, Dellasega believes.

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ART PRODUCER: Veronica Reo 8-3459PRINT PROD.: Tom Stocks 8-3941

PROJ. MNGR.: Linda Holmes 8-4121This advertisement prepared by Young & Rubicam, N.Y.

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Baby Boomers and Beyond The Evolution of Nursing

BY LEIGH PAGE

Nursing is entering an era of great transformation that is driven by three major changes: an aging baby boomer population; the ongoing impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA); and rising educational goals for the profession, including greater emphasis on the bachelor’s of science in nursing (BSN) and advanced practice nursing (APN) degrees.



For minority nurses, these changes bring a variety of benefi ts, as well as some possible

drawbacks. The aging of the baby boom-

ers is expected to produce a plethora of new nursing jobs, which could lead to higher wages, greater job security, and greater variety in types of work. By the same token, this deluge of new patients could put new strains on the nursing workforce, possibly leading to higher patient-to-nurse ratios.

The health care law is changing the way nurses de-liver care—emphasizing more outreach into the community and closer collaboration with patients. These changes could boost the need for nurses from

the same cultural background as patients, at a time when Af-rican Americans and Hispanics are underrepresented in nurs-ing. But the changes also mean less work for nurses in the tra-ditional hospital setting.

Finally, nurses will have greater opportunities to ad-vance their careers by going back to school for more train-ing; APNs, and especially nurse practitioners (NPs), are already in great demand to cope with a growing physician shortage. However, having to spend more time in school may be challenging for nurses with limited fi nances.

Nursing is embracing these fundamental changes to keep pace with a rapidly evolving health care system, says Jo Ann Webb, RN, MHA, senior director of federal relations and policy at the American Organization of Nurse Execu-tives. “Health care is chang-ing, and nursing has to change with it.”

Baby Boom Changes Postponed, But Not Cancelled

For several years now, the profession has been brac-ing for a massive shortage of nurses, but it’s been slow to materialize.

The massive baby boomer generation, making up almost one-third of the population,

began to turn age 65 in 2011. As they continue to get older, both supply and demand of nurses will be affected in a big way. On the supply side, retir-ing baby boomer nurses will empty the ranks of the profes-sion. On the demand side, ag-ing baby boomer patients will need more nursing to manage their declining health.

Yet, these massive changes were postponed by the 2008-2009 recession and the weak economy that followed, argues Marcia Faller, RN, PhD, chief clinical offi cer for AMN Health-care, a health care staffi ng com-pany based in San Diego.

Aging nurses, short on household funds, held off retiring and even came out of retirement to work again. Meanwhile, the aging patients have put off care, fl attening the demand for health ser-vices. “Everybody is trying to fi gure how these changes will play out,” says Faller, who led a major AMN Healthcare survey on registered nurses in 2013.

But as a result of this delay, new nurses who had expect-ed a strong jobs market have struggled to fi nd openings. For example, a Denver TV station reported in 2013 that, of 752 openings for RNs in Colorado at that time, only four were for new graduates.

Lack of jobs has been espe-cially hard on minority nurses, many of whom lack savings to fall back on. With their careers sidetracked, they’ve had to take non-RN jobs in health care or in com-pletely unrelated fi elds.

In a new graduate hir-ing survey, the California Institute for Nursing & Health Care reported that in 2012–2013, the latest year available, a little over 40% of new RN graduates in the state hadn’t found an RN job—only a slight improvement over the previous three years. Of those who didn’t fi nd RN jobs, 20% were working in non-RN roles in health care and 23% took jobs outside health care. The rest went back to school or volunteered in health care at no pay.

Many new graduates are angry and mistrust-ful. In a 2013 survey by two nursing professors at Molloy College, which was

published by the National Student Nurses’ Association, many new RN grads thought the nursing shortage was just a “myth,” created by nursing schools to attract more stu-dents.

The impending nurse short-age, however, is not going away, says Mary H. Hill, PhD, RN, nursing professor and as-sistant provost of Howard Uni-versity in Washington, DC. Aging patients can’t continue to delay treatment and aging nurses can’t continue to put off retirement. Indeed, states like Texas and many rural ar-eas are already encountering shortages. “Nursing has ex-perienced some challenges, but even greater challenges lie ahead as the baby boomers retire and leave the nursing workforce,” says Hill.

Nursing is embracing these fundamental changes to keep pace with a rapidly evolving health care system, says Jo Ann Webb, RN, MHA, senior direc-tor of federal relations and policy at the American Organization of Nurse Executives. “Health care is changing, and nursing has to change with it.”


The need for more nurses will be overwhelming, accord-ing to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). In a recent oc-cupational outlook report, the BLS said there will need to be about 500,000 more nurs-ing positions by 2022. In ad-dition, about 500,000 baby boomer nurses are expected to retire over that same time period, meaning that over 1 million new nurses will be needed over the next decade, according to the BLS.

That means that the hos-pitals and other employers who are now rejecting young applicants will end up beg-ging for them to apply, which could push up nurses’ wages.

Hospitals could also simply pile more work onto existing nurses, but doing so would be unworkable in the long run.

Nursing schools have been pushing hard to expand class size so there will be enough nurses for this tsunami of de-mand. But they’ve had to turn applicants away, due to a lack of nurse educators. Nursing schools in New York, for exam-ple, rejected 2,900 qualifi ed ap-plicants in 2012, more than in any year since 2005, according to the Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS). Many of these spurned appli-cants have probably moved on to other careers, which is a great loss for nursing.

Repercussions of the Affordable Care Act

Like the baby boom, the health care law represents another great sea change for nursing and is also still in its early stages. The full impact

of the ACA “hasn’t shaken out yet,” according to Webb.

Beginning in January 2014, millions of Americans gained coverage under Medicaid and in subsidized policies sold on

the new health insurance ex-changes. But it’s still unclear how much these people will boost demand for health care and thus nurse hiring. Ex-change policies tend to have very high deductibles, dis-

couraging people from getting care. Additionally, millions of Americans still haven’t signed up, despite a federal require-ment to do so. The penalties in the fi rst year were fairly mi-

For several years now, the profession has been bracing for a massive shortage of nurses, but it’s been slow to materialize.


nor but will rise in succeed-ing years, which may boost coverage.

The elephant in the room, of course, is Republican op-position to the law. Repub-licans continue to promise repeal, and it could happen since they’ve gained control of the Senate and the House. In the meantime, however, this sweeping law is fundamentally changing the face of health care in this country—not just in terms of sheer numbers of patients, but also in the way it is delivered. And in another few years, it would be very hard to turn these changes back.

“I’m not saying it’s a perfect law,” says Webb, “but it has, in my view, put nursing on the map. Nurses have a bigger role now.” Accountable care organizations and patient-centered medical homes are new models of care that are encouraged by the ACA. Both models reward hospitals and other providers that coordi-nate care and provide more patient education—two areas where nurses excel.

“The ACA emphasizes primary and secondary pre-vention and education of patients,” says Shawona Daniel, MSN, CRNP, assistant professor of nursing at Tuske-gee University, a historically black institution in Alabama. “Education is one of the most important nursing roles. I’d say 90% of what nurses do involves teaching patients and working on preventive issues, which helps keep patients out of the hospital.”

Webb added that working in medical homes requires com-puter skills in order to deal with electronic health records and telehealth services, such

as e-mailing and Skyping pa-tients, as well as using remote monitoring devices. “These patients need monitoring, and this is where nursing is really critical,” she argues.

The Shift Away From Hospitals

Daniel reported that virtu-ally all of her students still expect to work in a hospital—at least initially. But the ACA favors new models of care out-side the hospital. For example, Medicare is reducing hospital reimbursements, and hospitals are being penalized for read-missions within 30 days.

“There is an ongoing shift from inpatient to more com-munity-based outpatient care,” says Hill.

Faller agreed with this as-sessment. “Only the sickest of the sick will be in the hospital, and care will fl ow out into the community,” she explains. As health care moves out of the hospital, home health is already a growing fi eld, and it has become a magnet for telehealth and other high-tech services, she adds.

In addition, Hill says nurses will be able to fi nd ample jobs at dialysis centers, community health centers, physicians’ of-fi ces, outpatient surgery cen-ters, and pain management clinics, to name a few settings. “There are just so many op-portunities,” she argues.

As part of the de-emphasis on hospital care, many pa-tients are being discharged earlier and placed in long-term acute care (LTAC) facili-ties, where they spend many weeks often still on venti-lators and IVs. Care in the LTACs is “complex and chal-lenging,” says Joseph Morris, CNS, GNP, PhD, director of



nursing and allied health at Victor Valley College in Vic-torville, California. “Nurses who work in these facilities require advanced skills, such as advanced cardiac life sup-port and telemetry training.”

Morris, who is trained in gerontology, welcomes the influx of aging baby boom-ers. Many nurses seem to feel that a geriatrics career—which can mean working in a nurs-ing home—means “lowering your sights,” he says, but he disagrees. “It’s clinically chal-lenging because you’re more likely to see multiple health problems.”

Dealing with older patients is also personally rewarding. Morris, who is African Ameri-can, has fond memories of tak-ing care of elderly black men in Detroit. In contrast to the stereotype of geriatric patients sitting in their wheelchairs muttering to themselves, “most geriatric patients are still active,” he says.

Nurses Get More Training The job market is beginning

to favor nurses who have a BSN degree, and advanced practice nurses such as NPs are in great demand.

Both trends earned key en-dorsements from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in its 2010 report, The Future of Nursing. The report set a goal that 80% of nurses should have a BSN degree by 2020 and urged states to drop barriers against NPs working “to the full ex-tent of their education and training.”

Hospitals are quickly shift-ing to BSNs. In New York, 70% of hospitals in 2013 preferred hiring BSNs, compared with 46% in 2011, according to HA-NYS. Many younger nurses are

heeding the call. Faller point-ed to the 2013 AMN Health-care survey showing that al-most one-quarter of nurses ages 19–39 said they would pursue a BSN, and more than one-third said they would pursue a master’s degree in nursing.

Hill says it’s fairly easy for someone with an associate degree in nursing to transi-tion to a BSN degree. They can enroll in a “RN-to-BSN” tran-sition program, which lasts 12–18 months and is available in many locations across the country.

Meanwhile, NPs have been proliferating. According to a 2013 report by the Health Re-sources and Services Admin-istration (HRSA), the number of NP graduates grew by 69% from 2001 to 2011, fueled by the growing shortage of phy-sicians in primary care and easing of state restrictions on NP practice.

“Nursing students are more ambitious than they used to be,” argues Daniel. “A lot

of them want to go back to graduate school and become nurse practitioners.” She says she hopes some of them will choose a career in academia so that more nurses can be trained. This was another goal of the IOM report.

Morris says the new doctor of nursing practice credential, which will be required for all NP students starting in 2015,

expands the amount of study, making NPs even more desir-able as primary care providers as well as specialty caregivers.

Of course, the extra time and money needed for a BSN, and especially an NP, can be a barrier for minority stu-dents. Rather than pile up loans, Morris urged students to thoroughly research avail-able scholarships. “Nursing students have not always been proactive in seeking out the opportunities.”

Push for DiversityThe new models of care

fostered by the ACA require closer relationships between providers and patients, which means hiring nurses from the same ethnic background as their patients. Hospitals and other employers “want their nurses to be compatible with the culture or their patients,” says Faller. “But this will be a challenge, particularly for the Hispanic population.”

While Hispanics make up 17.1% of the population, they

account for only 4.8% of RNs, according to the HRSA. There is also a gap for African Ameri-cans, who account for 13.2% of the population but just 9.9% of RNs.

As a black male nurse, Mor-ris says it’s easier for him than for white caregivers to con-nect with black patients. He says many of them are still painfully aware of the infa-

mous Tuskegee experiment. In a project that lasted un-til 1972, white doctors didn’t inform black male patients that they had syphilis, so that they could follow the natural progression of the disease. As a result, older black patients in particular are still wary of “being used as guinea pigs,” he says.

Morris has worked hard to boost African American repre-sentation in nursing, visiting schools to spread the word about a nursing career. He is also interested in boosting the number of black men in nursing. While men make up almost 10% of all nurses, very few black males enter the field, he says.

Nurses Have a Central Role to Play

There are many opportu-nities for minority nurses in this era of great change in the health care system. Accord-ing to the IOM report, nurses will take center stage in this process.

“We believe nurses have key roles to play as team mem-bers and leaders for a reformed and better-integrated, patient-centered health care system,” the report maintained. “How well nurses are trained and do their jobs is inextricably tied to every health care quality measure that has been target-ed for improvement over the past few years.”

Leigh Page is a Chicago-based

freelance writer specializing in

health care topics.

The new models of care fostered by the ACA require closer relationships between providers and patients, which means hiring nurses from the same ethnic background as their patients.


25TOP

OF 2014NURSING EMPLOYERS


Unsurprisingly, salary and benefits once again topped the list of factors respondents

considered when looking at potential employers. But for many readers, workplace sat-isfaction was about more than just compensation. This year’s results showed an increased focus on quality of life fac-tors, such as corporate culture, workplace environment, and flexibility of hours. Diversity and workplace size—while still important to many respon-dents—were less of a factor

when considering potential employers.

Overwhelmingly, this year’s results showed readers were quite satisfied with their cur-rent jobs. The majority rated their employers as “good” or “excellent” in most categories, including workplace size, job perks, and benefits. The areas most in need of improvement according to this year’s survey were opportunity for advance-ment and salary, though Mi-nority Nurse’s Salary Survey from 2014 showed that read-ers have seen steady pay in-

creases in that area over the last few years.

This year’s responses, which were gathered through an on-line questionnaire sent to Mi-nority Nurse subscribers, came from across the country, with California, New York, Texas, and Pennsylvania as the most represented states. Companies that scored well this year were mostly very large organizations with thousands of employees, including several academic-affiliated medical centers, such as Duke University Health Sys-tem and Penn State Milton S.

Hershey Medical Center; gov-ernment agencies, such as the US Department of Veterans Af-fairs and Indian Health Service; and big urban hospitals and networks, such as Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Cleveland Clinic.

Our final list of top 25 companies, presented alpha-betically, scored well in the categories that were most im-portant to our readers. We’ve provided a brief introduction to each organization, as well as contact information for job seekers.

For the second year in a row, we reached out to Minority Nurse readers about what they look for in a workplace—and how

their current employers stack up.

BY ETHAN LACROIX

NURSING EMPLOYERS


Advocate Health Care

Website: advocatehealth.com

Location: Facilities throughout Illinois

Number of nursing employees: Approximately 10,000

About the company: Formed in 1995 with the merger of Evangelical Health Systems Corporation and Lutheran General Health System, the Advocate Health Care network is one of the largest employers in the Chicago area. It includes 12 acute-care hospitals (six of which are Magnet-certifi ed) and more than 200 other health care facilities, including hospices. Several Advocate hospitals have consistently ranked in the U.S. News & World Report annual best hospitals, among other accolades.

Contact: Job listings are available at jobs.advocatehealth.com

29%

20%

15%

16%

9%11%

Number of Respondents:1,064

■ School or university■ Public hospital, including

Veteran’s or Indian Affairs hospitals

■ Private hospital

■ Private practice or physician’s office

■ Nursing home or rehabilitation center

■ Other

34%

30%

22%

14%

.3%

62%17%

14%

3% 2% 2%

■ South■ Northeast■ Midwest■ West■ Other

■ 1–100 employees ■ 101–500 employees ■ 501–1,000 employees ■ 1,001–5,000 employees ■ 5,001–10,000 employees ■ 10,001 or more employees

Regions (%) Organization Type (%) Organization Size (%)

29%

20%

15%

16%

9%11%







■ Other

34%

30%

22%

14%

.3%

62%17%

14%

3% 2% 2%




29%

20%

15%

16%

9%11%







■ Other

34%

30%

22%

14%

.3%

62%17%

14%

3% 2% 2%




29%

20%

15%

16%

9%11%







■ Other

34%

30%

22%

14%

.3%

62%17%

14%

3% 2% 2%





Bellin Health

Website: bellin.org

Location: Green Bay, Wisconsin

Number of nursing employees: Varies by facility (approximately 750 at Bellin Hospital)

About the company: Founded more than 100 years ago by Dr. Julius J. Bellin as General Hospital, Bellin Health is now comprised of several medical and educational entities, including the 167-bed acute-care facility Bellin Hospital, two psychiatric treatment centers, and a network of family medical offi ces, as well as the Bellin College of Nursing, which offers the only four-year baccalaureate-nursing program in northeast Wisconsin.

Contact: Job listings are available at bellin.org/careers

California State University

Website: calstate.edu

Location: Facilities throughout California

Number of employees: Varies by campus

About the company: California State University is the largest four-year university system in the country, with nearly 447,000 students. The CSU Nursing Program offers bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in nursing. Nurse educators are employed at 18 of the school’s 23 campuses located throughout the state.

Contact: Job listings are available at csucareers.calstate.edu

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Website: chop.edu

Location: Headquarters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania


About the company: Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is the nation’s oldest children’s hospital, and is widely regarded as one of the best. It’s topped the U.S. News & World Report list of best children’s U.S. News & World Report list of best children’s U.S. News & World Reporthospitals for the last fi ve years, and has been Magnet-certifi ed since 2004. In addition to its main hos-pital in West Philadelphia, CHOP operates more than 50 smaller practices throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and several large expansion projects are in the works, including a new outpatient facility set to open in 2015.

Contact: Job listings are available at chop.edu/careers

Cleveland Clinic

Website: clevelandclinic.org

Location: Headquarters in Cleveland, Ohio

Number of nursing employees: Varies by facility (approximately 6,500 at the main campus)

About the company: Known as one of the most medically innovative hospitals in the country, the Cleveland Clinic’s long list of “fi rsts” includes the isolation of serotonin, the fi rst coronary bypass surgery, and the fi rst face-transplant in the United States. It is ranked in several specialties on the U.S. News & World Report list of best hospitals. In addition to its main location in Cleveland, it operates News & World Report list of best hospitals. In addition to its main location in Cleveland, it operates News & World Reportseven more hospitals throughout Ohio, as well as affi liates in Florida and Nevada, and international outposts in Canada and Saudi Arabia.

Contact: Job listings are available at jobs.clevelandclinic.org


Community Health Network

Website: ecommunity.com

Location: Facilities throughout Indiana

Number of nursing employees: Varies by facility

About the company: Established in 1956 after a massive grassroots fundraising effort by Indianapolis residents, Community Hospital (now Community Hospital East) has grown to a sprawling network of more than 200 facilities throughout central Indiana. It has been named one of the best places to work by The Indianapolis Star.

Contact: Job listings are available at employment.ecommunity.com

Duke University Health System

Website: dukemedicine.org

Location: Headquarters in Durham, North Carolina

Number of nursing employees: Varies by facility (approximately 3,000 at Duke University Hospital)

About the company: Duke University Hospital (since renamed Duke University Medical Center) was established in 1930 thanks to a bequest from James B. Duke. Today, the 7.5-million-square-foot facil-ity is the fl agship hospital in a network that includes the Duke Clinic, Duke Children’s Hospital and Health Center, Duke Regional Hospital, and Duke Raleigh Hospital, as well as the Duke University Medical School and the Duke University School of Nursing. Duke has been nationally recognized for its several specialties, including cardiology, nephrology, and ophthalmology.

Contact: Job information is available at hr.duke.edu

Gwynedd Mercy University

Website: gmercyu.edu

Location: Gwynedd Valley, Pennsylvania

Number of employees: Approximately 500

About the company: This Catholic-affi liated university offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in nursing and other medical specialties at the Frances M. Maguire School of Nursing and Health Professions division.

Contact: Job information is available at gmercyu.edu/about-gwynedd-mercy/administration/human-resources

Indian Health Service

Website: ihs.gov

Location: Headquarters in Rockville, Maryland, with facilities throughout the country


About the company: The Indian Health Service was established in 1955 to improve the health of American Indians and Alaska Natives. This division of the US Department of Health and Human Ser-vices has an annual operating budget of $3.8 billion and oversees more than 100 medical facilities in 12 areas, each focused on the unique needs of the native American tribes in the region.

Contact: Job listings available at ihs.gov/dhr


Indiana University Health

Website: iuhealth.org

Location: Facilities throughout Indiana

Number of nursing employees: Varies by facility (approximately 29,400 total employees)

About the company: Indiana University Health is a network of hospitals and other facilities through-out Indiana affi liated with the Indiana University School of Medicine. Last year, IUH had more than 2.5 million outpatient visits and over 136,000 admissions. Its facilities have been nationally ranked by U.S. News & World Report in several specialties, including cancer, neurology, and orthopedics. Six U.S. News & World Report in several specialties, including cancer, neurology, and orthopedics. Six U.S. News & World Reportof the hospitals in the network have been designated Magnet facilities.

Contact: Job listings are available at iuhealth.org/careers/nursing-careers

Kaiser Permanente

Website: healthy.kaiserpermanente.org

Location: Headquarters in Oakland, California, with facilities in California, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Virginia, Maryland, Ohio, and Washington, DC


About the company: Founded in 1945, Kaiser Permanente operates more than 600 interconnected but independently managed medical facilities in the United States, as well as a managed-care plan with more than 9 million members.

Contact: Job listings are available at kaiserpermanentejobs.org

Los Angeles County Department of Health Services

Website: dhs.lacounty.gov

Location: Los Angeles County, California


About the company: Los Angeles County Department of Health Services is the second-largest munici-pal health care system in the country. It operates in the most populous county in the United States, and provides medical care and services to approximately 800,000 patients annually at several hospitals and other medical centers.

Contact: Job listings are available at hr.lacounty.gov

Memorial Hermann–Texas Medical Center

Website: memorialhermann.org

Location: Houston, Texas


About the company: This Magnet-recognized teaching hospital (affi liated with the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston Medical School), is the oldest institution in the massive Texas Medi-cal Center and the fl agship hospital in the vast Memorial Hermann network with facilities throughout Texas. Its Level 1 trauma center sees more than 40,000 patients annually, and its Children’s Hospital is one of the top-ranked pediatric facilities nationwide.

Contact: Job listings are available at memorialhermann.org/careers


NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital

Website: nyp.org

Location: New York, New York


About the company: This multi-campus institution is affi liated with two Ivy League universities, Columbia and Weill Cornell. It is the largest private employer in New York City, and one of the larg-est hospitals in the United States. It’s ranked sixth overall in U.S. News & World Report’s Best Hospitals survey. In addition to its two main facilities in Manhattan, the Columbia University Medical Center and the Weill Cornell Medical Center, NewYork–Presbyterian operates the Allen Hospital, Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, and a psychiatric facility in nearby Westchester County. In July 2013, NewYork–Presbyterian expanded its reach when it merged with New York Downtown hospital, estab-lishing the Lower Manhattan Hospital.

Contact: Job listings are available at careers.nyp.org

Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center

Website: ololrmc.com

Location: Baton Rouge, Louisiana


About the company: A Catholic teaching hospital established 90 years ago, OLOL is one of the larg-est privately owned hospitals in Louisiana, as well as the largest of four hospitals in the Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System. Today, this Magnet-recognized facility serves 11 parishes, and has more than 1,000 beds.

Contact: Job listings are available at ololrmc.com/greatplacetowork

Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center

Website: pennstatehershey.org

Location: Hershey, Pennsylvania


About the company: This 475-bed teaching hospital affi liated with Penn State College of Medicine and College of Nursing is one of the largest and most respected hospitals in south central Pennsylvania. Its Children’s Hospital is ranked among the nation’s best in U.S. News & World Report’s top hospitals list, and it features the area’s only neonatal intensive care unit. The hospital’s Cancer Institute opened in 2009, and the volunteer-run LionCare clinic has been providing free health care services since 2002.

Contact: Job listings are available at pennstatehershey.org/web/humanresources/home/searchjobs

Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences

Website: rbhs.rutgers.edu

Location: Facilities and institutions throughout New Jersey


About the company: Part of the vast Rutgers University system in New Jersey, RBHS was established as an umbrella organization in 2013 after the dissolution of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. It comprises several medical and educational institutions, including the Cancer Institute of New Jersey, University Behavioral HealthCare, the Rutgers School of Nursing, and both of the Rut-gers graduate schools of medicine: New Jersey Medical School and the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. The primary teaching hospital for Rutgers is the state-owned University Hospital in Newark.

Contact: Job information is available at uwide.rutgers.edu/about/employment-rutgers


SUNY Downstate Medical Center

Website: downstate.edu

Location: Brooklyn, New York

Number of nursing employees: Approximately 650

About the company: Founded in 1860 as Long Island College Hospital, SUNY Downstate is now one of three medical centers in the State University of New York system. Today, it includes four patient-care facilities, as well as medical, nursing, and public health schools, among other academic programs. It’s the fourth largest employer in Brooklyn—a borough of New York City with more than 2 million residents—and its alumni network is impressive: More physicians practicing in New York City gradu-ated from the SUNY Downstate College of Medicine than any other medical school.

Contact: Job listings are available at downstate.edu/human_resources

UNC Health Care

Website: unchealthcare.org

Location: Facilities located throughout North Carolina

About the company: UNC Health Care is a state-owned network of hospitals affi liated with the prestigious University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Medicine. In addition to 12 hospitals, which include several Magnet-recognized facilities, UNC Health Care provides services at family health practices, ambulatory care facilities, and urgent care units throughout the area.

Contact: Job listings are available at unchealthcare.org/site/humanresources/careers

University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences

Website: uamshealth.com

Location: Little Rock, Arkansas


About the company: The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences has six academic divisions, in-cluding pharmacy, nursing, and public health schools, as well as the only medical school in Arkansas. The school’s main patient-care facility is UAMS Medical Center, though it expands it reach through smaller clinics located all over the state.

Contact: Job listings available at jobs.uams.edu

University of Maryland Medical System

Website: umms.org

Location: Facilities throughout Maryland


About the company: One of the largest hospital networks in the Mid-Atlantic region, University of Maryland Medical System is made up of nine hospitals, including one pediatric facility and several teaching hospitals affi liated with the University of Maryland.

Contact: Job listings are available at umms.org/careers


University of Michigan Health System

Website: med.umich.edu

Location: Headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan


About the company: This integrated health care system located in southern Michigan comprises three hospitals (University Hospital, C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, and Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospital), 40 outpatient centers and more than 120 clinics, and a large home health care division. It also includes the University of Michigan’s Medical School and School of Nursing, and it partners with other medical centers throughout the state via the Michigan Health Corporation. The Detroit Free Presshas named UMHS one of the “101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For.”

Contact: Job listings are available at umhscareers.org

University of Texas Medical Branch

Website: utmb.edu

Location: Galveston, Texas


About the company: This division of the University of Texas is located in a 70-building, 84-acre com-plex, which includes several hospitals and clinics, four schools, and numerous research facilities. In 2008, many of its buildings were badly damaged by Hurricane Ike, but it’s made a strong comeback and expanded its reach since.

Contact: Job listings are available at utmb.jobs

US Department of Veterans Affairs

Website: va.gov

Location: Headquarters in Washington, DC, with facilities throughout the United States


About the company: The US Department of Veterans Affairs was established in 1930, consolidating several agencies that provided services to veterans of American confl icts. Today, the Veterans Health Administration, the wing of the VA focused on health care, operates 171 medical centers, as well as hundreds of outpatient clinics, nursing homes, and other facilities.

Contact: Job listings are available at vacareers.va.gov

Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Website: vanderbilthealth.com

Location: Nashville, Tennessee


About the company: This organization contains several hospitals and clinics, as well as Vanderbilt University’s School of Medicine and School of Nursing. Vanderbilt has been well ranked in the U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals surveys, and Vanderbilt University was once named one of Forbes’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” (more than 80% of Vanderbilt’s employees work at the Medical Center).

Contact: Job listings are available at vanderbilt.edu/work-at-vanderbilt

SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAMMINORITY NURSE

Sponsored by the National Coalition of Ethnic

Minority Nurse Associations (NCEMNA) and

Minority Nurse Magazine

Nurses will always be valuable members of any health care team, regardless of their educational backgrounds. Yet, the baccalaureate and master’s degrees in nursing may offer the most professional opportunities.

That’s why Minority Nurse has teamed up with NCEMNA to co-sponsor an annual scholarship to help outstanding nurses from under-represented groups complete their studies toward a Bachelor or Master of Science in Nursing. To date, we have awarded scholarships to more than 40 students, honoring their commitment to the profession, academic excellence, and community service.

We are currently accepting applications for our 16th an-nual scholarship competition, consisting of two $1,000 awards and one $3,000 award. Scholarships will be paid in summer 2015 for the fall 2015 academic term.

Questions? E-mail [email protected] or visit www.minoritynurse.com/scholarship/minority-nurse-magazine-scholarship-program


SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAMMINORITY NURSE

Sponsored by the National Coalition of Ethnic

Minority Nurse Associations (NCEMNA) and

Minority Nurse Magazine

Nurses will always be valuable members of any health care team, regardless of their educational backgrounds. Yet, the baccalaureate and master’s degrees in nursing may offer the most professional opportunities.

That’s why Minority Nurse has teamed up with NCEMNA to co-sponsor an annual scholarship to help outstanding nurses from under-represented groups complete their studies toward a Bachelor or Master of Science in Nursing. To date, we have awarded scholarships to more than 40 students, honoring their commitment to the profession, academic excellence, and community service.

We are currently accepting applications for our 16th an-nual scholarship competition, consisting of two $1,000 awards and one $3,000 award. Scholarships will be paid in summer 2015 for the fall 2015 academic term.

Questions? E-mail [email protected] or visit www.minoritynurse.com/scholarship/minority-nurse-magazine-scholarship-program

MINORITY NURSE16th16th16 Annual Scholarship Program

Application Form(Please print clearly)

Name ______________________________________________________________________________________________Address ____________________________________________________________________________________________City/State/ZIP Code _________________________________________________________________________________Phone _______________________________ E-mail________________________________________________________Nursing school ______________________________________________________________________________________Expected date of graduation _________________________________________________________________________

Gender: ❏ Male ❏ Female

Ethnic background: ❏ African American ❏ Hispanic/Latino ❏ Asian/Pacifi c Islander❏ American Indian/Alaskan Native ❏ Filipino ❏ Other______________

Please list any nursing associations (student, minority, or otherwise) to which you belong: ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Who Is Eligible (Please read carefully. Applications that do not meet the eligibility criteria will be disqualifi ed.)To apply for this scholarship, students must meet all four of the following criteria:

Be a minority in the nursing profession

Be enrolled (as of September 2015) in either:

• The third or fourth year of an accredited BSN program in the United States; or

• An accelerated program leading to a BSN degree (such as RN-to-BSN or BA-to-BSN); or

• An accelerated master’s entry program in nursing for students with bachelor’s degrees

in fi elds other than nursing (such as BA-to-MSN).

Note: Graduate students who already have a bachelor’s degree in nursing are not eligible.

Have a 3.0 GPA or better (on a 4.0 scale)

Be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident

How to Apply (Please read carefully. Applications that do not include the required documentation will be disqualifi ed.) Complete and return this form along with all three of the following documents:

Transcript or other proof of GPA

Letter of recommendation from a faculty member outlining academic achievement

A brief (250-word) written statement summarizing your academic and personal accomplishments, community

service, and goals for your future nursing career

Important: An English translation must be provided for any documentation that is not in English.

Minority Nurse will award one $3,000 scholarship and two $1,000 scholarships in 2015. Selections will be made by

NCEMNA. Scholarships will be paid in summer 2015. Minority Nurse reserves the right to verify community service and fi nancial need.

Deadline for application: February 1, 2015Return application form and documentation to: Minority Nurse Magazine Scholarship,

Springer Publishing Company, 11 W. 42nd Street, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10036

Academic Forum


Bridging to Higher Education in HaitiBY SUSAN S. SAWYER, PHD, RN, CPNP, AND ALLISON BERNARD, DNP, MSN

The Regis College Haiti Project (RCHP) is an international partnership between Regis College School of Nursing, Science, and Health Professions, the University of Haiti, and Haiti’s Ministry of Health. In February 2014, with completion of a three-year program, 12 nursing faculty members were awarded Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) degrees from the University of Haiti. Through the commitment of Regis College, three cohorts over the course of seven years will obtain their master’s degree and provide sustainable nursing education advancement to all nurses in Haiti.

With this strategic plan, the RCHP enables us to build a dynamic and

mutually benefi cial, sustain-able nursing program where faculty members in Haiti will be qualifi ed to teach as well as produce educated nurses to serve in primary care areas

and assume leadership posi-tions with colleges, hospitals, and other health care orga-nizations. Nurses are the key component in a health care system, and providing sustain-able nursing education to a developing country is the cor-nerstone to the betterment of health care delivery.

Building a Relationship with Haiti

The initial stage of this in-ternational relationship began in 2007 when the president and several faculty from Re-gis College travelled to Haiti to meet with the ministry of health and nursing leaders to determine how they could es-

tablish a collaborative agree-ment to improve nursing in Haiti. A primary goal in the strategic plan of the college, among many objectives, is to establish an international foot-print through interdisciplinary academic programs, the spirit of collaboration, and student-centered values. The vision statement of the college in-spires all to work within its multicultural community and to be actively engaged as lead-ers and ambassadors of social change.

To develop a strategy, nurs-ing leaders from both Haiti and Regis College consulted and discussed schedules, time

Academic Forum


commitment, action plans, and long-term sustainability. The mission of the RCHP is incorporated in developing

an international nursing part-nership. Through this vision of partnership is the goal to improve the health and well-being of the people of Haiti by elevating the level of nursing education and the sustain-ability of advanced nursing practice.

Project GoalThe RCHP is designed for

the registered nurse in Haiti to earn both the baccalaure-ate and the master’s degree. Its purpose is to prepare nursing educators and nursing leaders to assume a guiding role in the effort to address Haiti’s pressing health care needs. Nurse administrators with advanced nursing education have a unique perspective in the assessment of health dis-parities and challenges faced in providing care to a vulner-able population. After comple-tion of this program, they will be able to collaborate with local professionals; assist in the creation of sustainable, community-focused programs; practice collaboratively as members of interdisciplinary teams; and deliver population-focused care while reflecting on the impact of poverty and socioeconomic factors.

Specifically, this project seeks to address the acute nursing shortage in Haiti

and overall advance the level of nursing education in the country. A 2003 study pub-lished in The Journal of the

American Medical Association concluded that nurses pre-pared at the baccalaureate lev-el or higher have significant-ly better patient outcomes. Partnering with our Haitian neighbors provides a new and expanded role for nurses in a developing country. Upon graduation with a MSN, this first cohort of Haitian faculty will lead the institutionaliza-tion of the master’s program for all future Haitian nursing faculty.

Currently, the public nurs-ing schools prepare three-year diploma graduates with their focus on hospital-based care. The objective of this program is to educate Haitian nursing faculty, who can then provide baccalaureate education to all nurses in Haiti and be role models in nursing leadership.

In order to produce a new generation of nursing leaders in Haiti, capacity building is necessary. This entails a soci-ety enhancing their abilities to “perform core functions, solve problems, define and achieve objectives; and understand and deal with their develop-ment needs in a broad context and in a sustainable manner,” as described in the Interna-tional Institute for Educational Planning’s Guidebook for Plan-ning Education in Emergencies and Reconstruction. The strate-

gies needed to accomplish this mission include the following: enhancing professional de-velopment through curricu-lum building; analyzing the relationship between theory, practice, and evidence-based research; synthesizing the or-ganizational structure of nurs-ing leadership; and promoting innovative educational meth-odologies.

Project Planning and Implementation

The RCHP is committed to educating three cohorts of Haitian nursing faculty over the course of seven years, with two overlapping cohorts in the summer of the third year, which would serve as transi-tion and mentorship periods. The sidebar outlines the three years of the program and the required coursework for each cohort (see page 42).

The program began in the summer of 2011 with 12 Haitian nurse faculty from nursing schools across Haiti coming to Regis College in Weston, Massachusetts, for a six-week intensive program of study where orientation and tutorials on computer sys-

tems were provided as well as weekly graduate student dinner seminars. Each Haitian nurse faculty was paired with a Regis College nursing faculty member who remained the nurse’s mentor throughout the course of the program. The match of mentors was based

on professional experiences and shared interests. The men-tors served as academic and professional advisors as well as social support, and they offered guidance throughout the academic year.

When the Haitian nurses were at Regis College during summer sessions, there were opportunities for in-person interactions between mentors and mentees. In addition, the Haitian faculty had the op-portunity to shadow nurses at several of the large metro-politan hospitals where they observed cutting-edge tech-nology in both medicine and nursing. During the fall and spring semesters, the men-tors and mentees maintained contact via e-mail, Facebook, Adobe Connect, and Skype, and they received technical support through Regis.

During the first year of the program, Regis College nurs-ing faculty traveled to Haiti, where they taught in an inten-sive five-day format addressing trends affecting community health nursing—specifical-ly, societal and population shifts in the different regions of Haiti following the 2010

earthquake. Morbidity and mortality concerns were also addressed in conjunction with the changes and evidence of population shifts into the cities secondary to the after-math of the earthquake and the environmental changes. In conjunction with the Regis

A 2003 study published in The Journal of the Ameri-can Medical Association concluded that nurses prepared at the baccalaureate level or higher have signi�cantly better patient outcomes.

Nurses are the key component in a health care sys-tem, and providing sustainable nursing education to a developing country is the cornerstone to the betterment of health care delivery.

Academic Forum


College philosophy of nurs-ing—which identifies the four central concepts of the nurs-ing discipline as person, en-vironment, health, and nurs-ing—each of the 12 Haitian nursing faculty identified a specific health problem en-demic to their community. This was followed by identi-fying priorities, establishing goals, and determining inter-ventions based on the central tenets of the philosophy. In order for the Haitian faculty to analyze a community health problem comprehensively, we introduced the epidemiologic triangle, the traditional model for infectious disease address-ing the external agent or the cause of the health problem, the susceptible host identi-fied in the community, and the environment in which the host and agent came together leading to a specific problem or outcome.

During the second year of the program, the 12 Haitian nursing faculty returned to the campus for a five-week intensive session of clinical and classroom learning over the summer of 2012. The fol-lowing spring, Regis faculty traveled to Haiti for a one-week intensive training sup-plemented by online learning.

At the start of the third year, the 12 Haitian nursing faculty returned to the campus in the summer of 2013, where they took part in another five-week intensive session of clinical and classroom learning. Si-multaneously, the 12 Haitian nursing faculty who were se-lected for the second cohort also arrived to the Regis cam-pus for the first time to begin their first year of the program. With the help of Regis nurs-ing faculty, the first cohort

became the mentors for the incoming cohort and worked together to teach two out of the four courses taken by the second cohort. The first cohort continued to take two courses alongside the second one.

Conceptual FrameworkIn February 2014, Regis

nursing faculty returned to Haiti during the mentorship period. The first cohort of Hai-

tian nurses assumed the role of educators as they taught nursing theory, nursing leader-ship, and community health to the second cohort of nurses. With awareness of the shift away from traditional hospi-tal-based care and movement toward the community, they

introduced new models of care supported through collabora-tion in practice and education.

An example presented by the second cohort was Roy’s Adaptation Model, as it was re-conceptualized and expanded in order to provide a frame-work for the delivery of com-munity-based nursing. Using this theoretical framework, they encompassed population-based assessments that related

to the physical, psychological, and social integrity of their community. Through this model, they identified the cen-tral concepts of the discipline of nursing with the under-standing that every person has inherent dignity and worth as well as a right to receive

comprehensive, compassion-ate health care. They viewed the person in the community as a unique biopsychosocial, cultural, and spiritual being who continuously interacts with the environment.

Using Roy’s Adaptation Model as an adjunct in the coordination of community health in Haiti offered the nurses an organized approach in the assessment of their community, incorporating the philosophic components of person, environment, health, and nursing. Through discus-sion of the physical integrity, their view was broadened as they identified topics incor-porating nutrition, the envi-ronment, available resources, and government regulation. In discussion of the biopsychoso-cial characteristics, identifiers such as age distribution, gen-der, education, and economics were discussed.

The social integrity of the

In order to produce a new generation of nursing leaders in Haiti, capacity building is necessary.

Photo credit: Alexis Lawton Przybylski

Academic Forum


community presented another perspective in assessment of a specifi c community by focus-ing on vital statistics, such as births, deaths, prevalence of communicable and chronic disease, leading causes of mor-tality, and health resources. Using these guidelines in data analysis assisted with commu-nity care planning by identify-ing a community diagnosis, an awareness of the problem, community motivation, and realistic interventions to re-solve the problem.

Challenges and OutcomesA course challenge in our

collaborative efforts of edu-cating our Haitian colleagues was the language difference. This was addressed using a bi-lingual educational platform. Educational material using PowerPoint was introduced with French translation. In addition, an in-class transla-tor was present to translate lectures, questions, and small group discussions. Through the use of Adobe Connect, Moodle, an internet connection, and e-mail, we were able to provide

effective international collabo-ration. This also allowed rigor-ous evaluation that strength-ened the educational models used in promoting effective

community health systems for the Haitian nursing fac-

ulty. The inability to access French-translated textbooks on community health nursing and nursing theory posed another challenge, but we were able to

address it by utilizing a French publishing company.


International Nurse Faculty Partnership Initiative

Year 1Summer

Six-week intensive at Regis College

• Professional Concepts and Challenges in Nursing Practice taught during a six-week residency at Regis

• Health Assessment and Simulation Modules

• Seminar in Teaching and Learning with Classroom Practicum

• Evidence-Based Nursing

Fall

Four-month semester in Haiti

• Concepts of Nursing Leadership online coursework supplemented by mid-semester, on-site lectures in Haiti

• Statistics taken in Haiti at state university

Spring

Five-month semester in Haiti

• Nursing theory online course with Regis faculty

• Community-Based Nursing online supple-mented by mid-semester, online lectures in Haiti

Year 2Summer

Five-week residency at Regis College

• Organizational Structure on Nursing Leader-ship

• Advanced Nursing Research

Fall

Four-month semester in Haiti online

or Haitian university-based courses

• Economics of Health Care

• Health Ethics and the Law

Spring

Five-month semester in Haiti

• Health Informatics online coursework sup-plemented by mid-semester, on-site lectures in Haiti

• Health Policy Seminar: Focus on policy ini-tiatives in Haiti, online coursework supple-mented by mid-semester on-site lectures in Haiti

Year 3Summer

Five-week residency at Regis College

• Regulatory Issues in Nursing Leadership

• Assessment and Evaluation in Nursing Edu-cation

Fall

Four-month semester in Haiti

• Leadership Mentorship with Health Care/Nursing Leaders in Haiti, weekly online semi-nar with Regis faculty via Adobe Connect

• Financial Analysis in Health Care Administra-tion, taken in Haiti at state university

Spring

Graduation

• Receive master’s degree in nursing

Through this model, they identi� ed the central con-cepts of the discipline of nursing with the under-standing that every person has inherent dignity and worth as well as a right to receive comprehensive, compassionate health care.

Academic Forum


Through enhancement of scholarship and curriculum development, the new gradu-ates will increase community awareness as well as strengthen and analyze how the environ-ment and personal health be-haviors are interrelated. Be-ing part of the community afforded the Haitian nursing faculty the opportunity to in-fluence and motivate others. Their understanding of Haitian lifestyle, culture, and social skills provided them practice opportunities and profession-al collaboration in addition to critical analysis within the community. It allowed them to be part of effective community action by contributing to the resolution of a problem.

The outcome of the first co-hort came to fruition in Febru-ary 2014 when the University

of Haiti awarded master’s de-grees to all 12 faculty members representing nursing schools across Haiti from Gonaïves, Les Cayes, Port-Au-Prince, Jérémie, Cap-Haïtien, and University of Notre Dame d’Haiti. Subse-quent to achieving the mas-ter’s degree, many of the first cohorts have assumed leader-ship roles in their schools of nursing. One in particular was appointed dean of her nursing school, while others are tak-ing an active role participat-ing in professional conferences in order to enhance the inter-national influence of nurses. Others are enhancing course content through curriculum development and are reach-ing out to community leaders in order to develop collabora-tive relationships with inter-disciplinary teams. In addition,

membership in professional associations has offered the Haitian nurses recognition of their expertise through certi-fication—providing them an

opportunity to make a differ-ence and lobby to influence laws affecting nursing.

In providing new and ex-panded skills in nursing edu-cation, this international part-nership will help ensure that nursing education in Haiti con-tinues to progress throughout the 21st century with the use

of critical thinking, problem solving, and evidence-based practice. Through collabora-tion, the Haitian nurses have the capacity to build sustain-

able nursing programs that are beneficial and dynamic for the Haitian society.

Susan S. Sawyer, PhD, RN, CPNP,

and Allison Bernard, DNP, MSN,

are associate professors at Regis

College.

Through enhancement of scholarship and curricu-lum development, the new graduates will increase community awareness as well as strengthen and analyze how the environment and personal health behaviors are interrelated.

Photo credit: Alexis Lawton Przybylski


Second Opinion

Discovering the Possibilities: Where Can I Go From Here?BY SAMANTHA STAUF

Recently, I was taking a late-night walk with the dog and ran into my neighbor. She was just returning home from her shift as an emergency room nurse. Every time I see her she’s wearing scrubs (and I’m pretty sure they are all stained). We enjoy visiting, but her only available time is before the sun rises or after it sets. When I need to decipher the scribbles of my 5-year-old nephew, I have to ask her to read it to me. She always laughs and says it’s basically the same as translating a doctor’s notes.

As we sat down, she shared with me that she loves what she does and she adores

her patients, but earlier that day someone told her she was pale and looked “sick.” She hadn’t seen the sun in weeks. When I pressed further, she shared with me that recently she had developed a desire to have more fl exibility and con-trol with the types and lengths of shifts she works. Her kids were getting older, and she hated the thought of missing even more soccer games.

She was quick to tell me she was certainly not ready to

leave nursing altogether. She’d spent years in school and had spent countless hours adding continuing education credits to her resume. Truly, she was exhausted. I had been com-piling research for an article on advanced career choices in the medical fi eld, so I shared with her four fi nds that were directly related to nursing:

Nurse EducatorMedian salary: $65,000

Nurse educators, especially in specifi c fi elds, are in high de-mand. Nurses need continu-ing education throughout their careers, and fresh faces are

joining the ranks every year. You can combine your clini-cal expertise with a passion for teaching into a rewarding career. Educators are needed at colleges, universities, tech-nical schools, and hospital-based schools. You would be required to hold a master’s or a doctoral degree in nursing. Nurse educators typically have advanced clinical training in a health care specialty. Many educators enjoy the option of fl exible work scheduling.

Nurse ResearcherMedian salary: $90,000

This is an excellent choice for

nurses seeking an advanced, nonclinical job in the nurs-ing industry. Nurse researchers are employed by health policy nonprofi ts and private compa-nies. Nurse researchers perform analyses and create reports based on research gathered from medical, pharmaceuti-cal, and nursing products and/or practices. Their objective is to improve health care and medical services. Nurses with a bachelor of science in nurs-ing (BSN) degree are eligible for these jobs, but those with a master’s or a doctoral degree may have an increased chance of acquiring a nurse researcher position.

Nursing Informatics Specialist

Median salary: $62,115They manage and provide health care data to patients, nurses, doctors, and other health care providers. Nurs-


Second Opinion

ing informatics specialists en-sure computer applications are easy to use and provide useful information to nurses, man-agers, and other health care workers. A BSN is the mini-mum requirement for certifica-tion for a nursing informatics job; however, several employ-ers require a master of science in health informatics, health care management, or quality management.

The American Nurses Cre-dentialing Center requires two years of experience as an RN and at least 2,000 hours of work in informatics within the last three years for certi-fication. Those with certifica-tion improve their chances of obtaining a job with a higher salary. The job outlook has been steady, as many organiza-tions hire informatics experts to solve documentation issues and decrease errors. Informat-ics specialists typically work for hospitals and medical-re-cords software vendors.

Nurse AttorneyMedian salary: $49,000

A nurse attorney is exactly that: a nurse who has gone back to school to become an attorney. Few attorneys have the medical knowledge of nurses. Nurse attorneys work in many different settings, in-cluding firms that specialize in social security disability, hospital legal departments, or litigation firms.

When becoming a nurse at-torney, the first step is to be-come a nurse by earning your BSN and passing the licensing exam. It would also be vital to acquire hands-on nursing ex-perience. Your next step would be to apply and be accepted by a law school. This would include another three or four

years of school. After comple-tion, you will then have to take the bar exam for the state where you will practice. You could opt to open your own practice or try to get on board with a law firm or a health-care-related company.

Where Do I Begin? If you, too, are seeking a

new path, ask yourself the fol-lowing questions:

• Should I focus on a non-clinical or a clinical route?

• Am I ready to move away from providing direct patient care, or would I miss the rela-tionship with my patients?

Analyze your skill set; take a hard look at your strengths and the environment where you feel you can thrive. Re-member, there are more paths in the nursing spectrum than you might think. One of the most important factors to con-sider is if you would need fur-ther education or credential-ing and whether it’s feasible to return to school. Prioritize a list of what’s most impor-tant, the elements of nursing that you enjoy the most, sal-ary expectations, and what kind of culture would suit your personality. Most often, I find there are several routes accessible. Find the path that makes the most sense for your journey.

Samantha Stauf is a graduate of

the University of Idaho. She en-

joys researching how technology

has affected the health care field.


Degrees of Success

Transitioning from Clinical Nurse to EducatorBY DEBORAH DOLAN HUNT, PHD, RN

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.”

—William Arthur Ward

The role of the academ-ic nurse educator is both rewarding and challenging. Further-

more, the nurse educator plays

a pivotal role in the nursing profession as well as in the development and preparation of future nurses and advanced degree nurses. The nursing

profession is currently expe-riencing a faculty shortage. According to the American As-sociation of Colleges of Nurs-es, the national vacancy rate for the 2014–2015 academic year is 6.9%, which limits our ability to adequately prepare our future workforce. Con-sequently, this is the perfect time to consider transitioning into an academic role.

Some of the factors related to the current faculty shortage include an aging workforce, lack of a diverse cadre of edu-cators, educational require-ments, the cost associated with advancing one’s educa-tion, and lack of competitive financial compensation. Al-though the financial compen-sation is not competitive with current nursing salaries, the

All nurses are teachers in their own right, and nurse educators build upon these foundational skills via education and experience.


Degrees of Success

educator role is extremely re-warding and offers a certain degree of flexibility and au-tonomy.

There are several paths you can choose on your journey into the world of academia. All nurses are teachers in their own right, and nurse educa-tors build upon these foun-dational skills via education and experience. Seeking out opportunities, such as the role of preceptor, patient educator, or hospital-based educator, can help you prepare for a future role in academia. Academic teaching shares many of the basic tenets of all educators; however, academic faculty must meet the triad of excel-lence in teaching, service to the profession and the organi-zation, and scholarship. Com-pleting a graduate degree in nursing education will certain-ly help to prepare you for the rigors of academia. There are a myriad of faculty development and scholarship programs that are offered by organizations, such as the Jonas Center for Nursing and Veterans Health-care, Johnson and Johnson, and the Robert Wood John-son Foundation, which help address the faculty shortage, the lack of diversity, and the related shortage of nurses.

The Institute of Medicine’s report, The Future of Nursing, also identified the need for the advanced education of all nurses and increased diversity at all levels of nursing. Aca-demic nurse educators must possess the required clinical and educational competen-cies; however, there is always a need for experienced clini-cal nurses to fulfill the role of clinical instructor, and this is a great place to begin one’s transition.

Types of Academic Educator Roles

The role of the academic nurse educator varies based on the specific type of education-al setting and program. Basic nursing programs include di-ploma, associate degree, and baccalaureate degree. Gradu-ate programs include master’s degrees and doctoral degrees in a variety of specialty areas. Many programs are offered in traditional brick-and-mortar colleges and universities, but online programs have become very popular.

Academic teaching roles in-clude adjunct, clinical instruc-tor, lecturer, assistant profes-sor, associate professor, and full professor. There are also a host of administrative po-sitions for experienced edu-cators—dean, associate dean, and director. All of these roles require related clinical experi-ence and education.

Educational Requirements and Experience

The educational and ex-periential requirements for nursing faculty members are

somewhat different depending on the actual role. In regards to educational level, faculty members must have a gradu-ate degree at the master’s level to teach in an associate degree program and a doctoral degree to teach at the baccalaureate or higher level. There are ex-ceptions to this rule, however. For example, a clinical instruc-tor does not have to have a doctoral degree but does need the related clinical experience that is relevant to the clinical teaching role (e.g., a pediatric clinical instructor must have at least two years of experience working in a pediatric setting). Diploma and associate degree

programs most often require their faculty members to have a master’s degree and related experience. Baccalaureate and graduate programs require fac-

ulty to hold a doctoral degree and related experience. Some academic institutions will hire faculty who do not hold a doctoral degree but are cur-rently enrolled in a program. It is important to note that most academic institutions require that at least one degree be in nursing—baccalaureate or master’s.

Although it is not manda-tory to have a master’s degree in nursing education, it is cer-tainly helpful for your future role in academia. Another option is to complete a post-master’s certificate program in nursing education. This is es-pecially helpful for nurse prac-

titioners and clinical nurse specialists who are highly experienced clinicians but require further development in the principles of teaching,

Academic teaching shares many of the basic tenets of all educators; however, academic faculty must meet the triad of excellence in teaching, service to the profession and the organization, and scholarship.


Degrees of Success

teaching and learning theo-ries, course development, test construction, and evaluation.

A doctoral degree is required for most tenure track posi-tions and/or when teaching in a graduate program in ad-dition to most baccalaureate programs. Doctoral degrees include Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Doctor of Education (EdD), Doctor of Nursing Sci-ence (DNSc), and Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP). There

are numerous other doctoral programs, but these are the most common ones for nurse educators. Academic institu-tions may have different re-quirements regarding educa-tional and clinical experience, so be sure to do some research before deciding on which de-gree program to attend.

Nurse educators tend to teach in the area of their spe-cialty, such as medical-surgi-cal, psychiatric nursing, or pe-diatric nursing, but one must be versatile because you may be asked to teach new or unfa-miliar content. Because health care and technology are rap-idly changing, it is vital to en-gage in lifelong learning and development and stay abreast of the current literature.

Major Responsibilities and Key Attributes

Nurse educators have nu-merous responsibilities and, as such, require certain attributes and qualifications that will guide them in their transition

into the world of academia. In OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, Penn, Wilson, and Rosseter argued that nurse educators must have the following: teaching skills; knowledge, experience, and preparation for the faculty role; curriculum and course development skills; evaluation and testing skills; and personal attributes. Additionally, nurse educators are also expected to serve as advisors and mentor

students, serve on committees, and make significant scholarly contributions.

Being passionate and car-ing about your profession and your students is very im-portant. As a nurse educator, you will spend a good amount of time developing various course items in addition to reading and evaluating stu-dents’ work, so writing and communication skills are vital. You will also need to clearly articulate the information you share with your students and peers, in addition to being a good listener. Time manage-ment and organization are also essential because the role of the academic nurse educa-tor is extremely demanding.

Teaching, Service, and Scholarship

The three requirements for tenured and many non-tenured faculty members are teaching, service, and scholar-ship. Depending on the type of faculty appointment, there will

be an expected/required per-centage of each one of these. For example, in many aca-demic settings, teaching will be the most heavily valued. However, if you are teaching at the doctoral level at a research university, then scholarship in the form of research will be equally important.

Nevertheless, the most im-portant goal for new faculty is to become an exemplary and expert teacher. This is accomplished with experi-ence, education, reading cur-rent literature, mentorship, evaluation (self, student, and peer), and faculty develop-ment programs. Nurse edu-cators will eventually develop their own unique style that is influenced by personal beliefs, pedagogies, and philosophy (including the influence of their academic institution’s philosophy). Faculty develop-ment is an ongoing process and requires self-direction and motivation. It is important to develop a specific plan for how you will continue to develop your teaching skills.

Scholarship relates to learn-ing, research, and scholarly publications. The type of re-quired scholarly works will

be dictated by your academic organization and your specific faculty appointment. Schol-arship includes conducting research, peer reviewing for publications, and presenting at conferences.

Service requires one to con-

tribute to the organization and profession without finan-cial compensation. Typically, this includes serving on com-mittees, serving on an edito-rial board, or serving as a peer reviewer. There are certainly many other ways to meet this requirement, which may also involve serving one’s com-munity.

Rank, Tenure, and Academic Freedom

Many full-time faculty po-sitions are tenured. Ranks in-clude instructor, assistant pro-fessor, associate professor, and full professor. When faculty members receive an academic appointment, they are given a contract that states their rank and the number of years they have to demonstrate that they have met the required expec-tations of teaching, service, and scholarship to earn ten-ure. Tenure is one of the ways academic freedom is protected. Academic freedom pertains to a faculty member’s right to teach content, conduct research, and write or speak without cen-sure, with the caveat that he or she demonstrates sound judg-ment when teaching content, especially if it is controversial.

Faculty must be careful not to influence their students’ be-liefs or abuse their power as educators. All faculty members should be well versed in the rights and legal, ethical, and moral responsibilities that are inherent in this role.

You should seek out as many teaching experiences as you can. Consider becoming a mentor or precep-tor, join the patient education committee, or develop a continuing education article.

Because health care and technology are rapidly changing, it is vital to engage in lifelong learning and development and stay abreast of the current literature.


Degrees of Success

Ways to Transition to a Nurse Educator Role

In addition to experience and education, transitioning to the role of nurse educator requires the development of realistic goals and objectives. If you truly have the desire to teach, you should develop a specific plan with all the steps you will need to complete to meet your goal. Utilizing the nursing process will help you to develop a realistic plan. The first step is to assess your current level of knowledge, skills, education, and attri-butes. From there, you can begin to develop a specific individualized plan for how to accomplish each objective. Note that, if you do not have an advanced degree, you will need to enroll in a graduate program, so be sure to care-fully consider which program will be best for you.

As a graduate student, you may have an opportunity to work as a teacher’s assis-tant, which will provide you with invaluable experience. You should seek out as many teaching experiences as you can. Consider becoming a mentor or preceptor, join the patient education committee, or develop a continuing edu-cation article. You should also consider becoming an adjunct clinical instructor in your spe-cialty area, which is a great way to “test the waters” and eventually transition to a full-time faculty role.

Reading the current litera-ture and attending confer-ences are also very helpful. You will need to network and consult with your mentor. Furthermore, developing a professional portfolio with a well-developed resume—or curriculum vitae—is crucial

when applying for a faculty position.

It is also advisable to par-ticipate in mock interviews so that you will be prepared for an actual interview. It’s worth noting that the inter-view process at an academic setting is unique; you will most likely be interviewed by a search committee. Don’t be surprised if you are asked to demonstrate your teaching skills and share your philoso-phy of teaching.

Develop a Five-Year PlanDeveloping a five-year plan

with goals, objectives, and ac-tions with specific dates can be very helpful when plan-ning your transition. The

goals should be realistic and achievable, and the objectives should be measurable. The actions are the steps needed to meet your objectives and accomplish your goals. Goals may be related to earning an advanced degree, obtaining a position as an adjunct, or applying for a full-time fac-ulty role.

The plan should be evaluat-ed on an ongoing basis and re-vised in accordance with your current needs. It is important to remember that plans are not set in stone and can always be revised. When you complete your first five-year plan, you will want to begin another one as you continue on your jour-ney as a nurse educator.

Although the transition may be challenging, there are many strategies you can employ to guide you through this process. The journey from clinician to educator is filled with tremendous growth and learning.

Deborah Dolan Hunt, PhD, RN, is

an associate professor of nurs-

ing at The College of New Ro-

chelle. She is the author of The

New Nurse Educator: Mastering

Academe and The Nurse Profes-

sional: Leveraging Your Educa-

tion for Transition into Practice.


The country is changing, with one-third of the population represent-ing a historical “minority.” In this increasingly diverse world, you can confidently say your workplace actively fosters diversity, inclusiveness, and cooperation. For these reasons and others, you’re proud to be a part of it—and we want to hear from you.

Minority Nurse is looking for nominations for health care’s diversity MVPs, from the magnet hospitals to nursing schools to local hospice care centers. Nurses can nominate their workplaces based on the facility’s efforts to improve and maintain inclusiveness and diversity.

Think about what makes for a diverse institution. What does a “commitment to diversity” mean? And what does it mean to you? At Minority Nurse, it’s not just about a visible variety of skin tones seen in the halls. It’s . . .

• Faculty and staff recruitment and retention efforts Faculty and staff recruitment and retention efforts Facultyaimed at underrepresented populations

• Collaborative hiring practices• Diversity initiatives and accessible organizations on-site• Cultural competency training and resources,

such as diverse foods, translators, etc.• Partnerships with other diversity organizations• And so much more

When hiring groups devoted to minority recruitment and retention not only exist but are consistently used, it shows a commitment to diversity. When hospital administrators take the time to include their nursing staff in development, they exhibit a commitment to diversity. And you, in taking the time to recognize your workplace for its com-mendable practices and diverse work environment, are showing a commitment to diversity as well.

It’s not necessarily a numbers game—we don’t require applicants to produce statistics or quotas, though you are welcome to do so if you wish. We’re simply looking for readers who take pride in their workplaces’ commitment to diversity.

A PDF of the Take Pride Campaign application is also available on our website, www.minoritynurse.com. Applications must be received before July 1, 2015. We will then reach out to our nominees to deter-before July 1, 2015. We will then reach out to our nominees to deter-before July 1, 2015. We will then reach out to our nominees to determine our winners!

Questions? Let us know by e-mailing [email protected].

The TAKE PRIDE Campaign Application Form(Please print clearly. All fields required. The 250- to 500-word nomination can be attached separately.)

Your name __________________________________________________________________________________________Your place of employment (must be a health care facility or institution employing nurses*) _______________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________Location of facility ___________________________________________________________________________________How long have you worked at/for this facility? _________________________________________________________ Preferred e-mail _____________________________________________________________________________________Preferred phone number _____________________________________________________________________________

In 250–500 words, describe why you are nominating this facility—what makes it a model of diversity and inclusivity? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

MINORITY NURSE2015 Take Pride Campaign Application

* All nominees must be health-care–related workplaces that employ nurses, such as hospitals, nursing schools, nursing homes, hospice facilities, etc. Those work environments falling into nontraditional territories will be considered according to the discretion of the editors, staff members, and advisors of Minority Nurse.


The country is changing, with one-third of the population represent-ing a historical “minority.” In this increasingly diverse world, you can confidently say your workplace actively fosters diversity, inclusiveness, and cooperation. For these reasons and others, you’re proud to be a part of it—and we want to hear from you.

Minority Nurse is looking for nominations for health care’s diversity MVPs, from the magnet hospitals to nursing schools to local hospice care centers. Nurses can nominate their workplaces based on the facility’s efforts to improve and maintain inclusiveness and diversity.

Think about what makes for a diverse institution. What does a “commitment to diversity” mean? And what does it mean to you? At Minority Nurse, it’s not just about a visible variety of skin tones seen in the halls. It’s . . .

• Faculty and staff recruitment and retention efforts aimed at underrepresented populations

• Collaborative hiring practices• Diversity initiatives and accessible organizations on-site• Cultural competency training and resources,

such as diverse foods, translators, etc.• Partnerships with other diversity organizations• And so much more

When hiring groups devoted to minority recruitment and retention not only exist but are consistently used, it shows a commitment to diversity. When hospital administrators take the time to include their nursing staff in development, they exhibit a commitment to diversity. And you, in taking the time to recognize your workplace for its com-mendable practices and diverse work environment, are showing a commitment to diversity as well.

It’s not necessarily a numbers game—we don’t require applicants to produce statistics or quotas, though you are welcome to do so if you wish. We’re simply looking for readers who take pride in their workplaces’ commitment to diversity.

A PDF of the Take Pride Campaign application is also available on our website, www.minoritynurse.com. Applications must be received before July 1, 2015. We will then reach out to our nominees to deter-mine our winners!

Questions? Let us know by e-mailing [email protected].

The TAKE PRIDE Campaign Application Form(Please print clearly. All fields required. The 250- to 500-word nomination can be attached separately.)

Your name __________________________________________________________________________________________Your place of employment (must be a health care facility or institution employing nurses*) _______________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________Location of facility ___________________________________________________________________________________How long have you worked at/for this facility? _________________________________________________________ Preferred e-mail _____________________________________________________________________________________Preferred phone number _____________________________________________________________________________

In 250–500 words, describe why you are nominating this facility—what makes it a model of diversity and inclusivity? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

MINORITY NURSE2015 Take Pride Campaign Application

* All nominees must be health-care–related workplaces that employ nurses, such as hospitals, nursing schools, nursing homes, hospice facilities, etc. Those work environments falling into nontraditional territories will be considered according to the discretion of the editors, staff members, and advisors of Minority Nurse.


Highlights from the Blog

Newsletter

MINORITYNURSE.COM

To read more, visit www.minoritynurse.com/blog.

Ready for Winter Storms?

As a nurse, you’re always ready to deal with the unexpected. Nurses think quick on their feet, no question about it. They also know how to plan and coordinate their actions with others.

4 Ways to Ace the Exit Interview

You thought the interview to get your job was stressful enough, but now they want another interview when you’re leaving. What’s up with that?

Quit Your Job and Keep Your Professionalism

Did you ever leave a job you loved because you knew it was a good career move? What about the opposite—you couldn’t wait to walk out the door and never look back?

Allaying Your Ebola Fears

As a health care professional, news about the progression of Ebola may cause you to feel stress, fear, and a general anxiety about your personal health. That’s to be expected—who wouldn’t be apprehensive when there’s a medical emergency and your vocation puts right in the middle of it?


Academic Opportunities

Discover Johns Hopkins doctoral nursing education

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)As a clinical leader, advance the practice of nursing and improve healthcare outcomes.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)As a research leader, develop new knowledge for the science and practice of nursing and health.

nursing.jhu.edu/doctoral15

Choose your path at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing—a place where exceptional peoplediscover possibilities that forever changetheir lives and the world.

TEMPLE UNIVERSITY A Leading Philadelphia Institution

It is an exciting time in urban healthcare…

Are you ready to play a key role?

Learn More About the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Program at Temple! We prepare Primary Care Nurse Practitioners to Improve Urban Health Care—we have two options:

Post-BSN DNP Program to become either an Adult or Family Nurse Practitioner **(full and part-time)

Post-Master’s DNP Program for Advanced Practice Registered Nurses—certified nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists, nurse midwives, nurse anesthetists **(full and part-time)

To apply online visit:

www.temple.edu/nursing

For more information, please contact: Ms. Audrey Scriven

[email protected] or 215-707-4618

As you are probably aware, the de-mand for nurses continues to sky-rocket. What you may not know is

that there’s also a critical need for nurses with advanced degrees, as hospitals turn to nurses to � ll more administrative and leadership roles.

Nursing schools around the country are jumping at the chance to � ll this void by of-fering � exible Master of Science in Nursing and Doctor of Nursing Practice programs, and you’ll � nd many great examples in the following pages.

There truly has never been a better time to pursue an advanced nursing degree. Be sure to secure your spot in the program—and your � nancial aid—by applying early.


Academic Opportunities

• Earn your degree 100% online

• Learn from academically prepared faculty in our vibrant online learning community

• Christian perspective integrates spiritual principles into practice

Our degree programs include:• Registered Nurse to Bachelor of Science in Nursing (RN to BSN)

• Master of Science in Nursing with an Emphasis in Nursing Leadership in Health Care Systems

• Master of Science in Nursing with an Emphasis in Nursing Education

• Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

Grand Canyon University is regionally accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. (800-621-7440; h�p://hlcommission.org/)For more information about our graduation rates, the median debt of students who completed the program, and other important information, please visit our website at www.gcu.edu/disclosures. Please note, not all GCU programs are available in all states and in all learning modalities. Program availability is contingent on student enrollment. 14INTL0026

Care for the CommunityFind your purpose with a College of Nursing and Health Care Professions degree from Grand Canyon University.

For more information contact your local representative at 855-428-1263

Master your nursing career.Pick your pathway with our nationally ranked master’s program.

You’re a full-time nurse, wearing scrubs by day — or night — and you’re

ready to take your career to the next level. Now you need a master’s program

to make that happen. Our program offers advanced clinical experiences

backed by our standing in the nation’s top 10 percent, as ranked by U.S. News

& World Report. And with concentrations ranging from primary or acute care

to administration and leadership, you can tailor your degree to the path you want.

Ready to learn more? Visit nursing.vcu.edu/education/masters.

an equal opportunity/affirmative action university

School of Nursing

Creating collaboration. Advancing science. Impacting lives.


Faculty Opportunities

The world needs more nurses. With that comes the need for experienced, dedicated nursing faculty to train them.

There is a true shortage of nursing educators—par-ticularly minority nursing professors, who comprise a small percentage of nursing faculty overall. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing says the scarcity of professors may actually be stunting the growth of nursing programs. To counter this, nursing schools are improving the pay for nursing school faculty to increase their numbers, especially those who hold a doctorate.

This section of Minority Nurse is dedicated to open faculty positions from nursing schools all over the country. Requirements vary, but all are sure to lead to exciting, rewarding careers in nursing education and research.

The Nursing and Nutrition Department of the State University of New York, College at Plattsburgh invites applications for the positions below. The Nursing Program educates nurses to provide care for multicultural clients in community-based and high-tech acute care settings. The Nursing Program offers both traditional 4-year and Registered Nurse Baccalaureate Programs. These are unique opportunities to join a faculty who encourage educational motivation and support a mission that emphasizes excellence in teaching and scholarship.

ADULT-GERONTOLOGY PRIMARY CARE NURSE PRACTITIONER PROGRAM

These are unique opportunities to contribute to be part of a new program as it enters its initial year. This program joins a pre-licensure BS program and an RN-to-BS program that are fully accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education and well established at the College. The Nursing Department currently serves approximately 400 undergraduate students. The successful candidates will be committed to excellence in teaching, scholarship and service. He or she will be expected to demonstrate an understanding of and sensitivity to diversity and gender issues, as SUNY Plattsburgh is committed to ensuring that its graduates are educated to succeed in a increasingly complex, multicultural, and interdependent world.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR & PROGRAM DIRECTOR FOR THE MASTER’S DEGREE IN NURSING

This position will advance the mission of the department by contributing to the development of new and innovative programs in Nursing, as well as perform teaching and administrative duties.

Required Qualifi cations: A doctoral degree in Nursing or related fi eld with a master’s degree in Nursing in an area focusing on Adult Health is required, along with national certifi cation as an Adult or Adult-Gerontology Nurse Practitioner. Qualifi cations for licensure as a Nurse Practitioner in New York State must be met. The successful candidate will have demonstrated an ability to work effectively and collegially with faculty, staff, and administrators. Preferred Qualifi cations: The ideal candidate will have signifi cant clinical experience as a Nurse Practitioner in an adult primary care setting, demonstrated experience teaching nursing at the graduate and undergraduate levels, and experience with curriculum development and design commensurate with the rank of Associate Professor. Salary: $85,000 minimum, plus excellent benefi ts.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF NURSING

Responsibilities will include teaching in primarily an online environment, ongoing curriculum development, student advisement, participation in on-campus graduate seminars, and clinical management.

Required Qualifi cations: A Master’s Degree in Nursing with a focus in Adult Health is required, along with national certifi cation as an Adult or Adult-Gerontology Nurse Practitioner. Qualifi cations for licensure as a Nurse Practitioner in New York State must be met. The successful candidate will have demonstrated an ability to work effectively and collegially with faculty, staff, and administrators. Preferred Qualifi cations: Doctoral level preparation is preferred. The ideal candidate will have signifi cant clinical experience as a Nurse Practitioner in a primary care setting, and demonstrated teaching ability in nursing education, commensurate with the rank of Assistant Professor. Salary: $70,000 minimum, plus excellent benefi ts.

SUNY Plattsburgh is an equal opportunity employer, committed to excellence through diversity. As an equal opportunity employer and a government contractor subject to VEVRAA, SUNY Plattsburgh complies with hiring regulations regarding sex, color, religion, national origin, disability, age and veteran status.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO WORK WITH A UNIQUE NEW PROGRAM NEAR TWO AWE-INSPIRING MOUNTAIN RANGES AND A BEAUTIFUL LAKE?

For further position details and to apply, please visit http://jobs.plattsburgh.edu and select “View Current Openings”


Faculty Opportunities

Index of Advertisers ADVERTISER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .PAGE #

AACN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .C4

UNCF. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21

University of Connecticut Health Center. . . . . . . . . . .9

ACADEMIC OPPORTUNITIES

Grand Canyon University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54

Johns Hopkins University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53

Monmouth University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .C2

Temple University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53

Virginia Commonwealth University. . . . . . . . . . . . . .54

FACULTY OPPORTUNITIES

Oklahoma Baptist University. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56

SUNY Plattsburgh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55

University of Massachusetts, Lowell . . . . . . . . . . . .56

Publication: Size: Notes: Job# IO#: Screen:Mechanical: Proofreader:

Minority Nurse Magazine color

mbb, mbb

3.4” x 9.2”

4512 4512-4512

Careers with Mass Appeal

College of Health Sciences

School of Nursing Faculty Positions

Located in the historic industrial city of Lowell, 25 miles northwest of Boston, the University of Massachusetts Lowell would like to invite applications for the following open faculty positions in the School of Nursing within the College of Health Sciences:

• Assistant/Associate Professor • Clinical Assistant Professor• Lecturer• Visiting Faculty (Multiple Positions)

For complete job descriptions, required materials, application deadlines and to apply, please visit https://jobs.uml.edu.

The School of Nursing at UMass Lowell is poised for growth in its new home, the new Health and Social Sciences Building. Located near the Merrimack River where the Industrial Revolution began, the School of Nursing strives toward excellence in nursing education, research and community service. With state-of-the art simulation laboratories, the new hospital-like facility offers faculty and students a collaborative and realistic place to teach and learn. Our unique location in the diverse City of Lowell offers healthcare opportunities for our students and faculty to provide culturally competent care.

With over 600 students in a wide range of programs – a bachelor’s degree; a master’s degree that prepares nurse practitioners; a Ph.D. in nursing with a health promotion focus; and a Doctorate of Nursing Practice – the school anticipates hiring tenure-track nursing faculty.

Find out more about the University near the river, just 25 miles north of Boston. Visit www.uml.edu/nursing.

Underrepresented minorities are strongly encouraged to apply. We believe that diversity that reflects the community we serve enhances the academic experience for our students and is essential to the University of Massachusetts Lowell’s success.

The University of Massachusetts Lowell is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action, Title IX employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, sex, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, age over 40, protected veteran status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, marital status, or other protected class.

NURSING FACULTY NEEDEDOklahoma Baptist University invites applications for tenure track positions as Assistant and Associate Professors of Nursing. The OBU College of Nursing is a baccalaureate program for the preparation of a professional nurse and views nursing as a Christian ministry and as a professional practice. During nursing courses, students learn to provide quality nursing care through competent practice. Upon completion of the program, the graduate is qualified to take the national examination for licensure as a registered nurse. Salary and rank will be commensurate with qualifications and experience. Applicants must submit a letter of application, the OBU faculty application form available online at okbu.edu/hrforms, vita, three current letters of recommendation, and graduate transcripts. Review will begin immediately. All materials may be submitted to [email protected].

COLLEGE OF NURSING

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Minority Nurse is a must-read!

Each issue comes to you packed with in-depth articles that cover hot topics in nursing care, minority health, and nursing education and career development.

Only in Minority Nurse will you find these original columns:

• Academic Forum—research on issues with a direct impact on nurses as well as minority communities.

• Degrees of Success—written by nursing school representatives who address a variety of issues related to classroom diversity.

• Second Opinion—an outlet for members of the minority nursing community to voice their opinions on important topics in today’s healthcare environment.

• Vital Signs—the latest news in minority health, diversity in nursing, and the achievements of minority nurses.

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NURSINGPROGRAMS

Register today: monmouth.edu/GRNU_info

WednesdayFeb. 18

6:30 p.m.Wilson Hall

BSN

RN to BSN

RN to MSN Direct

Bridge to the MSN (for nurses with non-nursing bachelor’s degrees)

MSNAdult/Gerontological Nurse Practitioner,Family Nurse Practitioner, FamilyPsychiatric & Mental Health NursePractitioner, Nursing Administration,School Nursing, Nursing Education, & Forensic Nursing

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

Graduate & post-master’s certificatesin a variety of specializations

Physician Assistant

Continuing Education courses

IAFN SANE Clinical Skills Lab Site

Improving your futureis our specialty

GRADUATE SCHOOLINFORMATION SESSION

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Documents

Minority Nurse Magazine (Winter 2015)