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NURSES CARE • Bangor Daily News Special Advertising Section • May 11, 2018
CELEBRATE NATIONAL NURSES WEEK National Nurses Week is an annual event running from May 6-12. It’s a designated opportunity to recognize the men and women who dedicate their efforts to the wellbeing of others. The first day of the week—May 6—is also known as National Nurses Day. The final day—May 12—is the birthday of Florence Nightingale (May 12, 1820 – August 13, 1910). According to the American Nurses Association (ANA) website, Nightingale is often considered the “founder of modern nursing.” She gained recognition while taking care of wounded soldiers during the Crimean War. She was nicknamed “The Lady with the Lamp” because of her habit of making rounds at night. National Nurses Week has its beginnings in 1953, when Dorothy Sutherland of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare sent a proposal to President Eisenhower to
proclaim a “Nurse Day.” Unfortunately, the proclamation was never made. Other unsuccessful efforts followed until 1974, when President Nixon issued a proclamation designating National Nurse Week. In 1982, President Reagan signed a proclamation designating May 6 as “National Recognition Day for Nurses.” Today, while National Nurses Week may be the most popular, there are several other days set aside to recognize nurses and the nursing profession. These include National Student Nurses Day (May 8) and National School Nurse Day (on the Wednesday of National Nurses Week). While none of these are public holidays, according to timeanddate.com, they are excellent opportunities to observe this important profession.
PRAYER SQUARE, 1944, DOW FIELD PHOTO, COURTESY THOMPSON COLLECTION, BANGOR PUBLIC LIBRARY
1939 PHOTO, NURSES LEANING ON ADJUSTABLE HOSPITAL BED, COURTESY UNIVERSITY OF MAINE FOGLER LIBRARY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
ST. JOSEPH HOSPITAL ARCHIVAL NURSING PHOTO, CA. 1970, COURTESY ST. JOSEPH HOSPITAL
NURSES CARE • Bangor Daily News Special Advertising Section • MAY 11, 2018
BY SHANNON GAUVIN, DHA, MSN, RN, FAAN DIRECTOR OF NURSING, PURDUE GLOBAL – MAINE
Since January 2017, targeted efforts have been made between academia and practice across Maine due to a nursing workforce shortage of nearly 3,200 nurses by 2025 as forecasted by the Maine Nursing Action Coalition. As one of only 14 educational institutions offering prelicensure nursing education in the state, Purdue Global has a responsibility to be part of the solution. Maine’s Nursing Workforce data show that more than 50% of all registered nurses in Maine are over 50 years old. Purdue Global, a public, nonprofit institution within the respected Purdue University system, has an accelerated prelicensure nursing program, and thus is well positioned to
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be a major contributor to the nursing shortage solution. By enrolling students every 11 weeks and offering every course every term, Purdue Global provides students the opportunity to complete an RN and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) in a little less than three-and-a-half years. Having a new cohort of graduates every 11 weeks speeds the influx of nurses to the workforce. In addition, Purdue Global also offers the competency-based RN-to-BSN ExcelTrack option. This is ideal for working adults, because it offers greater flexibility and the convenience of earning the same BSN degree online in a faster and potentially more affordable manner. At Purdue Global, our goal is to deliver a fully personalized learning experience that’s tailored to the unique needs of working adults—one that gives them the support they need to achieve their goals and create new opportunities for their future. For more information, visit purdueglobal.edu.
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NURSES CARE • Bangor Daily News Special Advertising Section • May 11, 2018
BY JODI HERSEY
Jennifer Stinson never expected she’d be a miracle worker, but it didn’t stop her from pursuing a career in nursing where she could bring hope, comfort, and often times healing to those in need. “One of things I love about nursing is I feel I’m doing God’s work,” Stinson said. “It’s a really rewarding feeling knowing you can help somebody when they’re scared. You may be praying with them, and you might be there when they don’t have family members to comfort them. It’s a very intimate role you’re providing for them and it’s not something just anybody can do.” Stinson, a former daycare owner, decided to return to college when her youngest daughter entered high school in 2013. “One of the great things about that decision was that Julia and I would do homework together at night and it really instilled in her discipline and the importance of education. Now she’s at Maine Maritime Academy in the logistics program,” Stinson said. The Orono resident took just a few classes at a time while enrolled at the University of Maine at Fort Kent and learned so much more than what was inside the pages of her textbooks. “Nursing involves a lot of schools of thought. You have to be an educator, you have to do a little counseling, do a little occupational therapy, nutrition, and physical therapy. It encompasses all these schools. When I was younger and in my 20s, I don’t think I would’ve picked nursing because I had a lot of different interests at that time. But when you get older, you understand how fragile life is,” Stinson said. Donna Beuk, the chair for the school of nursing and an associate professor at Husson University, said the need for nurses is greater now than ever. “The population growth resulting in the growing need for nursing services is a challenge. There’s a diminishing pipeline for new students in nursing. So while we do have the applicants, we do have restrictions on how many nursing students we can actually put through the pipeline. Then
when we look at the aging nursing workforce in general, we hit that slope where we are in a shortage. We are doing everything we can to help prevent that from impacting the healthcare here in Maine,” Beuk said. Much like Stinson, Beuk also chose nursing as a second career. “I actually did internal auditing for a bank and had no enjoyment from my career, so I went back to school to become a nurse at 25. I went straight to the intensive care unit and spent my tenure with critical care and emergency trauma,” Beuk said. “When I knew I was not going to hold up to those long 12-hour shifts, I decided to pursue my master’s degree and really and truly felt I could touch more patients and have a greater impact on patient driven healthcare through the students I was teaching.” Stinson, who plans to graduate in December, has already landed a job at Acadia Hospital in Bangor.
“There is not another profession in healthcare that I’d chose other than being a registered nurse,” Beuk said. “It is that rewarding.” “I’m a case coordinator there. I help clients find supports in the community. I have just two classes left before I’m a registered nurse,” Stinson said. “There is so much you can do with a nursing degree and make a good living. You can go anywhere in the U.S. and find a job, and you’re not doing the same thing over and over again. You are constantly learning and constantly changing.” Choosing to go back to school to become a nurse is a decision both Stinson and Beuk have never regretted. “There is not another profession in healthcare that I’d chose other than being a registered nurse,” Beuk said. “It is that rewarding.”
“This one decision changed everything in my whole life for the better,” Stinson said. “I met my partner, who is awesome. It helped my kids with their education and it helped me be independent.” Stinson knows she may not be able to help every patient she comes across. Yet she still feels called to a profession that will not only improve her future but one that will put her in a place where miracles really do happen. “What I learned about nursing is I learned to believe in myself. The other thing is the more you learn, the more you realize there is to learn. That’s what I like about the medical field. It pushes you,” Stinson said. “And the third thing is there is a bigger force [at work]. You are doing something that’s really special. I’m doing God’s work.”
Nurses Care Publisher: Richard J. Warren Editor: Matthew Chabe Special Sections Sales: Jeff Orcutt, Linda Hayes Creative Manager: Michele Dwyer Creative Services: Amy Allen, Marcie Coombs, Coralie Cross, Ben Cyr, Callie Picard, Carolina Rave
NURSES CARE • Bangor Daily News Special Advertising Section • MAY 11, 2018
EASTERN MAINE GENERAL HOSPITAL SURGICAL ROOM, CA. 1930, COURTESY UNIVERSITY OF MAINE FOGLER LIBRARY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
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STUDENTS HOPE WARD HOLDEN AND JOYCE SPENCER DAVIS, CA. 1948, COURTESY UNIVERSITY OF MAINE FOGLER LIBRARY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
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NURSES CARE • Bangor Daily News Special Advertising Section • May 11, 2018
NURSE ASSISTING CHILD IN IRON LUNG, CA. 1950S, COURTESY UNIVERSITY OF MAINE FOGLER LIBRARY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
1917, EASTERN MAINE GENERAL HOSPITAL SCHOOL OF NURSING, COURTESY UNIVERSITY OF MAINE FOGLER LIBRARY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
Congratulations! to all of the recent graduates of the nursing program!
We’re hiring RNs! Contact us today!
Celebrating
135Years! Community Health and Counseling Services For more information, contact us at 207 922-4625 or visit our website for more information at chcs-me.org CHCS is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, genetic information, protected verteran status, or any other classification protected by federal, state or local law. EOE Minorities/Females/Protected Veterans/Disabled
NURSES CARE • Bangor Daily News Special Advertising Section • MAY 11, 2018
1959 CAPPING CEREMONY, JEANETTE MITCHELL, SHIRLEY GENTHNER, COURTESY UNIVERSITY OF MAINE FOGLER LIBRARY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
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NURSES CARE • Bangor Daily News Special Advertising Section • May 11, 2018
BY ALAN CROWELL
A few minutes after 8 a.m., Registered Nurse Ashley Barker is in constant motion, wheeling her mobile computer station in and out of rooms on the third floor of Eastern Maine Medical Center’s Merritt Building, checking in with each of her patients. At the doorway of one room, she greets a family member with a smile, calling him by his first name. The family member smiles back at Barker, who is seven-and-a-half months pregnant, and tells her he is going for a walk, but he made sure his brother’s bed alarm is on so nurses will be alerted if the patient tries to get up. Over the next hour or so, Barker will visit each of her patients, asking them how they are feeling, making notes on any changes, scanning medications with a barcode scanner to ensure they receive the right dose of the right medication at the right time. As healthcare has more technologically intensive – the bar code scanner is designed to cut down on medication errors – nurses remain at the center of hospital care, but with significantly expanded roles.
They continue to provide most of the hands-on care to patients, serving as the eyes and ears for the other members of expanding care teams, but as healthcare has become less hierarchical, they are also expected to advocate for changes to patients’ care rather than just carry out the orders of doctors or other specialists. It is a role that calls for not only excellent technical skills but also the ability to communicate well with other members of the care team, and even more importantly, the ability to build rapport with patients and families. Patients who trust their nurses are more likely to be compliant in taking their medications and following the other instructions that can be vital to the healing process. Nurses who get to know their patients are also more likely to pick up on the often-subtle signs of a change in condition – for example the variations in manner or speech patterns that can signal a stroke. Charge nurse Allison Leach, RN, is only partly joking when she describes the expanding role of nurses as part scientist and part camp counselor. Hospital patients in general have become older and sicker in the past decade and Eastern Maine Medical
Center, which provides specialty and intensive services for northern Maine, receives the most complicated patients from an area larger than Vermont. Many patients are suffering from several medical conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease, and may be taking 10 or more medications. “You have to be more alert. You have to catch things sooner,” said Leach. The clipboards that nurses once carried are gone in favor of mobile computer stations that allow them to update patients’ electronic medical records in real time and access test results and other information the instant they are available. They have to be constantly assimilating information to catch signs of changes in condition. “Just by talking to them you are assessing their gaze, their speech patterns, how they move their eyes, how they move their head, how they hold themselves. Do they look uncomfortable?” said Leach. “It is a very hard job. You have to be able to keep a lot of information in your head. You have to be able to deal with difficult personalities. People don’t feel well. They can be grumpy, they can be sad,” she said.
IN MODERN HEALTHCARE, NURSES ARE AT THE CENTER OF TEAMS THAT INCLUDE DOCTORS, THERAPISTS, AND CERTIFIED NURSING ASSISTANTS AMONG OTHERS. GOOD COMMUNICATION WITH PATIENTS AND TEAM MEMBERS IS A VITAL PART OF THE JOB. PICTURED ARE MEMBERS OF THE MERRITT 3 MEDICAL/SURGICAL UNIT AT EASTERN MAINE MEDICAL CENTER. COURTESY EMMC.
NURSES CARE • Bangor Daily News Special Advertising Section • MAY 11, 2018
ALLISON LEACH RN
It is a challenging and sometimes frustrating job, but Leach can’t imagine herself doing anything else. The daughter and sister of doctors, Leach was raised around medicine and attended nursing school before dropping out to raise a family. For many years she was a secretary at Eastern Maine Medical Center before going back to nursing school in 2009 after she raised five children with her husband. When she graduated in 2014, her physician father, who is now 91, pinned her with her nursing pin. “We love our patients. We love seeing them get better and we take pride in their care,” said Leach. Decades ago, nurses had to stand up when a doctor entered the room. Now nurses and doctors work together in a much more level partnership with communication flowing in both directions. At the same time, nurses also work closely with Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs) who play a vital role performing many of the physical tasks of patient care, including bathing patients, helping them eat and taking vital signs. Positioned at the center of modern care teams, nurses are tasked with ensuring that information flows in both directions. More than anything, however, nurses must love working with not only patients but their families, said Leach. For Ashley Barker, medicine has been a passion for as long as she can remember. As a young girl, her father would come home from work to find her watching surgeries on the Discovery channel. “I always liked (medicine) and I always liked working
with people. My mom was a pharmacy tech from before I was born,” said Barker. When she turned 16, Barker became a pharmacy tech herself. But while she enjoyed working with people, she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life behind a counter. While getting her bachelor’s in medical biology, she took a certified nursing assistant course and worked in both long-term and skilled care as a CNA. She later went back to school for her nursing degree while working full time at Eastern Maine Medical Center as a pharmacy tech.
“We love our patients. We love seeing them get better and we take pride in their care,” said Leach. She has been working at Eastern Maine Medical Center as a registered nurse since she graduated two years ago. The best part of nursing for Barker is the opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives. “You can’t always fix things. Not everything is fixable but if you can make it a little easier for them, it is very rewarding.” A good day in nursing is when you can spend a little time visiting with each patient so they don’t just feel like a number, she said. A tough day is when she has a lot of sick patients and can’t spend all the time she would like with each of them.
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ASHLEY BARKER RN
Being a nurse is not for everybody, said Barker. “You have to be able to deal with the hard days,” she said. “Not every day is rainbows and butterflies.” But while there are real challenges, there are also opportunities to play an incredibly important role for patients even when medicine is no longer useful. Once, when she was a CNA, Barker and another CNA were helping a woman who was near death. Suddenly, the woman stopped them and looking up at Barker, asked for a hug. Barker held her as the patient breathed her last breath. Good communication skills are very important, said Barker, and so is the ability to advocate for patients, even if that sometimes means disagreeing with doctors or other providers. Nurses spend more time with patients and their families than doctors and may see changes in a patient’s condition or hear concerns from a patient’s family before a provider. In the modern team-oriented approach to healthcare, nurses are expected to advocate for patients and hold their ground when necessary, while remaining respectful to the other members of the team. Barker’s advice for anyone interested in becoming a nurse is to spend some time shadowing a nurse. Becoming a CNA first can also help prospective nurses understand the job better and provide excellent training for nursing. But the most important qualification for anyone thinking of a career in nursing is simply that they care for patients, said Barker. “If you are in it for the money, you are in it for the wrong reason,” she said.
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NURSES CARE • Bangor Daily News Special Advertising Section • May 11, 2018
DR. MASON AND NURSES, COURTESY EASTERN MAINE MEDICAL CENTER
EASTERN MAINE GENERAL HOSPITAL RECRUITMENT TABLE, 1970S PHOTO, COURTESY UNIVERSITY OF MAINE FOGLER LIBRARY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
EASTERN MAINE GENERAL HOSPITAL NURSE WITH TODDLER, CA. 1928, COURTESY UNIVERSITY OF MAINE FOGLER LIBRARY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
EASTERN MAINE GENERAL HOSPITAL STAFF OUTSIDE CONSERVATORY, COURTESY UNIVERSITY OF MAINE FOGLER LIBRARY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
OLD ST. JOSEPH HOSPITAL OPERATING ROOM, CA. 1955, COURTESY ST. JOSEPH HOSPITAL
ST. JOSEPH HOSPITAL FELICIAN SISTER NURSE WITH YOUNG PATIENT, CA. 1958, COURTESY ST. JOSEPH HOSPITAL
NURSES CARE • Bangor Daily News Special Advertising Section • MAY 11, 2018
COURTESY UNIVERSITY OF MAINE AT AUGUSTA
A Bachelor of Science in Nursing is rapidly becoming the preferred educational credential for registered nurses, and the University of Maine at Augusta plays a vital role in helping existing RNs in Maine to earn this important degree. The RN to BSN Program at UMA integrates a liberal arts general education core within the nursing curriculum, thereby providing the skills that transform and prepare students for holistic nursing practices, including positions in leadership and management. This approach is in keeping with the University’s mission to transform student lives through high-quality education in professional and liberal arts programs. The University is also a leader in delivering programs using contemporary technology, and the RN to BSN Program is no exception. Most of UMA’s BSN students are working nurses, so courses are offered through a combination of fully online and blended learning courses, as well as some occasional face-to-face meetings (which can be achieved through synchronous web conferencing from home or work). This flexibility in course delivery allows busy RNs to succeed in the program, regardless of their challenging work schedules or their locations. UMA has highly qualified nursing faculty and all full-time faculty teaching in the RN to BSN program hold a doctoral degree. Select nursing faculty also hold credentials of board certification by the American Holistic Nurses Association and APRN (Advanced Practice Registered Nurse) practicing midwifery. After many years of successfully educating numerous associate degree prepared nurses, the University established its baccalaureate nursing program in 2009 and was initially
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accredited by the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing (ACEN) in 2014. UMA anticipates a successful site visit by the ACEN accreditation team in fall 2018 to remain recognized as a program that has been found to meet or exceed standards and criteria for educational quality. In 2013, the program was designated as exemplifying “Excellence in Holistic Nursing Education” by the American Holistic Nurses Association, in recognition of the program’s curriculum emphasis in holistic nursing. Holistic nursing is unique in that it can be practiced within all other nursing specialties by applying the principles of holism to client care. In March 2018, the Nursing program at UMA was endorsed by the American Holistic Nurses Credentialing Corporation. UMA is one of only three higher education institutions in New England to have this distinctive endorsement, and the only institution in Maine. RN to BSN students can earn maximum credit at UMA for prior learning, transfer credit, testing, portfolio review, and external training certification. Dr. Carey S. Clark, Associate Professor of Nursing, notes that many students in this program earn their BSN in about two years. Upon completing the degree, these nursing graduates have the appropriate knowledge and skills to advance in their current clinical or community practice setting, pursue new career opportunities in the field, or to pursue an advanced degree. Michael Martin, a recent graduate will begin a Master’s program in Bioethics in the fall at the Harvard Medical School. Martin notes, “UMA’s RN to BSN program prepares graduates to expand their professional careers and to seek out a variety of other opportunities to serve the health care community.” To learn more about the RN to BSN program, visit uma.edu/nursing or call 877-UMA-1234.
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NURSES CARE • Bangor Daily News Special Advertising Section • May 11, 2018