Volume 23
Number 8
April 20, 2012
Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania
HELPING SOM STUDENTS LEARN THE ROPES New Nurse Mentor Program Underscores Importance of Team Work A deer in the headlights. That’s how Stuart Carter, a MS3 student at the Perelman School of Medicine, described feeling when he began his first clinical rotation at HUP in early 2011. “It was scary, trying to navigate the system... especially Founders 14, which is a fast moving, well-oiled machine,” he recalled. Enter Diana Santangelo, BSN, RN, a clinical nurse who participates in the new program focusing on interdisciplinary education that pairs nurses with medical students who are new to clinical rotations. Remembering the fear that she too felt on her first clinical rotation as a student nurse, Santangelo took the time to show Carter not only the ins and outs of the unit but also the key roles nurses play in patient care. Looking back, he said, “It was nice to have someone help ease my burden. Now I feel much more comfortable interacting with the nursing staff.”
INSIDE Writing from the Heart Reconnects Young Patient .......3
`` Diana Santangelo shows medical student Stuart Carter proper medication labeling and administration.
In a sense, this new program is an extension of Penn Medicine’s unit-based clinical leadership. These interdisciplinary groups have demonstrated the immense benefits of health-care professionals working as a team instead of in side-by-side silos. The mentoring program brings them together as well but at an earlier stage…and it’s a win-win situation for everyone.
Structuring the Program Betty Ann Boczar, BSN, nurse manager of Founders 12 and 14, and Kate FitzPatrick, MSN, RN, clinical director, Nursing Operations and Women’s Health, were brought into this program early in the planning process but both credit Victoria Rich, PhD, chief nurse executive, UPMC, as “the visionary” who kick-started the initiative with Stanley Goldfarb, MD, associate dean for Curriculum, and other medical school faculty and administration. . “Medical students had no idea of the various roles of nurses, and nurses didn’t know how much the students knew — what their background would allow them to do,” Goldfarb said. “It’s two different worlds coming together.” Input from groups of nurses and med students helped shape the structure of the mentoring program, said Anna Delaney, chief administrative office of Academic Programs. “We asked them, ‘What is it you don’t understand about each other? What has worked well and what hasn’t?’”
Did You Choose?.......................4
From that feedback, “we developed a checklist of nursing actions that we felt were important for a medical student to see,” said Jennifer Kogan, MD, of Internal Medicine. This included patient admission and discharge, wound care, medication administration, and the nurse-tonurse shift report.
Free Skin Care Screening.........4
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A Hawaiian Oasis at 1500 Market...............................3
Save a Life with a Platelet Donation.......................4
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