Next-Gen Nursing

NEXT-GEN NURSING

Michelle Goff, grant writer

Stephanie Stiltner ’10, director of family connections

The University of Pikeville-Elliott School of Nursing (ESON) has made great strides and experienced significant changes this past year. In addition to expanding the two-year associate degree of nursing program to include the school’s largest class, the school of nursing named a new dean and began offering a fully-online RN-BSN program.

Karen Damron, Ph.D., who was appointed dean last summer, attributed the successful transition to institutional planning and support.

“We had a solid foundation to build on,” Damron said. “Mary Simpson, who had been dean/division chair for 16 years, ran a very successful program. We recently completed a self study as part of our continuing accreditation process for our RN-BSN program. One of our accreditation visitors said it was the best self study she’s ever read, and she’s been doing this for 30 years.”

Tauna Gulley, Ph.D., director of the RN-BSN program, added, “The leadership of the provost, the president, and the administration ensured our success. Once we decided to pursue a distance education program that was 100 percent online, we wasted no time writing the prospectus and taking the necessary steps to make it happen.”

Gulley noted that offering a fully online RN-BSN program, which this year more than doubled its enrollment from the previous year, made the school of nursing more competitive with programs across the country.

“Our RN-BSN students are practicing nurses who are working five and six days a week,” Gulley said. “Distance education is more accommodating to their schedules and they can complete the program in a year.”

The program’s flexibility appealed to students.

“I am currently working 48-plus hours a week and the program is still doable,” Ashley Gibson, an RN- BSN student, said. “If there is ever trouble meeting a deadline, the teachers are very understanding.”

Gibson, a critical care nurse at Pikeville Medical Center, also earned her associate’s in nursing at UPIKE. Noting that she “felt at home” in UPIKE’s nursing program, Gibson said it was the only choice for her when she decided to pursue her bachelor’s degree in nursing. Once she has her BSN, she wants to achieve her master’s and possibly become a teacher.

The RN-BSN program also brings student Jeana Bradford one step closer to achieving her dream of becoming a certified registered nurse anesthetist, a career that requires a master’s degree. Bradford, a cardiac nurse at Pikeville Medical Center, praised the nursing school faculty for “treating us like family. We can call and text them any time, and they do a good job motivating us.”

Damron said the RN-BSN program would also help meet the Institute of Medicine’s goal of increasing the proportion of nurses with a baccalaureate degree from 50 percent to 80 percent by 2020.

A Texas native, Damron became a registered nurse through a traditional baccalaureate nursing program. She spent most of her career as a practicing nurse caring for neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) patients.

“I like high-dependency patients,” Damron said. “I worked in obstetrics for a while, but I wanted to work in any intensive care unit. I transferred to NICU, where they have the most dependent patients.”

Damron, who with her husband Larry has four sons and three grandchildren, came to the area in 1993 and started teaching clinicals at UPIKE in the mid-’90s. She eventually earned her master’s from Bellarmine University and her doctorate at the University of Kentucky. She is one of four nursing faculty members who holds a terminal degree.

“Our current faculty is the most educated faculty we’ve had. Three maintain clinical practices and four are nurse practitioner,” Damron said. “We have a great faculty as well as support from administration.

“We also have a good reputation. We’ve produced hundreds of graduates. If you go over to Pikeville Medical Center, most of their nurses are our graduates. Nursing is a much-needed profession. The jobs are in demand. If our students are not already employed by the time they graduate, they will soon be.”

Karen Damron Dean of the Elliott School of Nursing

We also have a good reputation. We’ve produced hundreds of graduates. If you go over to Pikeville Medical Center, most of their nurses are our graduates. Nursing is a much-needed profession. The jobs are in demand. If our students are not already employed by the time they graduate, they will soon be." - Karen Damron Dean of the Elliott School of Nursing

High-Fidelity Investment

Thanks to a $2.7 million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA), nursing students are receiving training on high-fidelity simulators that can mimic medical emergencies such as heart attacks or pneumonia or even give birth.

Damron explained, the highfidelity simulators enhance nursing education by creating realistic experiences.

“Simulation allows students to experience and react to critical situations that don’t commonly occur when they are in clinical areas with actual patients,” Damron said. “This better prepares them for a time when quick reaction and appropriate interventions are needed by a patient.”

As an example, Damron referred to SimMom, a fullbody birthing simulator.

“Traditionally, labor and delivery clinicals are observation only. The SimMom simulator allows for hands-on experience performing interventions that students usually only get to observe labor and delivery nurses doing. With SimMom, we now can simulate multiple emergent situations, such as a prolapsed umbilical cord or shoulder dystocia, which put the mother and baby at risk.”

Pictured right, Bethany Sullivan, instructor of nursing, demonstrates the “SimNewB,” a simulator that provides nursing students with realistic training for newborn patients.

In addition to providing opportunities for skills practice, simulators can measure students’ progression throughout their education by providing reports on student development. Students can be filmed during simulation scenarios and then debriefed by nursing faculty. “It is during this debriefing that the real learning occurs,” Damron said.

Responding to the region’s need for additional nurses, the EDA partnered with UPIKE to assist with the expansion of the nursing program. Along with SimMom, other high-fidelity simulators purchased with grant funding include SimNewB, SimMan 3G Trauma, SimMan 3G, SimJunior, and a SimBulance. Six mid-fidelity Nursing Anne simulators were also purchased. The university recently renovated a floor in the Community Technology Center to house the clinical training site.

Christopher Little, a sophomore nursing student from Pikeville, credited simulation with enhancing his educational experience.

“Books and our teachers are able to describe abnormal findings but being able to experience those by obtaining our own assessments are the best way to tie together what we are being taught,” Little said. “Simulation puts us in situations where we have to recognize the first signs and symptoms of a complication. (It prepares us) to know how to act when thrown

these loops in patient care. The grant has allowed us to experience these real-life situations for ourselves, which will give us an advantage when we enter our profession.”

Little continued, “I am grateful, along with my classmates, to have been given the opportunities we have already experienced and look forward to newer experiences to help advance our knowledge in health care.”

The addition of state-of-the-art simulators not only expands opportunities for nursing students but also allows for increased collaboration between nursing and medical students on campus. Nursing faculty will partner with faculty at the university’s Kentucky College of Osteopathic Medicine (KYCOM) to facilitate teamwork and communication in a variety of clinical settings.

“Simulation allows us to reinforce clinical knowledge, improve team communication, and teach decision-making skills in a safe environment that doesn’t compromise patient safety,” said Danny Driskill, J.D., NRP, FP-C, director of simulation and instructor of family medicine at KYCOM.

Driskill and nursing faculty participated in a five-day training, courtesy of Laerdal Medical Corporation, to better prepare them to instruct students on how to use the equipment. Nursing and KYCOM will use the SimBulance, an ambulance that runs simulated emergency situations, to further prepare the health care workforce.

Additional skills/simulation equipment purchased with the EDA grant include an Omnicell medication dispensing system with two mobile computerized medication carts, GE Panda Infant Warmer, GE Giraffe Infant Warmer and GE Giraffe Omnibed Incubator, as well as IV pumps, vital sign monitors and patient beds. EDA funds also allowed for purchase of student desks in the skills/simulation lab as well as furnishings and technology for a testing lab where nursing students will become accustomed to taking their exams on computers as they prepare for their computerized national licensing exam.