•Preparing PhD nurse graduates for leadership is important for stewarding the discipline.•Stewarding a discipline involves generation of knowledge.•Conservation of history and fundamental ideas ...inherent in the discipline is important.•Dissemination of and sharing new knowledge to broad audiences is a component of stewarding a discipline.•The process of stewarding is unique to each PhD-prepared nurse depending on prior experiences and expertise.•Stewarding the discipline can be done by developing policy, critiquing the status quo, and conducting research.
Leadership is a core curricular element of PhD programs in nursing. Our PhD faculty began a dialogue about being a leader, a steward of the discipline. We asked ourselves: (a) What expertise do PhD prepared nurse needs to begin to steward the discipline? (b) How do faculty engage PhD nursing students to assume responsibility for stewarding the discipline? Lastly, (c) How do we work with PhD nursing students to create their vision for how their work contributes to stewarding the discipline, from doctoral coursework throughout their career? We support the need for PhD graduates to have the skills to generate knowledge, conserve that which is important, and transform by disseminating new knowledge to a broad audience. Examples of nurses stewarding the discipline when pioneering research, critiquing traditional approaches to inquiry or trends in nursing practice, and developing policy, are highlighted along with examples of how PhD nursing students begin to steward the discipline.
Human capital development is one of the goals of higher education and a decrease in open dialogue threatens these ideals and aspirations. A recent survey of undergraduate students showed that many ...students censor their point of view. There are many potential reasons for this, but it could be secondary to the current sociopolitical climate. Having educators who encourage and model open dialogue while supporting diversity of thought would provide alternative perspectives and innovation. Encouraging diversity of thought will enhance understanding of other's perspectives and unleash creative problem solving to address concerns in nursing practice and facilitate innovative research. The purpose of this article is to present strategies that can be employed to promote diversity of thought among nursing students in a learning environment. Exemplars are presented illustrating some of the strategies discussed.
•Students report they censor their point of view, and could be secondary to the current sociopolitical climate.•A decrease in open dialogue decreases human capital development, one of the goals of higher education.•Encouraging diversity of thought can unleash creative problem solving to address concerns in nursing practice and facilitate innovative research.•This article presents strategies to promote diversity of thought among nursing students in a learning environment.
Use of electronic portfolios (e-portfolios) has been advocated to demonstrate nursing student accomplishments as well as to document program and course outcomes. This use of e-portfolios incorporates ...information technology, thus aligning the educational process in professional degree programs to 21st-century teaching and learning scholarship. Here we describe a project to explore the feasibility of transitioning from documenting student competencies in hard-copy binders to e-portfolios. To make this transition in an efficient manner in our graduate nursing program, we used the Plan, Do, Study, Act quality-improvement model. An interdisciplinary team of nursing faculty and educational computing consultants developed a professional e-portfolio template and implemented a pilot program for 10 students enrolled in our nurse educator specialty. This program was executed by assessing university resources, evaluating the technological competence of both students and faculty, and through the interdisciplinary team members' commitment to provide ongoing support for the program.
Students juggle multiple roles and expect faculty to accommodate their hectic schedules. By increasing our flexibility and offering graduate nursing students the option, within a single course, of ...completing course activities either fully online or blended, we increased student enrollment into courses that prepare faculty. Our approach also identified a potentially cost-saving strategy for low enrollment course sections. Results underscore the importance of ongoing creativity to meet student expectations for responsiveness and inventiveness.
Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a hemoglobinopathy that causes debilitating pain. Patients often report dissatisfaction during care seeking for pain or a sickle cell crisis (SCC). The Theory of ...Self-Care Management for SCD conceptualizes assertive communication as a self-care management resource that improves healthcare outcomes.
This pilot study aimed to determine whether adults with SCD could learn to use the Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation (SBAR) communication method using a web-based trainer, and it aimed to determine their perceptions of the training.
The participants included
= 18 adults with SCD. Inter-rater reliability (IRR) among three reviewers was used to evaluate the participants' ability to respond as expected to prompts using SBAR communication within the web-based platform. Content analysis was used to describe the participants' perspectives of the acceptability of using the SBAR patient-HCP communication simulation.
The SBAR IRR ranged from 64 to 94%, with 72% to 94% of the responses being evaluated as the using of the SBAR component as expected. The predominant themes identified were (1) Patient-Provider Communication and Interaction; (2) Patients want to be Heard and Believed; (3) Accuracy of the ED Experience and Incorporating the Uniqueness of each Patient; and (4) the Overall Usefulness of the Video Trainer emerging.
This pilot study supported the usefulness and acceptability of a web-based intervention in training adults with SCD to use SBAR to enhance patient-HCP communication. Enhancing communication may mitigate the barriers that individuals with SCD encounter during care seeking and improve the outcomes. Additional studies with larger samples need to be conducted.
Intimidation constitutes a learning barrier for undergraduates and its reporting rate to authorities remains suboptimal.
A randomized controlled trial was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of ...three interventions designed to increase reporting by undergraduates during their surgical rotation. As adjuncts to a standardized lecture, participants were assigned to a simulated intimidation scenario, a video of intimidation events, or a control group. Surveys were completed before the interventions, and at the end of the rotation.
Of the 119 included participants, 17.6% reported that they had been intimidated during their previous rotation as compared to 37.0% after the surgical rotation. There were no statistically significant differences in the reporting of intimidation between the groups. However, 65.5% of all participants declared feeling more at ease to report intimidation, yet the reporting rate remained low.
Intimidation during clerkship persists as a frequent problem although the best method to increase its reporting remains unclear.
•Medical students described more intimidation events during their surgical rotation.•The interventions did not lead to an increase in the reporting of intimidation.•The main reason not to report was the understatement of events’ significance.•Students who reported intimidation perceived decreased barriers to this process.
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