Year 17 coming up....

I've been a nurse half my life! I can hardly imagine being anything else. Before I became a nurse though, I worked as a hospital orderly, a farm worker/construction worker/cowherd, day care worker, and junior high school teacher. Nursing is the only job I've had that makes me want to come back to work, regardless of what kind of day I've had. As I tell my students, nurses can (and do) make a difference to patients and families every single day you go to work, without fail.

I began my nursing career in the neonatal intensive care unit as a staff nurse, then a charge nurse, and finally a transport nurse. I worked in that setting for 11 years, enjoying almost all of the experiences I had. I think being a charge nurse was the least satisfying tho. I'm just not a manager/leader. I also worked in the PICU some and found that not as attractive because of the shorter lengths of stay and the limited opportunities to engage with families and children over longer periods.

As a nurse practitioner, I found a lot of satisfaction in the different kind of relationship I was able to establish with families and babies. It wasn't the hands-on care of feeding, diapering, vital signs, medications, and all the myriad responsibilities and tasks of the staff nurse. I found tho that as a staff nurse I would be taking care of different babies almost every day I went to work. So, yes, for that 12 hours, I had an intimate relationship with that baby and that family, but it didn't continue.

As a nurse practitioner, I was able to have a relationship that extended over days, weeks, and sometimes months because babies on the NNP team were cared for by the same NNPs for their entire hospitalization. I liked knowing what was going on and being part of the decision-making process involved in the care of these fragile patients and their families.

I finished my master's degree in pediatric primary care and obtained my certificate as a neonatal nurse practitioner while working as a neonatal transport nurse. Finally, I began my doctorate in nursing to learn more about families and helping them to cope with the stresses of having a sick newborn.

When I was approached about the possibility of teaching in a new NNP master's program, I took the chance. Although it meant a huge cut in salary, I was able to make the change.

I began my first teaching job in the NNP master's program in 1993 and continued in that position through 1999, when I finished my doctorate. I then moved to a different university and continued to teach master's students. I also became involved in teaching undergraduate nursing students, which I found very rewarding and challenging. Over the course of the next few years, my interests shifted from neonatal intensive care to general pediatric nurse, a field in which I hadn't really practiced before.

My undergraduate teaching experience has included teaching nursing research, an introduction to health, pediatric nursing, nursing leadership, and nursing ethics. Up until last fall, tho, I had not taught undergraduate clinical. During Fall 2008 I was in Cape Town, South Africa, where I did teach undergraduate pediatric clinical, pediatric nursing, and nursing ethics with a group of 14 senior nursing students from my university. I thoroughly enjoyed it, especially being back in a setting with families and children, and asked to teach a clinical section during Spring 2009, which I did (more about this later).

I'm just finishing up teaching pediatric nursing for our second-degree students this week. It's been a hectic five weeks, but we're almost finished. At the end of the month, I'll have 2 sections of pediatric clinical in a children's hospital, and 1 in a school. Interestingly, my son will be in kindergarten at the school where I'll have my students. In the spring I'll have one section of clinical at the children's hospital and two sections of nursing leadership.

So much for the first post on this blog. I'm hoping to reflect on my experiences as an educator and see what others might be able to share about their own.

Art