17³Ô¹Ï

Welcome to the 17³Ô¹Ï Moment. Thank you for listening. I’m Shelly Vitanza, the Director of Public Affairs at 17³Ô¹Ï. Each week we showcase the great events, activities, programs, projects, and people at 17³Ô¹Ï. So many activities in 2020 have been decreased, or delayed, or postponed, or cancelled. We’re getting used to that, right. But over the course of this year, the JoAnne Gay Dishman School of Nursing at 17³Ô¹Ï has continued learning, teaching, serving its annual traditions and graduating nurses who are ready on day one to serve their communities. And here to talk about the school of nursing and this year’s challenges, but mainly its successes, is Dr. Cynthia Simpson. She is chair of the school of nursing. Welcome, Dr. Simpson, so glad you could join us.

Cynthia Simpson:

Well, thank you so much, Shelly for asking me to speak today. I always tell people I’m so excited when anyone asks me to talk about the JoAnne Gay Dishman School of Nursing. It’s almost like my home. I graduated in the very first nursing class there in 1975. And then I came back in 1980 and got a second degree at Lamar so it really is like my home. So, I’m excited anytime and I’m so proud of what we can accomplish there. I always tell everyone, “we are probably one of the best kept secrets in this part of Texas.”

Shelly Vitanza:

No doubt! And you know, this year, I’ve looked for good news and you guys always provide, you always come through, there’s always something positive going on at the school of nursing and it’s kind of been this gem I can point to and say, “but look at what’s going on at the school of nursing!” It really started back during the start of the pandemic when we were all kind of at home and stuff, but the Cardinals Care project that connected the nursing students with long term care residents and can you talk about that? Dr. Elizabeth Long and Mikayla Brown organized that project, and it was so creative, and it was so right on, you know, at the time.

Cynthia Simpson:

Yes and Dr. Long has actually continued to look at loneliness and isolation of our long-term care residents. That’s actually her specialty. That’s one of the things that we have at the JoAnne Gay Dishman School of Nursing. We have so many experienced faculty with such a wide range of education. Dr. Long’s actually a geriatric nurse practitioner. And we were really concerned because one thing that we do at the JoAnne Gay Dishman School of Nursing, all of our students are required to do community-based service learning and they all take on projects and they go out into the community, but when our long-term care centers were closed and we couldn't't’t put our students in there and we couldn't't’t put visitors in there, we really looked for a way that we could still have that caring attitude that we as nurses need. So what we started was, actually like a pen-pal system where we assigned nursing students to residents and they actually wrote the letters and sent poems and did artwork and surprisingly enough, many of the residents actually wrote back to our students and we’re hoping once the long-term care facilities are open that those students can actually go in and actually meet their pen pals. Some of our students are going to keep those relationships up. We started that back this summer actually, I think at the end of May, and we’re still continuing that today. So, our students are still doing that project and we’ve written some articles and we’ve received some really good media on it, but I think more importantly, I think we’ve made a difference for some residents that would not have had anyone if it had not been for our students.

Shelly Vitanza:

Well, and that’s just it. These elderly people are in these facilities and they can’t go anywhere or do anything, and they can’t have any visitors and so these are really life-giving touch points for these folks, and I think its phenomenal. It’s phenomenal for both too, the students are learning as well and to keep those relationships is incredible. And you touched on something, Dr. Simpson, the fact that nursing is very hands on and so I’m curious to know how that’s been maintained. In my curiosity, I saw that grants were received for enhancements in the stimulation lab and I’m assuming that’s how you continued the experiential learning is through the stimulation lab and the different equipment you have there. Can you talk about how you continue the hands-on learning through a time like a pandemic?

Cynthia Simpson:

Well, it’s interesting that you would say that. The simulation lab actually just one of the ways we’ve continued it. I’m not sure a lot of people really realize that during the pandemic, we have continued to have our lab where our students have come in and actually practiced their skills and also our students as of August, have actually been back into the hospital working with patients and also they’ve been in community sittings: schools, public health, home health working with patients. You mention our simulation lab, probably one of the best labs in Texas and I can say that because I have people that come to visit our labs all the time. It’s actually a mini hospital. It has medication carts and crash carts, and we have essential supply rooms. We actually practice giving blood transfusions and starting IV’s, but one of the grants, we actually received two grants, one was from the Mamie McFadden Heritage Foundation, the other one was from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Both of these were received during the COVID epidemic to help us continue the education of the students. And what we plan to do with this was to purchase older adult mannequins who have wearable simulators which will help students understand what it feels like to have visual impairments, mobility restrictions, trimmers, and hearing problems. We may even use the simulators to help them realize how difficult it might be to administer your own medications when you have those problems. We’re also getting skilled trainers; those are simulators that the students can take home with them to practice skills at home. We’ve actually written with Dr. Chisholm, Dr. Curl, Dr. Hale, and myself to work on those grants, so we’re really excited. It’s about, probably with all of those, close to $140,000 in grants that we’ve received. We’ve also got some other grants because of the COVID epidemic that we are working on.

Shelly Vitanza:

Yeah! I saw that. The wearable simulators seemed so interesting to me that the students actually put them on and they had this sensitivity suit I saw with a walker and visual impairments and mobility restrictions and trimmers and hearing problems so they actually feel like they are having those situations. That seems like such a great way to gain empathy for a patient, right is to actually experience what they are experiencing. That’s incredible. The grants came from Mamie McFadden Heritage Foundation: $29,000 and then from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board: $118,000. Congratulations on those two awards. It’s working apparently because our nursing grads aced the national exam!

Cynthia Simpson:

That’s right! We were so excited. We were really nervous what would happen in May since we had a complete shut down like everyone else did on campus in March and our students went and took boards and boards in May and did above the average in Texas and aced it, as you said, did really, really well. Many people don’t realize, to be a registered nurse, all registered nurses in the country take a national qualifying exam which actually shows how well your education is compared to, let’s say, a hospital in New York or Massachusetts, or wherever, so