Innovations: Nursing Science, Education, Practice - University of ...

Maureen McCausland: The foremost
challenge we face in nursing education
is keeping our commitment to
an intimate, caring nurse-patient relationship.
We must teach students to
cherish this relationship in the face of
tremendous pressure to move
patients through the health-care system
in a responsible way.
We also face a challenge in recruiting
the next generation of clinical
nurses. Women have countless choices
for their careers. Many now look
askance at nursing because the public
focus is on hospital layoffs and closings.
We need to tell students the
positive reasons to enter the field,
Norma Lang: Continuing to recruit
the brain power into nursing is
absolutely a top priority. We must
continue to make nursing a vibrant
option for the best and the brightest
coming through high schools. We
also need to help students find financial
support for their education; this
is becoming a bigger and bigger issue
for students in all fields.
When should we make children
aware of options in nursing?
Literally as soon as they start watching
Sesame Street. Children see so
many choices now, and they begin
thinking about their own options.
We have another challenge as educators.
The health-care field is so
complicated today. And we have students
for such a short time to prepare
them for the myriad options they
will face. Structuring the educational
experience requires a considerable
amount of innovation to encompass
“Structuring the
educational ex p e r i e n c e
requires a considerable
amount of innovation
to encompass all of
today’s realities.”
— NO R M A LA N G
Norma Lang,
PhD, FAAN, FRCN, RN
and we need to reach them when
they’re young, before they choose
another path. Talking with students
in high school is clearly too late.
When do you show young people
the rewards of nursing? How do you
craft a program that will capture
their interests and their parents’
interest?
all of today’s realities: nurses deliver
care everywhere from home to the
work place, at levels ranging from
extended care to institutional care to
primary care and the incredibly complex
hospital care. Nursing educators
need to give students from the BSN
to the PhD the critical decision-making
and leadership skills and clinical
expertise to both begin and continue
their journey.
Joyce Thompson: When I think of the
challenges of nursing, I think of the
Chinese sign for childbearing, which
is a combination of “danger” and
“opportunity.” As nursing educators,
we must emphasize opportunities
and turn the potential dangers, or
challenges, into opportunities.
But I believe “image” plays a major
role. To move nursing forw a rd, we
need to present ourselves as part n e r s
with people from the beginning of
their lives until the end and help them
understand that together we will
i m p rove their quality of life along the
w a y. This attitude will help us re p resent
the patients’ best interests as the
health systems and illness systems are
readjusting. This means far more than
possessing the skills to treat health
p roblems; it also means learning the
a rt of politics and understanding policy
to get into a position of power to
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