primary care nurses, nursing care beyond the ... - School of Nursing

leadershipFamily traditionAlumNus follows aunt’s footsteps toSchool of Nursing, military serviceWhen Kathleen Srsic-Stoehr was astudent at the School of Nursing, shetook care of a 4-year-old leukemia patientduring one of herrotations.The child died,and even decades later,the impact of his lossstays with her. But so,too, does the memoryof how her instructortook her to the hospitalcafeteria and helpedher talk through her grief.“That element of nursing—caringand compassion—that’s what the facultydemonstrated with us,” she says.Throughout her 30-year career as anArmy nurse, Srsic-Stoehr (BSN ’72) livedthe ethics she acquired at the Universityof Pittsburgh. It was at Pitt that the selfdescribedintrovert learned to becomean agent for change, a characteristic thatstayed with her during her career, leadingthe push toward best practices in nursingcare. Srsic-Stoehr was a class Keeper ofthe Light and, during her last two yearsat Pitt, served as president of the studentnursing council where she took an activerole in such initiatives as increasingstudent representation on various facultyand curriculum committees. As targetedlearners of a new curriculum, studentsvoiced opportunities for improvementto strengthen their clinical learning.The council also called for an end tothe practice of wearing nursing caps, apractice that did not pass the traditionhallmark at the time. Though it may seemlike a relatively tame issue now, it wasrevolutionary then.In the midst of Srsic-Stoehr’sfreshman year, the school changed itscurriculum. That move, plus the overallanti-establishment atmosphere of theVietnam era, “was really symbolic for us,”she recalls. It taught the students “howwe could be advocates for change withpatients and nursing excellence.”While stationed at Walter ReedArmy Medical Center in Washington,D.C., Srsic-Stoehr noticed a highincidence of postoperative pneumoniaand other complications related to aninconsistent approach to preoperativeteaching and assisting patients postoperativelywith deep breathing, coughing, anduse of “blow bottles.”Her department head learned ofher interest and enabled Srsic-Stoehr towork with a nurse researcher who wasconducting a study about preoperativeteaching and postoperative outcomes.As a new graduate nurse, she activelycombined clinical practice and researchto include a coauthored journal articleabout the results of the study. She laterpursued a focus on patient education inher graduate work and went on to developWalter Reed’s hospital-wide preoperativeteaching program based on the work fromthe research study.“I always had outstanding mentorsand was selected for positions where therewas opportunity to make changes. TheArmy Nurse Corps provided experiencesthat built upon Pitt’s foundation in leadershipfor change,” she says.The decision to enroll in the Schoolof Nursing was, in many ways, an easyone. Srsic-Stoehr’s great-aunt, VictoriaViola May (MLIT ’54, BSNEd ’50),was an alumnus and also had served inthe Army as a first lieutenantstationed at Walter Reed.After World War II, Maybecame the director of St. FrancisMedical Center School of Nursing,but she steered her great-niece to heradvanced degree alma mater.When Srsic-Stoehr enrolled atPitt, she resided with “Aunt Vee” inPittsburgh’s Highland Park neighborhood,and May was a supportive advocatefor Srsic-Stoehr in her academicnursing pursuits.As a nursing educator, May workedin nursing education most of her entirecareer, and similarly, Srsic-Stoehrfollowed in those footsteps with particularfocus on nursing professional developmentand patient education. She thenmoved into various nursing administrativepositions to include chief nursingofficer of Brooke Army Medical Centerand the Great Plains Regional MedicalCommand. When she retired from theArmy, Srsic-Stoehr worked first as a nurseexecutive at a rural hospital in centralVirginia before accepting a position atthe Washington Hospital Center inWashington, D.C., as director ofnursing excellence.The title and role has evolved; Srsic-Stoehr now is senior director for nursingevidence-based practice and quality. Assuch, she works with clinical specialistsand clinical nurse specialists, educators,nursing staff, and interdisciplinary teams,helping them to apply evidence-basedpractices, develop clinical guidelines, andimpact patient outcomes through patientsafety and quality performance improvements.As facilitator and coach for thenursing practice and research sharedgovernance council, she has come fullswing from her shared decision-makingdays at Pitt and her early interests inlinking research and clinical practice.“Our instructors at Pitt taughtus to be change agents in patient careand nursing practice,” she says. “Now,evidence-based practice is how we makethat change.”18 university of Pittsburgh