UTEP and Local Hospitals Collaborate to Improve Nursing Education
(UTEP News Service – by Laura Acosta) — With UTEP graduates making up 60 percent of the nursing staff at El Paso hospitals and William Beaumont Army Medical Center, UTEP’s College of Nursing has reached out to its community partners to help educate the next generation of nurses.
On May 24, the school invited hospital nursing educators and managers to a community collaboration meeting where they exchanged ideas about how to prepare students with the education and training they need to excel as professional nurses in their facilities.
Nearly 20 representatives from Del Sol Medical Center, Las Palmas Medical Center, Providence Memorial Hospital, Sierra Medical Center, Sierra Providence East Medical Center and University Medical Center (UMC) provided feedback about UTEP’s nursing program to faculty and staff at the University’s Center for Simulation.
“The goal of today’s meeting is to provide you with a competent graduate nurse from UTEP and also for us to provide a realistic simulation experience and training for our students so that we can prepare them to succeed in your facilities,” Ronnie Stout, director of UTEP’s Center for Simulation, told participants.
Stout asked the hospital personnel to write the top 10 skills that they expect a graduate nurse to have. They also were asked to answer such questions as, “What five qualities does a perfect nursing student have?”
“We want to make sure that the skills that we are teaching students this semester are meeting your needs and you’ll want to hire them,” Stout said.
Participants agreed that they are looking for new nurses who exhibit professional behavior, a positive attitude and are not afraid to show initiative.
“We’re looking for those individuals who are coming in who are truly passionate about their profession and are willing to learn,” said Lorrie Giessel, nursing support services manager at UMC.
Lucy Koneri, a part-time clinical nursing instructor who works at Las Palmas, said that teaching students at the University and then working with them at the hospital gives her a different perspective because she knows how students are trained and what the hospital expects from them.
“I expect my students to be very proactive, to write their objectives and give it to the nurse that they are assigned to. That way the nurse knows what their expectations are,” Koneri said.
But Koneri doesn’t expect students to know everything and she reminds her fellow nurses to show students some leniency because they were once in their shoes.
“They’re not perfect,” Koneri said. “Most of the nurses know that the students are on a learning curve. But if they come with an objective and they show interest and they say things like, ‘If you don’t have an IV, can I go start an IV with somebody else?,’ that gives the nurse a bit of empathy for the student to say, ‘You know what? I’ll help you get your experience.’”
Rhonda Newsome, a clinical nursing instructor, is sure that her students are learning when she shares her nursing skills with them.
“It’s active learning; it can’t be passive,” Newsome said. “You have to have a presence that the students know that you’re there for them and that you’ll help them,” she said.
Participants also were asked how important skill proficiency is in a graduate nurse. While most agreed that knowing how to insert a foley catheter or start an intravenous line was important, they do not expect the students to be experts.
“They are so worried about doing or performing their skills that they cannot grow or move on to those other processes that we need them to acquire, like critical thinking or prioritization, because they’ve got to put that IV in,” Giessel said. “It’s important that they get the basic concepts down so they can grow.”
Koneri said students are more prepared than they think and they should not be afraid to dive in.
“They’re afraid of making mistakes, but we need to have open communication,” Koneri said. “We all understand that they’re students and we’re not expecting them to do it right from the start. But they should not be afraid to say, ‘I don’t know how to do it’ or ‘I’ve never done it before, can you help me?’”
Open communication between UTEP faculty and staff and the hospital’s management also plays an important role in helping students succeed.
“I think keeping close communication with directors at the different hospitals, so that we know on an up-to-date basis what the needs are and also getting as much hands on experience with all the latest equipment, that’s really going to help them,” said Yvonne Jimenez, director of the VERSANT registered nurse residency program at Sierra Providence East Medical Center.
The feedback that UTEP received during the session will be given to the school’s course managers, who will incorporate it in their didactic, simulation and skills training, Stout said.
Albert Salinas, a nurse manager at UMC and part-time clinical faculty instructor at UTEP, said that the information they gathered will help impact change for future students.
“I think everybody is going to take the information back to their organizations and utilize it to effectively communicate to not only the staff but also the students,” Salinas said. “It’s always good to have communication throughout the community, and throughout the institutions, too, because we’re basically moving toward the same direction.”