If Marcela Dos Santos were to give advice to her past self, it would be this: Take care of yourself first.
As a future nurse practitioner, Dos Santos aims to bolster the importance of mental health along with physical wellness to provide truly comprehensive care to her patients. She hopes to break down stigmas around mental health, which is an area that she feels is neglected, especially within minority communities. She hopes to address mental health not only with patients, but among nurses as well.
“Especially for nurses, you’ll burn out if you don’t take care of what’s going on inside,” she says, “It’s going to start showing externally in how you treat your patients, in your care, in your job. I feel like [mental health] is very important to include in your own care.”
Dos Santos is a first-generation college student. She is the children of South American immigrants – her mother is from Colombia, and her father is from Brazil. Santos is grateful to have her family’s cultures instilled in her, especially through language. She speaks both Spanish and Portuguese.
Growing up as a witness to her parents’ work ethic and resilience inspired her to pursue her goals. However, with this willing attitude, Dos Santos also finds a co-existing stigma around mental health.
“In Latino culture, I feel like mental health is kind of absent in the sense that you don’t show emotion because it’s a sign of weakness,” she says, “But the way I see it is, it’s actually not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength.”
Santos did not see herself as a nurse practitioner at the beginning of her journey in higher education. Originally, she wanted to become a clinical psychologist. After experiencing anxiety and depression herself in high school, she felt called to work with children and adolescents.
Following this calling, Dos Santos pursued an undergraduate degree in psychology, transferring to UCI from Irvine Valley College and graduating in 2012. In 2014, Santos began the doctorate program in physical therapy at Loma Linda University, which she enjoyed for its combined mind-, body- and soul- approach to healing. However, a few classes into her program, Santos realized that physical therapy was not the right fit for her.
In 2017, Dos Santos decided to make the transition into nursing. She came back to UCI as a part of the inaugural master’s entry program in nursing, which had just launched that year. The MEPN program is designed for students who want to pursue a master’s degree in nursing while holding a non-nursing bachelor’s degree. She graduated from this program with her M.S. in nursing in 2019.
After graduating, she hopes to work as an aesthetic nurse while incorporating mindfulness and mental health into the world of healthcare. Dos Santos is particularly interested in regenerative medicine, which focuses on enhancing the body’s healing abilities rather than making cosmetic changes.
Though it is a field not traditionally taught in medical schools, Santos found interest in aesthetics after conducting research in her undergrad years with Dr. Brian Wong, a UCI professor of otolaryngology who specializes in facial plastic and reconstructive surgery.
“With aesthetics, no matter how much you augment the external appearance, whatever you have going on inside is still going to reflect on the outside,” Dos Santos says. “Our thoughts can manifest into illness and healing the mind can also heal the body. Beauty comes from within.”
Publicly launched on Oct. 4, 2019, the Brilliant Future campaign aims to raise awareness and support for UCI. By engaging 75,000 alumni andgarnering $2 billion in philanthropic investment, UCI seeks to reach new heights of excellence in student success, health and wellness, research and more. The Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing plays a vital role in the success of the campaign. Learn more by visitinghttps://brilliantfuture.uci.edu/sue-and-bill-gross-school-of-nursing/.
From the NICU to the OR, five exemplary representatives of nursing excellence received the 2021 National Magnet Nurse of the Year® Awards at the 2021 ANCC National Magnet Conference® and the ANCC Pathway to Excellence Conference® in Atlanta.
The awards recognize the outstanding contributions of clinical nurses in each of the five Magnet® Model components: Transformational Leadership; Structural Empowerment; Exemplary Professional Practice; New Knowledge, Innovations, and Improvements; and Empirical Outcomes. Congratulations to this year’s recipients!
A clinical nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton OH, Tracy Morrison has spent the last 22 years transforming the depth and breadth of clinical bedside nursing. Through autonomous practice and consultation, she and her colleagues have developed, evaluated, and shared best practices that reduce newborn mortality and morbidity associated with early birth. Morrison has forged interdisciplinary relationships not only at the local level, but also nationally and internationally, to improve quality outcomes in NICUs everywhere. In addition, she provides high-quality simulation education to new and experienced NICU nurses to prepare them to care for the most challenging and complex cases. Morrison fosters a culture of excellence and inspires others to follow her example to elevate bedside nursing and make a difference.
Dr. Denise Abdoo is an international leader and mentor in the field of child abuse prevention. As a multilingual Certified Pediatric Nurse Practitioner (NP) on the Children’s Hospital of Colorado Child Protection Team, she has improved the identification and treatment of sexually exploited and assaulted children not only in Colorado but around the world. Her contributions to policy work and systems change are unprecedented. She built Colorado’s only pediatric Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner program and recruited, educated, and mentored nurses for this specialized practice across the Mountain West region. Over five years, the program grew from treating 13 patients to treating 70. In addition, Dr. Abdoo developed web-based education to optimize opportunities for and mentorship of SANE-credentialed nurses at CHCO, CU College of Nursing, and in the community. She and her research team also validated a tool used in the pediatric emergency department (ED) to better screen high-risk adolescents for sexual exploitation. *Sponsored by PALL Corporation
Jennifer Moran, MS, RN, APRN-Rx, ACNP-BC, SCRN, CNRN.
Exemplary Professional Practice*: Jennifer Moran, MS, RN, APRN-Rx, ACNP-BC, SCRN, CNRN
Jennifer Moran is the lead advanced practice registered nurse for the neuroscience acute care NP team and a stroke coordinator at The Queens Medical Center in Honolulu, HI. In collaboration with the hospital’s intensivists, she initiated round-the-clock neurocritical acute care NP coverage, which has significantly reduced door-to-needle time (the time between arrival at the hospital and the start of treatment) for stroke patients. Her initiatives also include integration of a virtual neurological consultation in the West Oahu ED, with a charge nurse identified as Stroke Code Leader, and a dedicated bed for stroke patients in the Punchbowl ED. Through Moran’s leadership, The Queen’s Medical Center was the first and only hospital system in Hawai’i to achieve Comprehensive Stroke Center certification from The Joint Commission, meeting rigorous standards for high-quality, lifesaving stroke care. *Sponsored by EBSCO Health
Christine Wetzel, DNP, MSN, RNC-NIC, IBCLC.
New Knowledge, Innovations, and Improvements: Christine Wetzel, DNP, MSN, RNC-NIC, IBCLC
A clinical nurse at the Carle Foundation Hospital NICU in Urbana, IL, Dr. Christine Wetzel designs and conducts research, evaluates nursing practices, and develops innovative tools that have improved the care of newborns in NICUs across the country. She led the creation of the NICU’s first evidence-based nursing risk awareness instrument for necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a potentially deadly abdominal infection that can impact premature babies. The tool, later known as eNEC, increases early detection and fills a practice gap in neonatal nursing. Throughout her 28-year nursing career, Dr. Wetzel has been a passionate advocate of the importance of breast milk. She recently introduced the Evaluation of Mother’s Own Milk (eMOM) guide to help mothers and nurses assess breast milk production during the first month of a preterm infant’s life.
Ellen Harvey, DNP, RN, ACNS-BC, CCRN, TCRN, FCCM.
Empirical Outcomes: Ellen Harvey, DNP, RN, ACNS-BC, CCRN, TCRN, FCCM
Dr. Ellen Harvey is an advanced practice surgical nurse at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital in Roanoke, VA, where she focuses on improving and advancing care for neurotrauma patients. When she noticed current EVD-related practice varied from evidence-based neuroscience guidelines could be contributing to higher infection rates among patients with external ventricular drains (EVD), Dr. Harvey assembled and led an interdisciplinary task force to create a new, evidence-based bundle of care. It includes use of strict asepsis, minimization of line manipulations, equipment standardization, and formal nursing education and competency validation. The result was an immediate and sustained drop in EVD infection rates from 24.7/1000 EVD device days to zero. In addition, this nurse-led, infection-free culture of safety is projected to save the hospital more than $700,000 in the first year alone.
Supplies of N95 face masks, surgical face masks, and face shields at US hospitals are under the microscope in the latest research project led by nurse scientist Kelly Aldrich, DNP, MS, RN-BC, FHIMSS, associate professor of nursing informatics at Vanderbilt University Nursing School.
The DNP and her team are receiving CDC funding to the tune of $80,000 to support their analysis of daily hospital personal protective equipment (PPE) on-hand inventories to measure trends, patterns, or statistically significant changes in PPE supply in the nation’s nearly 7,000 U.S. hospitals. The project is designed to support the CDC’s National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory, which was established under the aegis of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) in 2001 and invested with the mission of preventing disease, injury, and death for the millions of American workers who rely on personal protective technology (PPT).
“In analyzing the data with advanced analytics, we will be able to find patterns that were not seen before. I think because of that, it will have a true impact on supply chain management for the country.”
Aldrich is being supported by a Vanderbilt team that includes four second-year data science students under the supervision of Jesse Spencer-Smith, chief data scientist of the Data Science Institute, and Dana Zhang, professor of computer science and electrical engineering, to leverage artificial intelligence and data modeling for this large-scale analysis and reporting effort.
Nurse scientist Kelly Aldrich, DNP, MS, RN-BC, FHIMSS.
“We’re conducting data analysis on a medical organization’s average consumption rates to figure out if they have enough PPE and other essential items to provide for their teams,” Aldrich said. “In analyzing the data with advanced analytics, we will be able to find patterns that were not seen before. I think because of that, it will have a true impact on supply chain management for the country.”
“By [enlisting the aid of] the Data Science Institute to support this important work, Dr. Aldrich has deepened and extended the research while providing a meaningful opportunity for our team to put their expertise to use,” said Jesse Spencer-Smith, chief data scientist for the Data Science Institute. “Our faculty and graduate students formed a team that is enabling this analysis to go from simple data points to insights that can shape the country’s future responses to health care events.”
Study aims to increase transparency and efficiency of PPE supply distribution
The necessity of this effort was brought to light by pandemic-related lack of access to PPE due to supply shortages or prohibitive costs. In the early stages of the pandemic, the World Health Organization called on industry and governments to boost PPE manufacturing with a warning of “severe and mounting disruption to the global supply of personal protective equipment—caused by rising demand, panic buying, hoarding and misuse.”
The WHO was right. Months into the pandemic, PPE shortages among hospitals, nursing homes and medical practices across the U.S. put health care providers and patients at heightened risk of exposure to COVID-19. Two goals of Aldrich’s project are to bring transparency to PPE supply across the country and to eliminate the common problem of one hospital having a PPE surplus while neighboring hospitals scramble.
The project is a follow-up to a 2020 project Aldrich led with the Center for Medical Interoperability, a national nonprofit working to integrate health care technologies for information exchange, and the National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory, part of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The TOGETHER for PPE project phase connected 78 hospitals in nine federal Health and Human Services’ regions. Thousands of real-time data points allowed for predictive modeling and other data analysis which helped hospitals and the CDC examine exactly what PPE they had on hand, which enabled hospitals to plan and develop solutions that kept caregivers and hospital patients safe. A paper on the project phase entitled Lessons Learned from the Development and Demonstration of a PPE Inventory Monitoring System for US Hospitals was published in the journal Health Security on Nov. 9.
Aldrich’s trans-institutional project will restart and amplify the TOGETHER for PPE effort. The data collected by Aldrich’s team in 2021 will focus on N95 face masks, surgical face masks, and face shields.
“Collaboration with the Data Science Institute in data modeling and data analysis with predictive and artificial intelligence models are of high priority,” said Aldrich, also the director of Vanderbilt’s new Nursing Informatics Innovation Lab within the Vanderbilt School of Nursing and the chief clinical transformation officer for the Center for Medical Interoperability. “This collaboration is a terrific example of bringing researchers together with diverse areas of expertise and distinct backgrounds to discover new information. We are excited about the progress to date.”
Our Nurse of the Week, Clinical Nurse Specialist Lois M. Stallings-Welden, DNP, began her career as a nurse’s aide and at age 70, her pursuit of nursing excellence is still inspiring younger generations. This month, the nurse-leader, researcher, and educator was tapped by her alma mater, the University of Southern Indiana, for their 2021 Distinguished Nursing Alumni Award in honor of her influential – and ongoing – contributions as a mentor, clinician, and role model.
“Lois is an outstanding mentor for nursing staff at all levels, sharing knowledge and critical thinking skills in a calm, compassionate and easily approachable manner,” wrote one of her award nominators. “She educates on the importance of using nursing research and evidence to support practice changes to improve nursing care and patient outcomes. She is a nurse who exhibits passion for the nursing profession by being a role model and encouraging others to strive to improve and develop themselves.”
“I will not hire 16-year-olds because they are not dependable!”
Welden, one of seven children, was born in Indianapolis and raised on a farm in north central Indiana. When she was only 15 years old, she applied to work as a nurse aide at Clinton County Hospital in Frankfort, Indiana, with the intent to earn tuition and room and board money while attending a Christian high school and college that was a few hours from home. When she was denied employment because of her age, she returned three months later at the age of 16 to speak to the Director of Nursing, who abruptly said, “I will not hire 16-year-olds because they are not dependable!” Welden immediately reached out to her teachers and others to obtain letters of recommendation, and she continued to regularly call on the DON to give her the letters as they came in. “She finally gave up and hired me, saying (while pointing her finger at me) that she would train me herself!” said Welden. “She was an old Army nurse whose uniform was heavily starched, and she had a stern, no-nonsense look that was quite intimidating, but I refused to be diverted. I was determined to show her I was dependable.”
This young farm girl with no prior nursing experience embraced the various tasks she was given at the hospital which set the stage for her future career. “While working as a nurse aid there, I realized the joy of caring for patients and that I could be instrumental in alleviating their pain and providing comfort,” she said. “Growing up, I thought I wanted to be a missionary, but with my exposure working as a nurse aide, I knew I wanted to be a nurse.”
In 1979, when her four sons were age 7 and under, she made the decision to begin the nursing program at the University of Evansville while working full-time as a nurse aide at Deaconess Hospital, Evansville. “The hospital made a difference in my life,” she said, recalling the tuition support offered by Deaconess to earn her associate degree in nursing. “They believed in their employees and believed in me. After I graduated from UE, I had other job offers, but I felt like I had something to give back to Deaconess, so I started working as a staff nurse in the cardiac intensive care unit there. Deaconess has also been supportive of the other nursing degrees (bachelor, master’s and doctorate) I have earned.”
“They knew I had high standards.”
Throughout her career at Deaconess, Stallings-Welden has held the titles of assistant head nurse and department director, and today, at age 70, she still currently works full time in nursing leadership as a clinical nurse specialist in the Deaconess Magnet Program and Employee Education Department.
She has also served as adjunct faculty at the University of Southern Indiana since 2015, teaching online Clinical Synthesis and Nursing Informatics over the years.
Welden credits USI faculty for her decision to become a nurse manager. “They knew I had high standards,” she said. “One day, I was walking on campus with two of my instructors, and one of them said, ‘Look at your hands. Imagine if you could influence 80 to 100 nurses to give the same care that you do?’ I had four kids … I wasn’t interested in the manager job, but what they said got me thinking. I’ve been fortunate to hold positions to influence nurses to provide excellence in nursing care, use evidence-based practice and be involved in research.”
Each year, the USI Nursing Alumni Society recognizes a graduate who has made outstanding achievements in a career or public service. For more information about the USI Nursing Alumni Society, visit the society’s web page.
After studying neuroscience and immunohistochemistry at UCLA, Starks apparently realized that she was a definite Type N and decided to become a nurse. Already bursting at the seams with undergraduate degrees, she flew to the East Coast to pursue her studies in nursing. In New York, she went for an accelerated bachelor’s degree program for non-nurses (APNN) at the University of Rochester School of Nursing. Upon graduation, Strong Memorial Hospital snapped her up before she had a chance to go west again and installed her in the adult operating room, where she now works as a skilled vascular surgery nurse and preceptor.
However, Starks does not spend all of her time lollygagging about the OR or burying her nose in a textbook; she wants to effect change and has already created a place for herself among the new generation of upcoming nurse leaders. She is an active member in her local National Black Nurses Association chapter, the Rochester Black Nurses Association (RBNA), a founding member of the local chapter, and the chapter’s first vice president.
But that isn’t all. Stark is paying it forward as the founder and chair of the RBNA mentoring program in partnership with the URSON’s APNN program, where she and other Black nurses mentor nursing students of color. In true Type N fashion, she also manages to make time to participate as a member of the NPA’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee.
After she earns her degree, Starks plans to work as an FNP in primary care. Her passion is caring for those with chronic diseases, especially African American patients. She plans to continue her advocacy for Black patients and students through her continued work in RBNA and other organizations and mentoring programs.
Unlike many students during the pandemic, Starks has been very fortunate with regard to clinicals, and told a reporter that “Luckily, within my program, they didn’t stop us from doing any type of clinical rotation or any type of classes.” In her acceptance speech, the charismatic FNP-to-be graciously thanked everyone who made the award possible and declared her dedication to helping to further NPs’ scope of practice in New York State.
To see an interview with Starks at a local Rochester station, click here. Her acceptance speech is below.
*There are two NPA winners, actually, and we congratulate the Region 7 winner Margaret O’Donnell, DNP, FNP-BC, ANP-BC, FAANP, who will have a post of her own shortly.
If you’re a nurse who loves poring over research, or feels passionate about bringing evidence to the bedside, then doctoral nursing just might be your perfect career path.
Of course, earning a doctorate takes significant time and effort. But because nurses are always engaging in continuing education, “I don’t think the idea of doctoral nursing is so foreign to a nurse,” says Stephen Ferrara, DNP, FNP, interim executive director of Jonas Nursing and Veterans Healthcare, a program that provides scholarship funding for nurses who are attaining a doctoral degree. Earning a doctorate in nursing allows a nurse to engage in such activities as research, apply for grant funding, teach, or enter into clinical leadership in an academic medical center, Ferrera says. It provides “lots of opportunities to take this newfound knowledge and really use it to impact the way that we’re caring for patients and ultimately to improve patient outcomes.”
Two types
As you may know, nurses can earn two types of doctorates. One is the classic doctor of philosophy (PhD) degree, and the other is the doctor of nursing practice (DNP). As of 2019, 37,852 employed nurses had earned a doctoral degree, according to one estimate.
Those who earn a PhD “are generally going to work on generating new knowledge, new research within the field,” Ferrara says. In contrast, the DNP degree “is really translating the knowledge that exists, or the evidence that exists, and applying it to clinical practice. So we think of the PhDs as generating new knowledge, whereas the DNPs are taking that new knowledge and applying it into clinical practice,” Ferrara says. He notes that the DNP has existed for roughly 15 years. (As editor-in-chief of the Journal of Doctoral Nursing Practice, Dr. Ferrara has considerable expertise on the topic of DNPs and their impact. The journal will publish its 15th volume in 2022).
You’ll likely need to invest two to four years to earn a PhD or DNP, depending on the program and whether your program is full or part time, notes Ferrara. PhD programs require a dissertation, while DNP programs require a final or “capstone” project. “The DNPs tend to be a little bit more streamlined in time, whereas the PhD programs are a little bit longer, just due to the nature of generating new research” and the challenges that may come along with that, Ferrara notes.
Systemic solutions
Doctoral nurses, Ferrara notes, can make an impact on systemic issues in healthcare. “We need evidence-based solutions that are easily deployed and constantly reviewed and garnering additional evidence so that we can truly design health systems that are patient-centric, that are not ones where clinical staff are burning out as a result of it. We are largely not present in those boardrooms and making those decisions that truly impact patient care and that’s where the doctoral nurse really can shine and really can escalate the conversation and offer meaningful intervention.”
Four impact areas
For its part, Jonas Nursing and Veterans Healthcare, which is part of Jonas Philanthropies, is designed to assist high-potential doctoral nursing scholars through scholarship funding as well as providing the expertise of subject matter experts. Celebrating its 15th anniversary in 2021, the program has invested more than $27 million in 1,400 nurse scholars in all 50 states, according to a press release.
In August, it announced its 2021-2023 scholar cohort of 76 doctoral nursing scholars in 49 nursing schools. Some 50 of these are PhD candidates and 26 are DNP candidates. Over half of this cohort will be representative of Black, Indigenous and other communities of color.
The program, notes, Ferrara, is founded on four impact areas: environmental health; mental health; veterans health; and vision health. Jonas scholars need to work primarily in one of those areas.
Jonas works closely with specific nursing schools to select the Jonas scholars. “It is actually through the recommendation of the faculty members that the students are encouraged to apply to the program,” says Ferrara. Applicants already have to be enrolled in a doctoral program. A Jonas scholar will be provided a total scholarship of $30,000 over two years.
For the first time, the 2021-2023 cohort will have the support of a group of subject matter experts to guide them in each area of expertise, according to the press release. “These subject matter experts will serve as a mentor, a guide, and a resource for the next generation of nurse scholars who are shaping the future of healthcare in this country,” says Lendri Purcell, vice president of Jonas Philanthropies, in the release.
Family and community
Besides the physical opportunity for doctoral students, the Jonas program brings a “family and community” component as well, says Pamela Wall, PhD, PMHNP, FAANP, who became a Jonas scholar in 2010 as a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania. Jonas currently is a clinical associate professor at the University of New Hampshire, teaching as a member of the psychiatric nurse practitioner faculty.
Wall notes that the Jonas scholars represent a diverse group that are “changing our health and leadership outcomes in the United States and globally.” A Jonas scholar directory provides a look at activities of the scholars.
“We are a family community of scholars that starts with your work in your doctoral program, but it extends beyond that. They have been a part of my community and my rhetoric and my family” since 2010, she notes. “It extends well beyond just the monetary component that Jonas brings to the table.”
