Nursing school has played a huge role in starting my nursing career on my journey to becoming a nurse leader.
While living in Idaho, I was studying to receive a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN). During school, I also worked internships at different hospitals. The hands-on applications in hospitals made concepts, procedures, and general knowledge easy to absorb.
My first student nurse internship was at a well-known and large hospital in Texas. I was placed in the medical-surgical nursing and psych units for six weeks each. I learned how to handle busy workdays with didactic training and a helpful skills checklist. I worked with various doctors and nurses, receiving informal education and a wealth of knowledge from them.
My second internship was in a small rural hospital in Sun Valley, Idaho. Unlike my previous internship, this hospital was significantly smaller. There, I worked in the Labor and Delivery, PACU, and MedSurg departments. I also formally trained in management and business, which later helped me with career advancement.
Coupled with the internships and BSN I received, I landed my first job in Texas as a Clinical Nurse. From there, I pursued a Master of Science in Nursing (MSN), which helped propel my career forward from being a Clinical Nurse to a Director.
Martha Paulson, MSN, RN, CEPN, is an experienced nurse leader with extensive clinical experience in critical care, cardiovascular, and acute care. She has worked for 20 years throughout the largest healthcare systems in Denver, Colorado.
From Mentee to Mentor as a Nurse Leader
In my leadership roles, moving from mentee to mentor has been fulfilling, teaching best practices, career navigation, and crisis management. Most of my education roles in the hospital were Charge Nurse development programs, including journal clubs. Journal clubs are wonderful ways to explore trends in healthcare, challenges, and best practices from other facilities and with peers to consider implementation.
In a previous role, I enjoyed a gratifying opportunity to mentor an Assistant Nurse Manager to create Charge Nurse education, including training and tip sheets. Being a mentor empowered me to continue sharing my healthcare knowledge with new nurses.
In addition to being a mentor, I was able to create more teaching positions. As a Director, I started a Night Shift educator position because of a capstone project I completed during my MSN education. As I like to tell many new nurses, education is pivotal to nursing development and best practices. Because formal and informal education is so essential, nurses should always be open to continuous learning.
Today, I am a Clinical Manager at a travel nursing agency, Advantis Medical Staffing. It has been fun to train new recruiters on healthcare, interview nurses, and get involved with improving workflows. In addition, being able to share my 20+ years of knowledge in healthcare with thousands of nurses has been very rewarding. I love seeing healthcare, particularly nursing, through the eyes of recruiters!
Without pursuing my BSN and MSN, which led to multiple career opportunities, I wouldn’t be where I am today.
Martha Paulson, MSN, RN, CEPN, is an experienced nurse leader with extensive clinical experience in critical care, cardiovascular, and acute care. She has worked for 20 years throughout the largest healthcare systems in Denver, Colorado. Recently relocated to beautiful Plano, Texas, her strengths include nursing program strategy and design, crisis management, team, and individual development, mentorship, and raising the bar on service excellence.
Georgina Villarreal, RN-MSN, or Nurse Georgie, is on a mission to empower nurses and active women in everyday life. Her latest venture is teaching nurses how to protect themselves through self-defense. And we’re thrilled to name Villarreal our Nurse of the Week.
Villarreal, from Huntington Beach, California, has worked as a nurse in medical surgery, oncology, telemetry, orthopedics, and, for the past few years, on the COVID floor. While diligent in her nurse duties, she finds time to create her first business: She Can Be Both.
“That was inspired by the fact that a lot of women in healthcare — and nursing specifically — have two roles,” she says. “I love being a nurse. I love being an entrepreneur, so I do both.”
Georgina Villarreal, RN-MSN, or @nurse.georgie, is on a mission to empower nurses teaching them how to protect themselves through self-defense
Empowering Nurses Through Self-defense
Villarreal says she a huge fan of wrestling, superficially WWE. So she reached out to three-time WWE champion Eve Torres Gracie about her idea of hosting a self-defense seminar for healthcare professionals.
The first event was held in Torrance, California, with more than 350 healthcare professionals — mostly nurses — participating. The free workshop focused on Brazilian jiu-jitsu, with specific moves if attacked while walking to your car or dealing with a patient in the hospital.
Learning self-defense is important to Villarreal because she, like many nurses, has experienced violence with a patient.
It escalated “so quickly — one minute she was fine, and then the next minute she’s yelling at me, threatening to throw me against the wall,” she says, “and then the doctor comes, and they’re trying to help, and then the doctor gets hurt. And then I’m giving her a shot in the butt on the floor.”
On average, 25% of nurses experience workplace assaults at least once. With violence against healthcare professionals rising — especially during the pandemic — Villarreal is working to help her fellow nurses be prepared.
While the healthcare professional’s seminar was a pilot program, Villarreal says she hopes there will be more in the future. And in the meantime, anyone interested in learning more about self-defense can follow Women Empowered and Gracie University for information about the monthly seminars they host.
Now that she has gone through the training herself, Georgie is a big advocate of nurses seeking to train themselves with hands-on experience.
“It’s just really empowering — I feel safe,” she says. “And that makes me feel more confident as like a woman too.”
Nominate a Nurse of the Week! Every Wednesday, DailyNurse.com features a nurse making a difference in the lives of their patients, students, and colleagues. We encourage you to nominate a nurse who has impacted your life and as the next Nurse of the Week, and we’ll feature them online and in our weekly newsletter.
In America, one in four people—roughly 26 percent—are currently living with a disability. These people have an increased risk of ailments like obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. However, many don’t let their disability define them, going on to achieve the seemingly impossible.
One of those people is Dionne Jaques of Salt Lake City, born deaf. Now a 57-year-old single mother of five children, Jaques is a graduate of Nightingale College’s Master of Science in Nursing program.
We sat with her to discuss her experience as a student, what motivated her academic drive, and where this path is leading her.
Pursuing a Passion
With a longtime enthusiasm for healthcare and a desire to learn, Jaques came across Nightingale, which has its main campus in her hometown. Encouraged to speak with the school’s admissions, she immediately found a supportive environment that made the idea of achieving a degree in higher learning despite her disability a real possibility.
“They were just so supportive, and I was told that there was no reason that I wouldn’t be successful in life,” says Jaques. “They believed in me, especially my counselor, who never gave up on me and provided me with the emotional support I needed every inch of the way.”
As Nightingale’s curriculum centers around remote instruction combined with hands-on learning with local healthcare partners, Jaques performed her clinicals for her RN program in St. George, Utah. With the ability to take in the full nursing experience and even have the opportunity to watch surgeries being performed, she found that her condition did not undermine her ability to work in such a setting. Similarly, when it was time for clinicals at the Jordan Valley Hospital for her MSN, her positive attitude and drive prompted the staff to attempt to recruit her following her graduation.
Disability Fuels a Drive
Jaques’ academic drive was plain for all to see. She was named valedictorian of her ASN and BSN programs and achieved a 4.0 GPA throughout the journey to her MSN. Additionally, she received the school’s prestigious Flame Forward Award, named for the flame Florence Nightingale carried in her lamp as she tirelessly cared for ailing soldiers during the Crimean War.
Dionne Jaques, a graduate of Nightingale College’s Master of Science in Nursing program, with her grandchildren
“Being able to reach my goals and knowing that the Nightingale faculty thought I deserved this award meant the world to me,” Jaques says. “I love being able to empower others and show people that they too can be successful.”
While the National Library of Medicine states that the number of nurses with disabilities is currently unknown, very few nurses with obvious physical disabilities work in clinical settings, making the population face discrimination. For instance, one might view a disability as a hindrance to being able to provide the proper medical care or to embody the skills needed to meet patient satisfaction, making the nation as a whole not accepting of nurses with disabilities.
Jaques had dreamed of becoming a nurse since she was five when, on a trip to a Red Cross vaccination clinic, a nurse connected with her, got down on her level, and demonstrated empathy. However, she was told by many people that she would never go on to achieve such a career path. Fortunately, the opposition only motivated her further, and she developed a compassion for others and their struggles. Today, Jaques inspired her two daughters to head into the field, with one working in the labor delivery unit at Utah Valley University Hospital and the other studying at Nightingale—just like her.
Looking Ahead to the Future
Today, Jaques is focused on continuing her education, with Nightingale inspiring her to see that she was capable of achieving more, despite being deaf. And she isn’t alone: While hearing loss affects 36 million people in the US—including 17 percent of the adult population—there are roughly 450,000 to more than half a million registered nurses working with hearing loss.
“When I was younger, I failed my classes and never got above a C grade,” Jaques says. “Today, I’m addicted to school and nursing solely because Nightingale believed in me and made me believe in myself, truly changing my life. Right now, I have no plans to retire until I’m 75 years old.”
Chamberlain University has the largest
nursing school in the country and is the largest provider of BSN degrees to
underrepresented minority students in the US. The university is working to help
address nursing and healthcare provider shortages and recently announced the graduation
of more than 13,000 nurses from the 2018-2019 academic year. Those
graduates spanned 20 campuses in 14 states. Of those graduates, 10,100 earned bachelor’s degrees and 3,700
earned master’s and doctoral degrees.
According to businesswire.com,
the nursing shortage across the country is projected to be at 1 million by 2030
due to an aging patient population, greater focus on preventive care, and a gap
between the number of nurse retirees and new nurses. Nursing schools are
struggling to meet the demand and had to turn away over 75,000 qualified
applicants in 2018 due to lack of space and qualified nurse educators.
Dr. Karen Cox, PhD, RN, FACHE, FAAN, president of Chamberlain University, tells businesswire.com, “There are many areas of the country that will continue to suffer from nursing shortages for some time and this will ultimately affect patient care. Chamberlain University’s size and modalities of learning make nursing education accessible. We are committed to educating exceptional individuals who can help address these shortages and make a difference in the healthcare of the patients they serve.”
Chamberlain offers several nursing degree programs and
specialty tracks designed to meet nurses wherever they are in their career.
Nursing students are provided with an education framework that prepares them to
provide exceptional levels of care at the bedside, in healthcare leadership
positions, and in the education of future nurses.
To learn more about Chamberlain University’s efforts
to address the nationwide nursing shortage by graduating 13,000 new nurses into
the workforce during the 2018-2019 academic year, visit here.
Dr. Donna Naturale, RN, APN-BC, CDE, assistant professor and coordinator of the program, tells Caldwell.edu, “We are delighted to be able to offer this 36-credit innovative population health program. It will prepare nurses to meet the demands of health care today and tomorrow by promoting healthier communities and addressing needs associated with the social determinants of health, commonly attributed to the zip codes in which we live and work.”
Social
determinants of health include factors like access to health care, finances
and income, transportation, housing, social support, and level of education.
Graduates of the program will be qualified to serve as leaders in nursing and
health care, and eligible to work in a variety of health care systems
in positions that include care coordinator, project, case and nurse managers
in outpatient facilities, hospitals, public health
departments, and within insurance and quality
improvement fields.
After graduating,
they will also be qualified to teach in undergraduate nursing
programs. Through the program, they will learn how to integrate technology
utilizing health care data to identify trends and issues associated with
the overall health of populations. They will also learn to provide high quality
nursing care, promote health, and prevent diseases that may be linked to the
social determinants of health.
To learn more about Caldwell University’s new fully
online Master of Science in Nursing program in Population Health being offered
in Fall 2019, visit here.
