I teach Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) courses NURS 5891/5892 DNP Project I and II. This spring 2016 I will be teaching a new First Year Seminar, NURS 1101 Should Health Care Fly? Students will critically examine and evaluate evidence, claims, beliefs, or points of view about medical errors, patient safety, and quality of care in the US health care system. Creating alternative cultures of safety and improving quality in US hospitals will be explored through examination of aviation safety practices; students will take a position on possible solutions.
DNP students in their third year will have me as a professor as would freshman in any program.
I applied for the new Wyoming Excellence Chair in Nursing because I was looking for an endowed chair position. But when I came for my interview, I loved the people I met in the Fay W. Whitney School of Nursing (FWWSON) and the College of Health Sciences (CHS) – and the atmosphere here felt just right (and I was right). For example, it’s not ‘buttoned-up’ here like it is in a big med center located on a city campus. I really liked Laramie as well and the proximity to so many national parks, etc.
I have been here since June of 2013.
I was working at the University of Kansas School of Nursing (KUSON) at the University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS. I was a faculty member and Deputy Director of the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators.
My passion area is exploring the relationship between nursing characteristics (e.g. education, specialty certification, years in nursing), nurse staffing, and the nursing work environment on the quality of patient care and nursing sensitive patient outcomes (e.g., healthcare-associated infections, falls, pressure ulcers). I currently am conducting a study with Drs. Bergquist-Beringer and Cramer (at the KUSON) examining the relationship of national specialty certified nurses in perioperative units and surgical site infections.
My husband and I love to take driving vacations in the Canadian and US Rocky Mountain region. We’ve been everywhere from Lake Louise, Alberta to Santa Fe, New Mexico. One of our favorite trips was to the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado where we stayed at Zapata Ranch. I’ve attached a picture [see below] I took at Zapata Ranch. Zapata ranch is owned by the Nature Conservancy and is an amazing operation. These trips help us find our inner connection to the land and are very restoring.
Shaping the next generation of nurses. From what I see, nursing is in good hands.