Successfully Incorporating Interprofessional Education in a Nonacademic Health Sciences Center.

Enhanced patient outcomes have led the health sciences to seek ways in which to incorporate interprofessional education in their curricula. This article presents a unique and innovative strategy for interprofessional education among nursing, medicine, and pharmacy in a nonacademic health science center setting. Nurse practitioner students from the University of Alabama in Huntsville College of Nursing, medical interns from the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, and pharmacy students from Auburn University School of Pharmacy and their respective faculty participated in collaboratively designed simulations and skills experiences.

A multifaceted progression approach to enhancing student success.

This article describes how a faculty rallied together and developed a positive progression approach to promote student success on standardized specialty and comprehensive examinations, which fosters critical thinking, clinical judgment, student self-assessment, and individualized plans of action. Specific strategies implemented are discussed. Aggregate student data related to course grades, specialty and comprehensive exit examination scores, and NCLEX pass rates support this innovative approach to student success.

The emerging Doctor of Education (EdD) in instructional leadership for nurse educators.

The nursing faculty shortage is directly related to the ongoing shortage of nurses. As a result of many nursing faculty retiring, the discipline of nursing is losing its most experienced educators. The need is great for programs that will increase access and prepare nurse educators. Doctorate degrees for nurses have evolved in myriad ways. Discussions over the nature of doctoral education for the preparation of nurse educators are at the forefront of debates in nursing education. In response to National League for Nursing (2007; Core competencies of nurse educators, http://www.nln.org/profdev/corecompletter.htm) and Institute of Medicine (2010; The future of nursing: Leading change, advancing health. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, http://thefutureofnursing.org/IOM-Report) calls to increase the number of nursing faculty, the colleges of nursing and education at a major university have combined to establish a collaborative doctoral program. This article describes the historical evolution of the nursing doctorate degrees and the development and implementation of the EdD in Instructional Leadership for Nurse Educators.

Community-based nursing education of prelicensure students: settings and supervision.

This study of prelicensure nursing programs had a fourfold purpose: 1) describe what community-based settings are being used by faculties in associate degree (AD) and baccalaureate degree (BSN) programs to provide community-based nursing care experiences; 2) explore whether or not the settings used in AD and BSN programs differ; 3) describe how faculties in AD and BSN programs provide for supervision of students in community-based settings; and 4) synthesize from the data what might be best practices for faculty-student supervision in community-based settings. A web-based survey was sent to 827 accredited AD and BSN programs with usable email addresses; 324 programs (39 percent) completed and returned the surveys. Findings indicated that students were placed in a variety of settings, including public health departments, schools (K-12), prisons, and home care. Community-based activities were in the following categories: immunizations, surveillance, data collection, health teaching, case management, treatments, and procedures. Depending on the activity, students performed nursing functions independently 4 percent to 39 percent of the time. Depending on the activity, preceptors were sole supervisors 27 percent to 40 percent of the time. Telephones, cell phones, and pagers were the primary means of faculty-student contact. AD and BSN students in the same settings performed the same activities. The only significant differences were that BSN students were placed in K-12 schools for community-based experiences more often than AD students, and they engaged in case management more often than AD students. Based on these findings, a model for community-based education is proposed.