Nclex-Pn – Reviewer and Nursing School Directory

SALT LAKE CITY — Mrs. Hernandez has a cough. She’s wearing an allergy wristband
and clutching a rosary in her other hand.

Fortunately, her maladies aren’t real. She’s a mannequin in one of the most advanced
simulation labs in the country, where nursing students learn techniques such as setting
up IVs and inserting catheters. It’s the centerpiece of the newly renovated home of the
University of Utah’s College of Nursing.

The Annette Poulson Cumming Building, named after businessman Ian Cumming’s wife
and partially funded by a $5 million birthday gift he gave her four years ago, opened
this fall to train the next generation of nurses and, maybe more importantly, nursing
instructors.

Cumming, a 1968 graduate of the College of Nursing, remembers going to classes in
an old Army barracks building. Her degree prepared her for multiple careers in nursing,
business and then establishing educational programs in women’s reproductive health in
developing countries around the world.

Today, more and more nurses are going on to get master’s and doctoral degrees. With
the $24 million renovation of the 42-year-old building complete, the college can expand
those offerings.

Maureen Keefe, dean of the College of Nursing, said some nurses returned to the
profession part-time due to the recession, but that was only a “blip” in a larger nursing
shortage that will become more severe over the next 10 years.

She expects it to hit instructors especially hard, with up to a third of the college’s faculty
leaving in the near future.

“There are just not enough in the education pipeline for all those who are going to retire,”
Keefe said.

In addition to a $4 million, 12,600-square-foot lab funded by Intermountain Healthcare,
the building features a new glass facade with views of the Salt Lake Valley, artwork
honoring nurses and an entire floor dedicated to the Emma Eccles Jones Nursing
Research Center. There, among other projects, faculty members are studying cancer
treatment and end-of-life care with a $7 million grant from the National Institutes of
Health.

There are almost 700 nursing students at the U., about half undergraduate and half
graduate, including 64 on their way to PhDs.

“This is a great school,” Cumming said. “They’re doing some really innovative, high-tech
things. (This building) is going to be one of the stars of the whole university.”

She and her husband live in Wyoming, but they wanted to contribute to the building
because “our hearts are still here.”

The redesigned building has enough energy-saving features and recycled materials to
earn gold Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) certification.

Five American teenagers, all bullied because they were gay, have committed suicide over
the past few weeks. The deaths have caused a media storm and raised a critical question:
Did the social or healthcare system fail these adolescents? “Absolutely,” says Concordia
University Professor Deborah Dysart-Gale. “Bullying and such resulting suicides are
avoidable. Healthcare workers have tools that can help queer teens – no one needs to die
because of their sexual orientation.”

As Chair of the General Studies Unit of the Faculty of Engineering and Computer
Science, Dysart-Gale’s research normally addresses different research areas. But for a
special issue of the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing, she produced a
review article that’s a call to action for nurses to leverage their position in society and

clinical milieus.

The study argues that nurses can advocate for better healthcare and services for teenagers
who are LGBTIQ: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, intersexed (people who are in
the process of gender reassignment surgery) and queer. “My goal in writing this paper
was to raise practitioners’ awareness, since queer and intersexed teens are in the blind spot
of the healthcare system,” she says.

Despite progress in social acceptance and civil rights, LGBTIQ adolescents can be
reluctant to consult a physician because they may experience misunderstanding, bias or
homophobia. “Nurses’ attitudes may be critical in determining LGBTIQ adolescents’
satisfaction with their healthcare,” says Dysart-Gale.

“Nurses are frequently gatekeepers of the clinical encounter, administering the typically
heteronormative nursing assessment,” she says, adding that gains in LGBTIQ trust could
be as simple as asking patients if they are “partnered” rather than inquire if they have
a “girl or boy friend” and asking if they are “sexually active.”

Dysart-Gale is concerned that many government-funded sex-education programs in the
United States teach abstinence until marriage rather than safer and alternative sex
practices.

“Such curricula pose particular dangers for LGBTIQ youth, who are implicitly taught that
heterosexuality is the only sanctioned sexual behavior and attraction to same-sex peers is
illegitimate,” she says, stressing that nurses can help reduce transmission of sexually
transmitted infections by discussing safe LGBTIQ sex practices.

Nurses should be nonjudgmental, tolerant and supportive of LGBTIQ individuals in both
the clinic and the community adds Dysart-Gale. “Nurses can build bridges of trust to
patients. In the clinic, nurses can combat homophobia by informing themselves about the
needs of LGBTIQ clients, and maintaining open and positive communication. They can
advocate for institutional policies that are fair and inclusive.”

The five American teens who killed themselves might still be alive had school nurses
been able to provide support.

“Over time, nurses became more sensitive to the different needs of ethnic communities
and they need to be equally sensitized to the queer community,” says Dysart-Gale. “When
practitioners are given the proper tools and best practices, they apply them.”

Between now and 2015, the year after all elements of national health care reform
are scheduled to take effect, the nationwide shortage of doctors across all specialties
will quadruple, according to a new report from the Association of American Medical
Colleges.

The good news, according to the report, is that the number of medical school students
continues to rise. The bad news, though, is that the increase isn’t enough to keep up with
a growing demand for doctors, the association reported.
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