From: Sue Ulrich, Family & Health Careers

Report on Spring 2002 Professional Development Leave

I want to preface this report on my leave with a note of appreciation for the opportunity to have
a term to do so many things that I’ve wanted to do but just don’t find the time to do during the school year. The combination of learning new computer skills, new information related to my clinical practice and legal issues for nurses, and meeting colleagues in different programs was
not only enjoyable but invigorating to me professionally. The following is a summary of the things I did during my leave:

I. Visited other schools of nursing to determine similarities and differences in curriculum and student requirements for students in ADN programs.
I went to four schools of nursing on the west coast and visited with faculty in those
programs to see how they taught theory (e.g. lecture, online, self-study modules)
and to find out what kind of requirements they had of their students prior to caring for patients in the hospital. It was quite interesting to see what each of the programs required. There were of course many similarities in the theory content that we all teach since there is a national licensing test that all students must pass to practice as an RN. I
did find that we have more online courses than any of the programs I visited. The differences were more in the clinical component of the programs, primarily in how the labs are used to prepare students for their clinical skills and in the amount of preparation that is required of students prior to caring for patients. The program in Santa Barbara, California far excelled any program I’ve seen or heard of in their lab facility and faculty staffing of that lab. They have 3 full time lab faculty. We on the other hand don’t have any faculty hired specifically to staff our lab. I also discovered that we require more
pre-clinical prep of our students than any of the programs I visited and in 3 of the 4 programs, faculty don’t grade the students’ written prep. I came away from these visits feeling very good about the way we educate our students. I also came away with some good ideas about ways we might creatively look for funding to not only update our nursing lab but staff it in a way that makes it more available for students.

II. Took two online courses
I have always been a bit skeptical about the value of online courses so I had proposed in my leave request that I take at least one of the two courses I planned to take online. I ended up taking a PowerPoint Course and Photoshop 5.5 and took both online. They were both great courses and I think that I benefitted more by taking these courses online than I ever would have sitting in a class. I am now in the process of putting my Physical Assessment Course into a PowerPoint Presentation. I envision this taking me an unusual amount of time to prepare because of all of the pictures and sounds that I need to incorporate into this presentation, but at least it now seems like a possibility.

III. Attended three Nursing Conferences
My leave proposal included attending two conferences. I was lucky enough to actually be able to attend 3 conferences. I attended the National Critical Care Conference which was excellent. I also attended a Conference on Nursing Law which was very informative and I attended the Oregon Colleges of Associate Degree Nursing Conference which was focused on the nursing shortage and the proposal that the state’s ADN programs join with OHSU in a common curriculum and only grant BSN degrees at the end of a 4 year program. I will share many of things I learned at the Critical Care Conference and the Nursing Law Conference with my co-workers on a handout titled "Pearls of Wisdom"
and make copies of a few of the articles from the bib lists of a couple of the speakers.
In May, I was asked by one of the Nursing Administrators at Sacred Heart to be a part of a 2 day conference on legal issues surrounding central lines. This gave me the opportunity to share much of the information about IV/central lines that I had learned at the Critical Care and Nursing Law Conferences.

The advantages to having this type of a leave are innumerable. I feel very lucky to have had this time to learn so many new things and meet so many new people. I think that I will bring back some good ideas to our program and some renewed enthusiasm to my students. And if my PowerPoint presentation works, the students will enjoy some colorful new pictures, some upbeat music, and some great heart and lung sounds. The only disadvantage to this type of leave is getting a little spoiled by getting to do so many things that I want to do and not having to grade papers so many evenings.