All About Nursing Show 7

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Welcome to All About Nursing with your host Dr. Joyce Bachelor, executive nurse advisor Dr. Bachelor, who will present the significant role nurses play in providing healthcare in the multitude of healthcare settings. Listen to some of today's key nurses who work and practice in academia settings and talk about the challenges they face in today's modern medical world.

So please welcome the host of All About Nursing, Dr. Joyce Bachelor. Good evening. I'm your host, Dr.

Joyce Bachelor on All About Nursing and we're live on the BBM Global Network and tune in radio. This evening we will be hearing from another colleague of mine who has been on an incredible journey in his nursing career. As we have discussed in prior shows, the nursing profession offers many different kinds of roles and settings for nurses to choose to work in. There are different levels of education, credentialing and competencies that are required for the different roles.

I worked most of my career as a hospital executive and about four years ago transitioned into teaching in the D&P program at Texas Tech. While I brought a lot of experience and ideas, I can also tell you I had a lot to learn because there were different skills that I would need in that particular setting. I was fortunate to have a wonderful mentor, Dr. Lexia Green, who was always very patient with all of my questions and I continue to have just wonderful supportive colleagues.

I think you will find Dean Evans' story and experiences to be very interesting and inspiring. So I'll give a little bit of an introduction. Dr. Michael Evans is Dean, Professor and holds the University Medical Center and Dow Chair for Excellence in Nursing at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Nursing.

Prior to coming to Texas Tech in 2012, he was the President and CEO of Barnes-Jewish College and founding Dean of the Goldfarb School of Nursing in St. Louis. He was in Hospital Administration for 25 years before his career bridge to the academic administration. Prior to moving to St.

Louis, Dr. Evans was with Texas Health Resources for 11 years versus Chief Nurse Executive of Presbyterian Hospital Dallas and then as a systems first Chief Learning Officer. Prior to joining THR in 1995, Dr. Evans was Chief Nursing Officer at St.

David's Health Care System in Austin. He also was a Chief Nursing Officer at Northwest Texas Health System in Amarillo and served a variety of adjunct faculty positions and different colleges and universities throughout his career. Dr. Evans holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Texas Tech University, a diploma in Nursing from Northwest Texas Hospital School of Nursing, a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from West Texas A&M University, a Master of Science in Nursing from the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, and a PhD in Nursing Administration from the University of Texas at Austin.

You'll see a theme in there. Michael has had a lot of education and a lot of Texas organizations. Dr. Evans has served as President of the Texas Nursing Association and on the Board of Directors of the American Nursing Association including the offices of Secretary and Treasurer and he did this for eight years.

While on the A&A Board, he also served on an arm of their organization that's called the American Nursing Credentialing Center and at the end of 2015 he had completed two terms as President of ANCC and then served a final two-year term as the ANCC Board Member and Director of ANCC's World which is their Global Arm. Partially as a result of Dr. Evans' scholarly work, ANCC launched the Magnet Hospital designation program in 1992 and currently there are 475 magnet hospitals across the world improving workplace environments, patient care and patient outcomes. Dr.

Evans has been honored as a distinguished alumnus by the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at Houston School of Nursing and by the University of Texas at Austin School of Nursing. In 2014 he was the recipient of the Luther Christman Award bestowed by the American Nursing Association. He has board certified as an advanced nurse executive in hospital administration, in a fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives, in a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing. So as I've described all of these different experiences I know that you're going to really enjoy listening and hearing more about how Dean Evans has really progressed in this profession.

So I'd like to just start with you telling us a little bit about why you decided to become a nurse. Interesting story looking back on it actually. I was when I was a child and an adolescent I came up in the scouting program, Cutscout, Woodcout and Explorerscout. And I was an Explorerscout healthcare host and we worked at Hospits.

We were running petcheques, you know we worked for a flight teacher, flight genes, flight issues and we, and I loved being in the hospital. I loved being in the hospital environment and being around the people who worked in healthcare but I never at that point ever considered going into healthcare because I always wanted to be an English teacher. I loved English. That was what I always thought was where I thought my career would take me.

So out of high school I came to Tech to Tech and I got a degree in English over a four year period but a minor in biology. But I had my deal with my parents was they would pay tuition, they gave me a car, they'd pay room and board but if I wanted any gasoline money or spending money I had to make it myself. And so I got a job and I got a job based on an ad I saw in the University of the Tech to Tech newspaper for students and it was an advertisement for nurses at a hospital here in Lebes and we will trend you don't have any experience. So I applied, I got the job and I just loved it.

I really did it for the entire four years I was in college and I really enjoyed doing that very very much and it called me to have a dilemma at the end of when I was finishing up the English degree. I was wondering if I was making the right career decision in choosing English but I really loved healthcare. So I went to a trusted relative of mine actually. I was in my early 20s of course and she was probably in her late 50s early 60s and she was a professor of psychology at Tech to Tech and I went to her and I said what would you advise me to do in terms of choice.

She said well you want to be happy in life don't you and I've kind of done found it. I thought well of course you never really thought about the alternative about that and she said well what are you for the avenues you're looking for in healthcare. I said well nursing and medicine and hospital administration. There were the ones I'm thinking about and she said well do physicians seem happy.

You want to be happy in life. The physicians seem happy and I said well it's not too much you know and she said do hospital administrators seem happy and I said well not so much and she said do nurses seem happy and I said yeah they did. They seem to enjoy what they do there. They've enjoyed you know mentoring me helping me along the way and yes and she said well I think you've made your major decision and so I what I graduated from nursing school I chose to go into a diploma school of nursing because they're really this was in the early 70s.

They're really worth that many university programs in Texas at the time there were 45 diploma schools in Texas. At that time I chose a really good one in my own town of Amarillo and I graduated from there and you told the rest of it in terms of going to the VSN, MSN and PhD route. The best I became a nurse. You know it's interesting because you started the same way I did.

I also was in a diploma program and I'm just curious when and how did you know that you needed to go back to school for some additional degree programs. You know I think because I had already had a degree you know I was a perfect candidate at time for the accelerated second degree nursing program but those didn't exist at that time. I think I knew I wanted to ask her to read because I already had one and so I respected the university route to education and I was also mentored along by faculty members who had to be at the VSN when I was in the diploma program and they said you really shouldn't stop with the diploma you really should go on and I said to the doctor. That's great I think you had like I did which was the longest way around to get to where you are today and a lot of the accelerated programs and different options we have we didn't have back then and so I know about you but I sat back through classes on nutrition and anatomy physiology and things I'd had for three years and my diploma program but I had to do them anyway and so it was kind of nice that we made a lot of progress in that arena.

I was curious if you could just share a little bit about the fact that you made a decision to come into the nursing field when in fact it's still predominantly a female profession. Did you have any concerns about that when you were making your decision? You know it really never even dawned on me. People have asked me that throughout my career and I really never thought about it.

So just never dawned on me. When I went to nursing school there were 73 students in my graduating class and I think seven or eight of us were guys and I knew that we were out-numbered but it just never occurred to me that that was odd because you know the other healthcare discipline medicine was mostly male the hospital administration field was mostly male nursing was mostly female and I just saw that as my choice. Did you ever encounter any patients particularly female patients being uncomfortable because you were a male nurse or did that not happen to you? Never one.

Never a single time. What was really interesting was when I was in the diploma program every single man who had gone through that program before my class during the OB rotation, the obstetric rotation. The men were separated out and did clinical on a urology caring for TURP male patients which is just crazy because of some wise people in our program. It was because the male physician didn't want us there which was just for postures.

We were the first ones to do clinical with women. This was before men or even their husbands were even in the labor process at all and I never had anyone. I never had any woman in that situation or in subsequent situations ever expressed to me that they felt uncomfortable at all. Yeah I think that's great to share that because I had the same experiences that seemed like they were very hesitant to put the male nurses in the OB arena but in fact once they did and really talked with patients they didn't have the same sort of preconceived notions that sometimes we have on our own.

So that's wonderful. I'm curious because you certainly made a fast track moving from being a staff nurse then moving into the leadership side and I was just curious when did you start to think about wanting to move into more of an executive role? You know I never considered it early in my career. That was not something I even saw as an option.

I was a critical care nurse and an emergency department nurse primarily. I left trauma in the ER and I really intended to fit in my entire career there. But an opportunity arose. My peers pushed me forward.

I had a BSN, nobody else did and it was required so they encouraged me to apply for an idea and I became a head nurse or a charge nurse in an emergency department. That's great. Awesome. Well this is all about nursing and I'm Dr.

Joyce Bachelor. We are live on BBM Global Network in Tune in Radio and it's time to take a short break. Dr. Rob Moyer is the director of the Ocean River Institute and he is passionate about saving the ocean by helping dolphins suffering from nitrogen pollution.

Nitrogen is a dangerous pollutant affecting our oceans, altering ocean ecosystems and contributing to global warming. The Ocean River Institute provides opportunities to make a difference and encourages people to go the distance for savvy stewardship of a greater and bluer planet Earth. Partnering with organizations from Massachusetts to Florida, Alaska to the Caribbean, the Ocean River Institute's mission is to foster involvement in conservation and environmental monitoring by facilitating grassroots efforts at local and regional levels. Hello, I'm Rob Moyer of the Ocean River Institute.

Please visit our website at OceanRiver.org. Sign up for free alerts. You may call us at 617-661-6647. Our email address is info at Ocean River.

They come in form and then act with us. Thank you. Welcome back everyone. You are listening to all about nursing, life and the BBM Global Network in Tune in Radio.

I'm Dr. Joyce Bachelor, the host of this show. Prior to the break, Dean Evans was telling us a little bit about his career and he was just beginning to share how he eventually moved into more of the executive nursing side of the profession. Maybe we can go back and you can start to tell us a little bit about how you hadn't really intentionally planned on moving into that field, but it did happen.

Can you share a little bit more about how that occurred? Don't know if we've gotten disconnected with our guests this evening. Okay, great. If you could start to tell us a little bit more about how that came to be where you moved into the leadership side of the world.

Okay. I was really enjoying a clinical nurse, but I listened to my fellow nurses who are just needed to accept an open position is charge nurse. I moved into that role. It was actually a head nurse position.

I moved into that role and I really liked it. What I enjoyed about it was it's creating a highly satisfying environment. We were all very dissatisfied. We loved our patients.

We loved our nursing practice. We hated our jobs. And with a change over in management, I was able to listen to the nurses who might have a privilege to lead. I listened to them and we made changes as we could to make the workplace more satisfying.

Well, I think I'm meant to be as highly satisfying as taking care of patients in the clinical sense. And so I've used that. I moved on to become a nursing supervisor in that same hospital and I moved on to become a chief nursing officer in a very small hospital, 32 beds actually. And just in a step-wise progression, I moved from a 32 bed hospital to 150 to a 200-400 to a thousand over a 25-year period.

And I don't see how I could have done that without taking it in those increments. It would have been very difficult to have gone from a head nurse physician to see what I've got from a bed hospital. I remember when I first started as the chief nurse at Seton that you were in the chief nursing role at St. David's at the time.

And I remember hearing a lot about the things that you were leading in your organization. And I was thinking, oh, I've got some competition. And then I think shortly after, you actually moved to a different role in Dallas. And I thought, oh, phew, because it sounded like I would have had a real challenge with you with that role.

So it's really been fun to sort of watch the progression that you've had in different roles here in the state. So, you know, I would be curious if there's something that you could share that you're just really proud of that you'll accomplish when you were in your chief nursing officer role. Well, you know, I think I left every single one of those C&O roles in the different hospitals. I was in, I think I left them better than they were when I got there.

In several respects, I believe we created a more satisfying nursing environment. And we knew that because we measured it. We, we, I was one of the first chief nursing officers to actually use a valuable tool to measure staff nurse jobs out of section. Again, that is St.

David's and took that to President Terri and Dallas and, and on, on in my career. And I know that I made a difference in terms of making it a more satisfying environment as indicated by high retention, low turnover rates, and that led to better financial outcomes in terms of having your own staff there instead of per DM or agency or whatever, higher, higher dollar rate nurses, which also led to a more satisfying environment. I think I let every place that I was there better than it was when I arrived. And part of that I would imagine too, is that you were seeing better patient outcomes, the patient satisfaction and then just prevention of a lot of complications that we know can happen if you don't have a good number of highly skilled, educated, committed staff.

And I think that was the beginning of really putting those kind of metrics out there is what it sounds like in your role. And I'm just actually too, I was able to take that actually into my role in the creation of at the very beginning of the magnet program and during my years as A&C president, focusing on those outcomes. There's a magnet environment that has better outcomes. We know that it does through the work of Dr.

Linne Eken, University of Pennsylvania, her research has indicated that the outcomes were better. So we actually started having hospitals who were magnet hospital improved their outcomes, established their outcomes, worried improved their outcomes over time. And that has been very satisfying for me. And I think that's part of what we're talking about on this show is that it may be that it's all about nursing and that some of the focus is even like with Bob Dent last week on the show talking about a healthy work environment and some of the incredible things he was doing.

It's really related to us being so committed to being sure that our patients have really good outcomes and we can talk a little bit more about that. But when we come back from the break, we are coming to you live from the B.M. Global Network and to an in radio for all about nursing and Dr. Joyce Bachelor.

Well, continues conversation. We come back. Dr. Rob Moyer is the director of the Ocean River Institute and he is passionate about saving the ocean by helping dolphins suffering from nitrogen pollution.

Nitrogen is a dangerous pollutant affecting our oceans, altering ocean ecosystems and contributing to global warming. The Ocean River Institute provides opportunities to make a difference and encourages people to go the distance for savvy stewardship of a greater and bluer planet Earth. Partner with organizations from Massachusetts to Florida, Alaska to the Caribbean, the Ocean River Institute's mission is to foster involvement in conservation and environmental monitoring by facilitating grassroots efforts at local and regional levels. Hello, I'm Rob Moyer of the Ocean River Institute.

Please visit our website at OceanRiver.org. Sign up for free alerts. You may call us at 617-661-6647. Our email address is info at Ocean River.

Become informed and then act with us. Thank you. America is out of control. Today's capitalism and the approach to money is in fact the symptom of a more widespread pattern of excessive behavior.

In his book, The Culture of Excess, How America Lost Self-Control and Why We Need to Redefine Success, Clinical Psychologist Dr. Jay Slosar, Portrays in America Where Excess Fuels Let Drive to Succeed. Dr. Slosar examines the cultural factors that lead to excess ranging from obesity to fraud to pervasive budget deficits.

His book examines the powerful economic and social factors and their impact on our psychological well-being. Dr. Slosar explores the psychological impact of increasing narcissism, perfectionism, self-destruction and our identity confusion. He offers recommendations for helping generation me, become generation we.

Those who resist Slosar's message will want to avoid his discussion of regulation and his recent message that at this point, democracy must be more important than today's capitalism. Get his book now online or by visiting thecultureofexcess.com. I'm your host, Dr. Joyce Bachelor on All About Nursing and We Are Live on the BBM Global Network in TuneIn Radio.

Before the break, Dean Evans has started to tell us about the work that he was leading when he was in the Chief Nursing Officer role around really measuring what kind of satisfaction and engagement the nursing staff had and the importance of that in terms of not only financial outcomes and staff satisfaction but patient outcomes. I think it's a great time to then really connect to having you to share a little bit more about how you took that to really more of a state and national level and the different roles that you've played in different state and national organizations. So maybe you can share a little bit of how you were able to bring that work there. It's a kind of an example and then the impact you were able to have as a result of being in those leadership roles that I had described as I introduced you this evening.

Well, you know, I learned very early in my career that I became fascinated by the power that nurses have when they have a combined voice through an association, a professional association. When I was a nursing student at Northwest with a plumber program, I actually became president of Texas Nursing Student Association. We had 7,000 members. It was huge.

And we had, and I went on from there and I became up on the board, a grandfather who was elected to the board of the National Student Nurses Association. So when I finished, I became a nurse. I was very interested in the Texas Nurses Association. I became president of my district association.

I was treasurer and president of the Texas Nurses Association. And then I ran for the board of the American Nurses Association and was in various board roles for a period of eight years. And I just really, really enjoyed it. I enjoyed working with nurse leaders and enjoying being able to make a difference because of a powerful voice of an association rather than a voice of just one or a few nurses.

And it might be helpful to explain to everybody what the American Nursing Credentialing Center is all about and how you were able to help influence that and the growth that we've seen now and the number of hospitals really working towards achieving nursing excellence that's designated with a magnet seal of approval. So maybe you could share a little bit about how you were able to work and influence that. So the American Nurse Credential Center was born right after I came up to the ANA board in 1990. It was born and it was born through the efforts of Dr.

Marretta Magnesile. Dr. Stiles was a dean. She'd been a dean at the University of California San Francisco.

University of Texas San Antonio. And she was one of my foremost mentors early in my career. And she was, I was our chair as a founder of Nurse Credentialing. She always believed in the power of nurse certification.

The nurses had some kind of a designation that was important based on what they had achieved in mastering the body of knowledge, being tested on that body of knowledge and individual credentialing and also organizational credentialing. So through her efforts at ANC was born and I was just really very interested in following her footsteps. Dr. Stiles was president of the American Nurse Association, the American Nurse Credentialing Center, and the International Council of the International level.

She's the only person to have done all of that. And I've learned so much from her and I admire her and I learned to love nurse credentialing. And we made great strides in individual credentialing and organizational credentialing, which is the magnet program and the pathway to excellence program. You know, I think that it's been interesting to me that when you look at the history with Magnet and then pathway to excellence, it's really what the name kind of signifies is that they were trying to figure out why was it when we were having some real challenges with the nursing shortage that there were hospitals with waiting lists and very few vacancies and others that just could not seem to staff adequately on any given day.

And by really studying those organizations, the research then began to really come up forward that talked about the kinds of things you need to have in place to really have a professional practice environment where staff have a voice and they have control over their patient care decision making and just the pride and ownership that comes with all of that. I know that I always wish when I'm at the Magnet conference and it's pretty hard to explain to people when you see just thousands of nurses that you would think there's not a problem in the world because of the energy that they have. And I always wish that the president of the American Hospital Association and some others would come and see what it really is like. It's palpable when you've got like over four or five thousand nurses at a conference just totally excited about the work that they're leading.

So I applaud that you were a part of that because I think it's really been extremely important work that we've been doing and need to continue to do. I was just curious, what did you decide to move more from the Chief Nursing Officer practice side to the academic setting because that's a big shift. Well, you know, one of the reasons that I didn't have a PhD, if I had not gone towards the doctoral education route, which is not required, at that time it was not really even valued in a Chief Nursing Officer role. I was I was I was I was I was Austin, Austin Texas, and I was there and Dr.

Billy Brown, who was the Dean of UT Austin, School of Nursing, and I knew her because she was also a past president of TNA and I was the current president of TNA. She encouraged me to enroll in the the PhD program in nursing at UT Austin and to go there out. You know, I really never had thought about it before, but she flattered me so much by saying she's the words you never forget. She was like, you are PhD material.

You think like a PhD nurse, you mean to be a PhD. So I did it. I was working as a C&L. I was working very long hours, but I did it.

I took it just a bit at a time. I finished it over about a four year period and I learned so much. It just transformed the way I thought. So I had the PhD when I was just when I became Chief Learning Officer for the system at Texas Health Resources.

I did that because I'd always taught him that evening. I taught nursing administration in the major program in Dallas and in various programs. And there was actually a school in St. Louis, Missouri, of all places.

And everybody looked up at it. They were looking for someone like me who had a president as a Chief Nursing Officer in hospital and also had a president who was in nursing education. And because they were involved in a huge turnaround of two unemployment programs. One was started in 1902.

The other one was started in 1952. And they recruited me. I was recruited into that position. And I had never had thought about it before.

I was like, they came after me and they recruited me and they made me an offer I couldn't refuse and they're alive. I thoroughly enjoyed it. You know, I did not realize that I tell nurses this all the time. It's the very same skill set.

The skill set that I use as a Chief Nursing Officer on the delivery side of the hospital is the very same skill set that I use as a Chief Nursing Officer on the academics side. There's no difference. Some of the terminology is different. The cast of characters is different.

But the things that I do, the things that I do to lead in those environments is identical. So did you have a mentor or someone that was really helping you as you moved into that role so that you were being set up to be successful? Dr. Billy Brown.

She was the Dean of the UT Austin School of Nursing. She's been a meritist there now. She still lives in Austin. She's in the early 90s.

And she has been a mentor for me throughout my career. But especially after I became a member of the Dean position 12 years ago, I was in St. Louis for five years and I was recruited to back to Texas Tech after 40 years. I left here 40 years ago and came back seven years ago.

So I've been a Dean now for 12 years and she remains as one of my primary confidants and primary mentors in the academic role. I run questions by her to this day. When I accepted the position of St. Louis, it was in council with her.

When I accepted the position of the Texas Tech, it was in council with her. Not only did she shake me in terms of encouraging me to get the PhD in nursing. She has encouraged me throughout my career. I would not be where I am without her.

And I think that what you're raising is something that we've been talking about on some of the other shows is that it's so important to be involved in your professional organization and to have mentors because it's really being able to have that kind of support so you can be open to whatever the journey might be as you're in this profession. So we are coming to you live from VBM Global Network and to an radio. This is all about nursing show. I'm Dr.

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You are listening to all about nursing life and the BBM Global Network and tuning radio. I'm Dr. Joyce Batch for the host of the show. Prior to the break, Gene Evans was telling us a little bit about how he made the decision to move from being in a practice role to that of now moving into academia and now as a dean and really sharing the importance of having a very strong mentor and someone that has continued to be there as a thinking partner for him as he's made different decisions in his career.

I think that's one of the pieces that we've been really talking about on the other shows that we've already done is the importance for nurses to really have mentors as well as to be long to professional organizations because you can find so many people that are just very, very willing and happy to help you as you continue to potentially have different opportunities that come up. Sometimes you find them and I thought it was interesting that the example you gave us was really that they came after you to move to St. Louis and really help turn around and kind of an opportunity to create something brand new which is certainly a lot of fun. So I was just curious as you describe all that what it says to me is that you have to really stay current because there's a lot of fast paced kinds of things happening in healthcare.

So how do you do that? What do you recommend or what kinds of things are you involved in that help you to stay current with your current role? Well, you know, staying current with what's happening out there in terms of the new knowledge and the research, the discovery, opinions of it, reading the journals. I try to, I have a reading stack of journals that come across my desk every month and I try to read through them, read through the abstract.

You can't read every word of everything that comes across your desk, reading the abstract and digging down deeper to something that really interests you. The more important than that is I stay current by listening to the people who I leave. For example, you know, we know that one of the things that Magna has taught us about hospital, successful hospitals is shared governance. Shared governance is a mechanism whereby nurses have a formalized, very formalized structure to have a voice and organizational decision making.

But we brought that also into the academic environment. We have a shared governance system within the nursing school of nursing and Texas. One of the only ones around that I know of it has been very successful. So I stay current by listening to faculty, listening to staff, listening to students.

I love having students in my office every month with pizza because that's what they like, what they like, what they like, what they like, it draws them. And we started, we started out the conversation about things up on your mind. You know, you can really get a sense of where your school is, where it needs to move to by listening to students in terms of what it is they're getting, what it is they're wanting, what it is they're processing the way they're being taught. They are amazing learners in graduate programs, the undergraduate programs, the one's undergrads with the most, of course, are those in the campus-based undergraduate programs.

But that helped me to stay very current. It's being close to faculty, staff, students, open door, having a very much open door policy and not only having an open door but encouraging people to come to me and visit when they want to just visit with me. And I think that what you're doing with the shared governance model is great. It really does help people to feel like they have a voice and they'll be willing to speak up.

I'm just curious, sometimes when you have that, you also have people that want to come and tell you about things that are going on and might involve your faculty, that they're potentially complaining about it. So you have to sort of balance all that because when I was in my C&O role, I would have a nurse in Congress every month and it was all staff from, a lot of staff across the system. And I had always be careful because I wanted to hear what they had to say, but I also want to make sure that it didn't become a way for them to somehow go around their leaders. But sometimes it was okay because I needed to then work with them on how they could go back and have a crucial conversation with their leader.

So there's a balancing that goes on, I would think. Have you had any of those kinds of experiences where you kind of had to help people understand what it is and what it isn't? Well, absolutely. In my mind, that's what you just said.

I'm not going to solve their problems for them. I'm not going to allow them to dump their problems on me, but I will help them to navigate the problem themselves through crucial conversations, through having direct open, honest conversations with coworkers, with their supervisor, whomever, and that's been very successful. You know, people really like to be in charge. They like to be part of their own faith and they prefer to be able to have the skill to handle those problems themselves rather than have somebody get swoop in and solve them for them.

They really do like that better. I was just curious. Do you think this has had an impact on your ability to have fill your vacancies when you do have faculty positions open or the growth that Texas Tech has been experiencing? Well, you know, we've had since when I came to Texas Tech seven years ago, we had about 1,350 students.

We now have over 2,000 students all over Tech. A lot of our programs are very high quality online programs. We maintain a very low faculty to the student ratio, never more than one to 35 in our online programs, our graduate programs is one to 25. And you know, we really value what we produce and the way we do it.

And I really enjoy being a part of that. And I'll tell you one thing you mentioned about do we have trouble filling faculty positions and the short answer to that is no. And I know a lot of schools do and a lot of schools have had faculty positions open for a long, long time. We don't.

When we have an open faculty position, we have multiple qualified applicants. We just we extended it off to a faculty member today in our traditional undergraduate program on one of our remote campuses. And I would interview everyone. I like to interview all the new faculty to interview four applicants for this one open position.

And I want to tell you that all four of them are absolutely remarkable in their own way. So it's not a matter of hiring the best candidate. It's a matter of hiring the one that fits with the team and fills out the team the very best because of their unique attributes or experiences that they bring to the road. That's one of the things that I enjoy the most is that we are able to keep our positions filled with exciting people who are excited to be in our school.

That's wonderful. We can talk a bit more about that but right now this is all about nursing. I'm your host, Dr. Joyce Bachelor.

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You're listening to All About Nursing, live from BBM Global Network and Tune In Radio. I'm Dr. Joyce Batchelor, the host of the show. Before the break, we were discussing the shared governance model that Texas Tech has put in place to really have more empowerment of their faculty and also for the students to feel like they really have an opportunity to voice their questions and issues and concerns.

And I was just wondering, you were sharing that you have a lot of good, highly qualified hand, it sounds like when you have a position that comes open, which is wonderful. And you do attribute that to some of it being the relationship of faculty to students and to you and others and their leaders in your organization. Is there anything else that you believe has just really been a benefit of the way things have been structured at your university? Well, you know, I think one of the things that a lot of schools, a lot of schools in general, the university programs is to minimize the role of staff.

You know, the faculty have a very defined role, of course, in the university program. But so does that. And many times the staff are overlooked and they're part of our shared governance program as well. But you have a voice into their own decision making.

They have a staff council where they're able to actually control their face, just like faculty through their faculty council and the faculty governor as a role. You know, the staff are the ones who were there when faculty are not there. They're the ones who were there all the time. They interface with students all the time.

Students get a lot of their needs met through the staff through the financial assistance needs, you know, the needs of being able to, we have a career center. It's amazing. It helps students to be able to prepare themselves for jobs when they leave. But this is pretty for the undergraduate students, especially to be able to know how to interview and construct a credible resume to be able to put all these things together and to sell themselves and dress well, dress appropriately for interviews.

And because of that, our students are very, very desired out there on the other market in Texas. And we're very proud about that. That's what we have to work with our faculty and our staff. You also have something unique going on with your remote faculty concept.

You want to share a little bit about that? What that is. What we have students all over Texas, we have students at about 150 of the 254 Texas County. We have faculty who live and work in about 35 Texas County and these are in our graduate programs, our nurse practitioner programs, our APRN programs, and also our undergraduate programs in some of our undergraduate programs, our RN to be as an program.

And Dr. Alexia Green, who's my predecessor, has been, she's one of the major of the people who was instrumental in recruiting the detective tech from the St. Louis experience. And what Alexia was doing, she was able to create the model in her head and then sell it to the University Administration to have telecommuting faculty.

No one else in any of the other schools in the tech system has telecommuting faculty except for the school of nursing because we're the only ones who have students and a very wide lot of students all over the state and beyond. And so that's one of the reasons that we don't have any problems filling faculty positions because if you live in Dallas, Texas, and you want to work with Texas Tech and teach an RAPR program, you can say in Dallas Tech, and be a faculty member who's fully engaged and has all of the benefits and all the responsibilities of the faculty role in a remote location that they work with. Our IT department provides them with the same IT resources that faculty who are based on a campus have. And that has been singularly one of the best decisions that's ever been made in this school.

And I'm so blessed to have been able to have inherited that brain trust for my predecessor. That's great. That's actually something that I think maybe I'll should think about publishing because it is a great concept. I was curious if you could also share with us what's the biggest challenge you face every day in your role as the Dean?

So you know, everyone knows that there are a lot more qualified applicants for nursing school positions both graduate and undergraduate. Then we have open flops. Then we have open positions. And the limiting factors for the number of students that we can accept really is the clinical placement.

The clinical placement opportunities that we have in hospitals or clinics or for our APR and students and clinics or in different primary care roles or in hospitals, a few care roles. So that's the limiting factor. But the problem that has been making sure that we identify and put the screens in place that we're able to identify and accept the students who are going to be most highly likely to be successful in our programs. And doing that is very important.

It requires constant attention. It requires constant monitoring of students who are being successful in the heartbreaking situations. When you have students that we have screened so carefully and they come into our program and they're not successful for a variety of reasons. I think the faculty, staff and me staying on top of those reasons, finding out what those reasons are and making sure that we hardwire into our selection criteria ways to identify those students who are going to be successful.

That has been the biggest challenge in academia for the last 12 years that I've been doing. It's heartbreaking to see someone who wants to be a graduate level nurse or a BSN nurse or whatever so badly and they simply cannot do it. Whether it be because of life situations or aptitude situations or whatever. And we learned that everyone of those would be able to make it better and better.

That's great. That you all are still committed to that. I was curious how have you also begun to use the simulation lab in terms of helping with the fact that there are limitations on the practice setting and maybe we can talk about that when we come back because this is all about nursing and I'm your host, Dr. Joyce Bachelor.

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Learn the My Short Sale Guru way. I'm your host Dr. Joyce Bachelor in All About Nursing and we're live on the BDM Global Network and Tune in Radio. Prior to the break I had just started to introduce asking the question about how simulation labs might be helping with the need for students to really get good clinical practice with the kind of challenge that Dean Evans was describing about clinical placement as being such an issue sometimes.

So maybe just share a little bit about what's going on in the simulation lab world. You know it's evolved a lot since I came into nursing education 12 years ago. Really the first iteration of the simulation was with the task trainers and with the the hypodal D-Maticon and pretty much that. Where it's evolved to now is through interprofessional experiences.

The students are actually able to, nursing students can actually work with medical students, pharmacy students, health professionals students to actually learn how to be a team before they're thrust into a team when they graduate from our program. But we are also blessed to have one of the National Nursing Leers in Simulation Research and Practice Dr. Sharon Decker and because of that she has created with her team a state-of-the-art simulation lab on our Abilene campus and our Odesla campus. And to give you an example of what our brilliant faculty have done recently through a rewrite of our curriculum for our traditional undergraduate program.

You know if you were a nursing student when I was a nursing student those of you who were listening who were nurses remember that you may have had to do during your psychiatric clinical orientation. You may have gone to a clinical experience and you actually had a good experience because something interesting happened that day. A patient experience happened that day that really taught you that you learned from. But more often than not you went there and nothing happened.

You know you did process recordings or you did reading your visitifications but nothing interesting that you were there to see ever happened. But we checked our faculty and turned that upside down. We now through the use of standardized patients who are people who we pay to work off of the script and they actually play a role and they give our students some media feedback about how well they did in that role. We're able to simulate clinical situations where a patient is in a psychiatric crisis.

Something that a student may not be able to see when they're in the clinical environment. So we created a very very live life like way within to learn what they're there to learn in the clinical environment. Our faculty have just totally blown me away with their creativity in being able to help students to be able to have that doesn't take place of the real life clinical environment that is there to to to buttress to make it stronger than it would be without that. And I'm very impressed with what we're doing with simulation and what will be in simulation today will not be the same thing five years from now.

It's growing. We're learning technology changes and we're very pleased with what we're doing in the student experience of the simulation. And I was just curious because I think that's wonderful and I really appreciate all that information. And for the short time that we have left, I was just curious what advice would you give to inspire someone who maybe think about becoming a nurse?

Don't be me when I was in my early career. I told you before I had my mind made up. I wanted to be an ER staff nurse for the rest of my career. I really didn't have my mind open.

My mind was changed in spite of myself. Keep your mind open. You know, when you're going into when you're considering nursing, keep your mind open to different avenues. Go where the spirit moves you.

Go where your heart moves you. Where your brain moves you. And keep your mind open to possibility. I never considered being a being a dean of a school of nursing.

Never ever encouraging me. When it first started, I was resistant. I was against it. When it first started, when it first started, when it first started to become a chief nursing officer of a hospital, I was resistant.

I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to do management. Keep your mind open and be very inquisitive and go for the spirit moves you in terms of clinical areas that you're interested in and in terms of roles like management or like teaching or whatever. Be open.

I think that's great advice because my goal was to be a cardiovascular clinical nurse specialist and I never got that opportunity. But I certainly had a lot of other opportunities that came my way. And like you, I also was first like, oh no, I don't think I want to do that or I'm too young to do that or and having people be really encouraging was really helpful. And so again, I think that it's wonderful to have a lot of good mentors.

It's great to belong to professional organizations. You certainly have made a difference by a lot of the work you've described this evening. So thank you so much for agreeing to be on the show. We are coming to you live from the BBM Global Network and tuning in radio for all about nursing and Dr.

Joyce Bachelor. And please tune in next week when we will continue to have another great speaker and guest on the show. Thank you. Bye for now.

You've been listening to All About Nursing with your host Dr. Joyce Bachelor. Tune in each week and get a daily dose of nursing and the healthcare services they provide and how nurses are finding innovative ways to address the key healthcare issues they're facing today. Here on Dr.

Joyce Bachelor's All About Nursing. You've been listening to the BBM Global Network. The ideas, views and opinions of this broadcast are those of the participants of the program and are not necessarily the ideas, views and opinions of the BBM Global Network Company.