How nursing professors help students find their "why"

Nursing has long been considered "the most honest and ethical profession." But it's not an easy job, demanding the upmost skill, resolve, and a strong heart for service from its labor force.

Dr. Cindi Aurentz and Maria Shade, Associate Professors from Missouri State University's School of Nursing know the benefits and the challenges nurses face better than anyone.

They discuss preparing students, how service-learning plays a central role, and the kinds of moment that helps students find out why they truly want to be a nurse.

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Produced and edited by Charles Whitaker for Citizenship & Service-Learning at Missouri State University

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Transcript

Charles Whitaker: 0:04

Nursing is a job that seems to have a lot of contrasts. For example, it's one of the most populated professions in the country, but also one that's experiencing an alarming shortage. It's one of the most trusted professions, like literally, a Gallup poll for 24 consecutive years has named it the most honest and ethical of all the professions. Yet, since 2020 and the moment frontline health worker became a household phrase, I'm sure we're all aware it can be one of the most heavily criticized by many of the very people under its care. It's a fascinating world, and I always enjoy learning more. So today, I want to share a conversation I had with Missouri State School of Nursing associate professors Maria Shade and Dr. Cindy Aurentz, our conversation covered the value of nursing to the community growing concerns in the field and how engaged learning can help prepare the next generation of health workers. every be someone who knew about issues

Maria Shade: 0:54

Every individual needs to decide for themselves, and problems but did nothing, or do I want to be someone who steps in and tries to find a solution?

Charles Whitaker: 1:18

That was Maria Shade. She's been a nurse for 39 years. Shade teaches older adult and community health courses. I found her very thoughtful and reflective during our conversation. You can just tell everything she says is driven by a passion for her work. Speaking of which, here is Dr. Cindy

Dr. Cindi Aurentz: 1:33

I'm especially passionate about is service-learning for many reasons, but mainly because it connects students to real people, real needs, and real world application of what they're learning.

Charles Whitaker: 1:47

Dr. Aurentz basics. I wanted to know more about the relationship between a student and their goal of and how nursing faculty rely on engaged learning to help with

Maria Shade: 2:13

...or nurses go into the nursing field because they have a desire to help people. Helping is service and the program here at Missouri State, it helps to inspire that continuance of helping in their community, and not just something that they did to get into their respective programs. You know, becoming a fully evolved human being, we need to connect to all of our parts, which is not just working at our jobs or caring for our families, but also considering the needs that. Here's Shade again, talking about service being at the core of what it means to be a nurse. of others.

Charles Whitaker: 2:59

Shade talking about the field of nursing as something that benefits from fully evolved human beings has really stuck with me. It's a concept I imagine when I think about what Missouri State's public affairs mission seeks to accomplish. Dr. Aurentz refers to this point as the big picture, and that service-learning can really help pull things together for their students.

Dr. Cindi Aurentz: 3:18

When we're thinking about the big picture students, it's really helpful for them, if they can put everything together, if they see patients or people only when they're sick, they're not thinking about what's happening outside of the hospital, what kinds of needs there are in the community. And you know, we also focus on prevention and promotion of health. That's a major aspect of what we teach. And so this helps them to develop those skills understanding what people need outside of the hospital, and it also helps them grow as people in terms of cultural competence, developing empathy for others, that sort of thing.

Charles Whitaker: 4:05

You got nursing. You got service-learning. Students benefit from the hands on experiences. Great. But what I think Shade offers next is a reminder that the needs of the community are a crucial factor here as well. And then we're going to hear Aurentz affirming that being engaged in community must simply be inherent in a nurse's mindset.

Maria Shade: 4:23

Sending our nursing students out, primarily in the beginning of their careers, into acute care facilities hospitals, as they get more experience and possibly start having families and wish to explore other opportunities. It's important for them to know that there are health departments, there is the Greene County Sheriff's Office or other sheriff's offices. There's school nursing there's so many other opportunities for nursing students, and it's not just. From their perspective, it's from those community members. They need people to come and meet them where they are at.

Dr. Cindi Aurentz: 5:08

We can be pretty intense. We're good at our jobs, and we will take care of people. We want to help in as many ways as we can, and so a lot of nurses do volunteer and give back to their communities.

Charles Whitaker: 5:19

And this is where I felt the conversation went from simply promoting an academic program to one about how a group of faculty will do anything they can to see their students succeed, because they know you really can't have this conversation without facing the realities of nursing. It's a job that, while potentially fulfilling, must stand up to ridiculously long hours and often a thanklessness by the very patients it works so very hard to care for. Shade and Aurentz got very real with me about this.

Maria Shade: 5:46

It's never nine to five, it's it's six to six and and I think with that, knowing how grueling it is, we need to instill in our nursing students, especially because that's who we have, that there is reward for the other things that they do. They may not be happy with their immediate situation, their immediate floor that they work on, the management, sometimes the patients and the families are very, very challenging in many ways, but they need to remember their why. Why did they go into this in the first place and make sure that they are continually fill, filling that cup of their why? And I think that's what I mean by evolving into a whole person. Because it's not just, you know, work life balance, it's also psychosocial, spiritual balance.

Dr. Cindi Aurentz: 6:48

Burnout is a real issue in nursing, moral injury, it's a problem. And up to 30% of new nurses are leaving the profession within the first two years, and that's a really scary statistic, and I think if you if you're there just for the paycheck, and if you're there just to check off a list of tasks, and you don't go into it with the mindset that you really do gain a lot from helping other people, that you're gonna burn out faster.

Charles Whitaker: 7:20

And let's hear both of them explain just how much nurses do that goes unseen and doesn't show up on the proverbial stat sheet.

Maria Shade: 7:27

Before I started my initial nursing program, I thought that nurses fluffed pillows and filled the water pitchers. I honestly thought that's what nurses did. And then, of course, you know, being in nursing school totally taught me that that was not the case, but something that I've learned. I am very proud of my ability, and I hope that our nursing students are graduating with this ability of being able to look at someone and determine"what's going on with you," you know? So it's almost like that intuition of "you don't look like you did yesterday. What's going on?" Let's look at the labs and being able to focus on those trends, as we like to use trends in the nursing program. But that is something that I have always valued. And I remember being working in an ICU, a surgical ICU, and there was another nurse there with me, and I kind of cocked my head and listened, and I said that patient over there, your patient is trying to get out his breathing tube. And she's like, how do you know that I said, I can hear the change in the breathing. I can, I can hear it. And we went in, and, yeah, he almost had the breathing tube out, so we had to, you know, get on that and fix it and and all of that. So it's not just the tasks, which is what you know, the world at large thinks we do, but it's also that those those points that you can't see us doing, it's, it's that intuition that we have.

Dr. Cindi Aurentz: 9:09

When you see an image, you know, like in Covid, when you saw those images of people on with, you know, five IV pumps in the room and multiple drips, and you know who's managing those is the nurse. Nurses are the ones carrying out those treatments, and you have to be knowledgeable and precise and accurate and and you've got to get it right, because everything we do could potentially harm someone. And so I think the the knowing, and you know, as an experienced nurse, I know how much nurses know and how skilled they are, but I think sometimes the public may see us more as like you know, the old term was the handmade. Into the doctor that's really kind of, you know what? What I think some of the public still sees nurses as doing, instead of being the skilled professionals that we are.

Charles Whitaker: 10:13

Unfortunately, nursing might be facing deeper concerns than just misinformed perceptions. Listen to what worries Shade and Aurentz, and then we'll wrap back around to

Maria Shade: 10:21

What worries me about the field of nursing is solutions. that it's may not be attractive--as attractive as it used to be our our nursing faculty workforce is aging, as is our nursing workforce is aging, so we really need an influx of new people joining the profession, because there are typically more applicants than we have space for and that is directly related to how many people can teach. Also the incivility toward nurses, and not just from outside factors, family members, etc, but lateral incivility.

Dr. Cindi Aurentz: 11:08

I would agree with what Maria said. And you know, workplace violence is is a problem and something that has to change. It's driving people out of the profession. Another thing is staffing. We do have a shortage, mainly because so many people are leaving. We can't keep up with the attrition and and all the things that we've talked about contribute to that. You know that workplace violence and incivility, and you know sometimes you could say low pay and the hours I think are are hard. It's really hard to work a 12 hour shift that typically turns into a 14 hour day easily.

Charles Whitaker: 11:50

So what's the solution here? How do professors like Maria Shade and Dr. Cindy Aurentz balance preparing their students for the challenges they'll face while also keeping their spirits up and oh, on top of all of that, doing what they can to improve the profession as a whole. Aurentz says it starts with applying the practice to the community.

Dr. Cindi Aurentz: 12:08

When students go out and do their clinical practicums, they're usually with an instructor or another nurse, and they are being observed and watched and they're learning on site, but they're not really providing a service that someone else isn't already providing. They're just there to tag along. So when we do service-learning, we really are helping to fill a need in the community. At the same time they're learning and they're developing some of those people skills, communication, you know, empathy, like I said before, and realizing that people struggle. Everybody has struggles, and when you can make a difference in someone's life by recognizing a problem or a need that's so fulfilling.

Charles Whitaker: 12:59

Now let's listen to Shade talk about how the vision screening program is one of the ways that they get students going in a solid direction.

Maria Shade: 13:05

Well, I think the ones that are not service-learning are their mandatory clinical hours that they typically get in an acute hospital setting. And the service-learning hours are also counted as clinical hours for my course that is participating in the vision screening program, and that involves going out into the community today, day cares and schools, and doing vision screenings with the specialized cameras that are available, and trying to make sure that the students in school have good eye health, or if needs are found through the through the cameras, to alert the parents and give them an opportunity to have their children see a physician. It's not an ophthalmology appointment, it's a it's a screening tool. So provide them with the opportunity or an alert that you know, possibly your your child need glass--needs glasses.

Charles Whitaker: 14:11

Citizenship and Service-Learning has a wealth of information and resources about the vision screening program, including stuff about how over a 100,000 people have been screened or info on the high tech gear that's used, such as handheld diagnostic cameras and scene devices that feel like they're right out of Star Trek, and stories about how detecting vision problems in a child can be absolutely life changing. Seriously, go check that out when you got a minute. It's fascinating. But in the meantime, I wanted to learn more about what nursing faculty are observing from their students experiences. You know, do they like it? Do they see the benefits? Or is it seen as yet another hurdle that they have to jump over? Let's get back to Aurentz on this one,

Dr. Cindi Aurentz: 14:49

When they're sort of independent, they're very autonomous out there, when they're doing the vision screenings, and they're adapting to different environments, and they're really taking ownership of their role as a future nurse, and we have them reflect. And one student said, I really, I finally felt like a nurse out there.

Maria Shade: 15:10

Let me jump forward a bit with Aurentz here, because you should listen to what she says next about how opportunities in the community help students in their journeys to become nurses.

Dr. Cindi Aurentz: 15:19

We are incredibly educated, incredibly skilled, and have to know a lot of things. Keeping people safe is really important. And I think that when they think about the experience of service-learning, and they know that they're doing something that truly does allow them to help other people. They're not only meeting the mission and vision of Missouri State University, because we're closely aligned with that in our nursing program, but they're also just really gaining the mindset. You know, I had a student who said, in one of her reflections, she said that she really changed someone's life. She felt like she changed someone's life because they picked up on a child who had really poor vision and really recognized that that this was life changing for people, and I think it can really sort of seed that idea helping people through these hard things and making someone's life better can be the motivator, the why.

Charles Whitaker: 16:36

First, Aurentz and Shade observed that nursing requires a lot of skill and often encounters challenges that someone like me, currently snuggled comfortably behind a couple of bright, shiny computer monitors will never fully understand. But second, they made it clear that the effort to offer future nurses hands on experiences in the community can prove to students that this is what they are meant to do despite the challenges, it's like they found the key to unlocking new doors for their students, and they're so obviously excited to share it. Here they are talking about what makes them hopeful for the future of the profession:

Maria Shade: 17:07

I am still confident that nursing is a fantastic opportunity for growth, both personal and economically. And I think if someone considers going into nursing, they they won't regret it. It is a very satisfying profession.

Dr. Cindi Aurentz: 17:31

There are so many nurses who are seeking advanced degrees, who are getting engaged, who want to see things get better. You know, I just had a meeting this morning with the Center for Missouri Nurses, which is the foundation section of the Missouri Nurses Association. And we had, I think, 13 applicants for the board, for board positions. And the applicants were just incredibly educated and skilled. And I'm--that just warmed my heart, because I know that so many wonderful people want to help to make nursing better.

Charles Whitaker: 18:18

To cap this all off, we'd be missing something if we didn't talk about what's next. Dr. Aurentz described the accelerated nursing program at Missouri State that can get students in and out in 15 months. And Shade added on with a description of the BSN completion program, which gives current nurses the ability to complete their degree in a primarily online environment. Details about this and more are on the School of Nursing Missouri State webpage, Dr. Aurentz also had an encouraging note that specifically addressed the funding concerns a lot of potential nurses have when they are exploring.

Dr. Cindi Aurentz: 18:49

So there's more opportunities to get into nursing school than ever before. Also, there is still funding. I don't want people to be scared by some of the budget cuts that have been happening. Get out there and talk to those you know, our clinical partners here in town or wherever you're from, you know, if you want to be a nurse, there's ways to make it happen. There's funding. Don't let that part keep you from going to nursing school, because there there are monies available.

Charles Whitaker: 19:21

As nursing continues navigating its modern challenges that I mentioned at the start. I think it's helpful to remember that there are real people behind the profession who spend years learning how to combine a heart for service with skill. Here's Aurentz one more time on that subject:

Dr. Cindi Aurentz: 19:35

You know you can be a professional and you can do your work that you do and be the best that you can be. And, you know, incorporate evidence based practice, and, you know, be a safe nurse, but you've got to fill your cup and be, I think, growing that part of us. That continues to want to serve.

Charles Whitaker: 20:06

Many thanks to Dr. Cindy Aurentz and Maria Shade for taking the time to chat with me about this topic. I felt like I got a bit more insight into the world of nursing, and I hope by listening that you did too. If you want to learn more about the school of nursing or service-learning, links will be in the description. Check them out. You'll find lots of info as well as friendly, passionate and knowledgeable people along the way. My name is Charles Whitaker. I work as a writer and editor at Missouri State University, sharing research and stories about the public affairs Mission in action until next time. Take care.