Prizes in Cereal Boxes

On Wednesday, November 28th 2007 I finished my very last NEST class and earned my graduate certificate as Nurse Educator. That afternoon I made my last curriculum presentation using nothing but cereal boxes, rubber bands, and stuffed crust pizza. Now that I think about it, it's kinda funny; I really did get my teaching certificate out of a cereal box!
After that class the teacher presented us with cupcakes that had little flags sticking out of the top of them that said "Congratulations Nurse Educator." It was actually kind of endearing. That day I walked into University of Washington as a nurse and walked out as a nurse educator. As I was hiking across campus that dark raining afternoon, I couldn't help but think of how oddly anticlimactic that actually was... It's not really a bad thing, or even a big thing, it's just a thing.
I drove off campus and treated myself to a sandwich. After that I went to a Bible study,it was the first time I had gone to a Bible study since I started graduate school and I couldn't have thought of a better way to celebrate.
But don't worry folks, this isn't the end. That was only the certificate I finished, I still have to defend my thesis before I get the degree!

Stuffed Crust Pizza, Cereal Boxes and Rubberbands Oh My!

Question: What can you make out of cereal boxes, stuffed crust pizza and rubber bands?
Answer: A very "innovative" lesson on coronary artery disease.
Yesterday I had to teach a lesson on coronary artery disease in a post clinical conference. The problem was that I would be teaching the class in a room that had only a white board. In a world where everyone expects a PowerPoint that can be a very challenging task indeed.
So... a couple of hours on Monday night and a few bowls of cereal later, I found myself wiring a giant cardboard sternum. After adding a clavicle, a humorous, a scapula, and a couple of rubber bands; I had a model with which to demonstrate the importance of sternal precautions. Add to that a stuffed crust pizza as an illustration of arterial plaque and a story about a beer bellied, bare chested football fan and you've got yourself a lesson.

My Office Runneth Over

My office has been taken over by several hundred pounds of donated medical supplies!
Most of these supplies have come to be by private donors via my mom who just so happens to be the receptionist at World Vision. She gets Several calls a week from individuals who want to donate left over medical supplies to charity. World Vision is unable to accept these donations as they are not bulk so mom sends them to me.
Sadly, most of these people are families who have had a loved one with a terminal illness who has just recently passed away. It's important for these folks to find a way to help others through the death of thier loved one as it is a part of the healing process and it honors the memory thier family member. Just a few days ago a women dropped off several large boxes of medical supplies that were left over from her daughter. She also wrote me a beautiful letter with a picture of her daughter. That night I wrote an email to my friend Julie in Rwanda regarding the supplies. I wasn't too sure what she could use there at Kibogora but praise the Lord, it turns out I had just recieved some supplies that are apparently very needed and extremely hard to get in Rwanda! What a joy it was to be able to write a letter to a greiving mother to tell her where these supplies are going and how they are helping others! Last year I had a similair such situation with a family who had lost a loved one. It turns out that we were able to take nearly all of those supplies with us to Mexico City to donate to the clinic that we worked in. I have so many amazing stories about those supplies and we used them.
Sometimes it's a little ackward for me to meet these people, pick up supplies, or talk with them over the phone but I'm begining to realize that in a way it a true ministry.

Rwanda or Bust!

I've been working on my thesis/scholarly project for a couple of months now. My original plan was to create a curriculum for an advanced medical surgical nursing class which I would then teach during spring semester. The proposal for the class had gone through the office of the Provost, gotten approved and had been added to the course catalog. I had written a syllabus, a course outline, and a couple lesson plans when situations beyond my control swallowed up my project. Despite heroic efforts for its resuscitation, I was unable to revive it. I was three days from a deadline and was without a project proposal and no time to get over the nearly disabling disappointment of loosing my previous project. This had the potential to be a major setback pushing my graduation date further away.
To make a long story short (which I'm beginning to think I'm incapable of doing) an amazing opportunity came up for a project in Rwanda. Last year a former teacher had introduced me a young missionary nurse bound for Rwanda. Julie was about to leave the US for Rwanda where she would work as nurse educator in a large mission hospital there. The two of us had been emailing back and forth since last February.
The hospital in Rwanda has just recently opened an emergency room. Since this hospital has never before had an ER the nurses have had little exposure to what we would call ER nursing.
I was invited to develop a training program that helps prepare nurses to work in the ER. The only easy part about this project is getting excited about it, the rest of it is going to be quite the challenge. First of all I had to present this idea to my thesis advisor to get it approved. I am perfectly aware that the whole idea seems absolutely crazy so I knew that getting it approved would be no easy task.
We did it! On November 3rd at 0400 am my project was given the go ahead. It was rather amazing because I was at work and able to be on my email, Rwanda is 9 hours ahead of us, and my advisor was in Japan at the time which is 16 hours ahead (I think). So... with 15 emails, lots of prayer and three hours my project was approved on the very day of it's first deadline. I now had 20 hours left for a literature review and more formal proposal.
During those three hours of trying to get my project passed my advisor asked "what do you know about emergency medicine in resource constrained areas of the world?" When I told her about some of my rather random sounding experiences she emailed me back with: OK, you've convinced me that you have the experience to do this. Both you and I know that there is no "strange way" that all of this is unfolding. If you feel like God is leading you this way, go for it!" So here I am, going for it. I'll keep you all posted as the details develop.

The Perks of Living and Working in the Northwest

I've always been a "come early to work" kind of gal ever since my first job at the swimming pool. Even after all these years my coworkers from the previous shift always find it necessary to comment on my early arrival. I leave early on purpose to avoid traffic and have some time to relax before work. In the Spring, Summer, and early Fall before it gets dark; I like to take walks around the campus and arboretum before starting my 12 shift.
University of Washington Medical Center just so happens to be right next to the oceanography building and right on the ship canal. A few days ago as I was walking by this is what I saw:

After watching the fish for awhile I decided to pick up the pace a little on my walking a get some exercise to help we muster up enough energy for the night ahead. They say taking the stairs in a great way to get exercise but it's 10 times more fun outside and next to water. I call this the "Stress Test":

I've certainly noticed a difference how I alert I am during the shift and even my attitude toward working on days when I have a nice walk and days that I don't. I'm thankful that I work at a place that is so interesting to walk around.

Thanksgiving Just a Little Early

The last day of July I got an email in UW mailbox saying that all UW employee's who have used a certain amount of tuition exemption in the last year will be taxed for the worth of the tuition as if it were income. For graduate student who took classes every quarter including summer, that amounts to quite a bit. What's even worse was that we would be taxed for a years worth of tuition all in the month of August. Of course I had just quit my ambulance job and my renter had just gotten married and moved out. My paycheck for August turned out less than half of what it usually is!
A few weeks later one of the clinical instructors at Northwest tripped and broke her ankle while a t clinicals. While that is terribly unfortunate and I would never wish that to happen, it did give me a contract for this semester at NU. It's by no means a whole lot of money, but just enough to pay to bills. It's amazing how God provides!

The Exploitation of Graduate Students

I just realized I hadn't posted in a while and thought that I should at least type a quick something. Truth be told I can't really think of anything that exciting to say. However, sometimes we just need a platform to vent. I thought that this might be the answer as I don't think many people read this on a regular basis and you can always choose not to read it.
The other day I was talking with one of the full time faculty members at Northwest. She discussing a conference she wanted to go to but the conference was during school hours and was a several day event. She went on to say that this seems to happen frequently; a great conference of nursing faculty comes up but it's always during school hours. "How can anyone attend these conferences?"
The answer is simple, it's all about the exploitation of graduate students... "Mentor" a graduate student and then make them teach your class while you go and do your "research" and poster presentations. It's all about cheap (free in most cases) labor.
So... School has started for me once again. This quarter I'm taking 9 credits, five of them are teaching credits and 4 are related to my thesis. I tried to get my clinical teaching hours back at Northwest but I was told by UW that they wanted to keep me here. I met with my new mentor on Monday (who incidentally has 2 of us grad. students) and we devised a schedule for my clinical hours. I would work in the lab on Mondays and teach clinical on an occasional Tuesday. Thinking that I actually had a bit of a jump on things and had worked out my schedule to accommodate this, I was actually starting to get a little excited about what I might learn this quarter.
So Tuesday morning I made my way to clinical orientation. Tuesday night I went to work and after work I went to school ALL DAY LONG.
While in my education class my colleague (fellow grad with the same mentor) and I were approached by our instructor who told use we could no longer work in the lab and must do our hours teaching clinical at Swedish hospital cherry hill campus on Tuesdays. BLIN! So you mean to tell me that I have to teach somebody else's clinical all day Tuesday then go work that night and school the next morning. After 27 hours of no sleep and thinking about everything that has happened to me in this program, it certainly looks like I'm being sought out for trouble. I almost wanted to say: "And when were you going to tell me this? Would you like to call my boss and tell him why I won't be coming to work on Tuesday or would you like me to skip your class?" I'm inclined to think that this scheduling might be a whole lot easier for everyone if I could just go back from whenst I came and do my clinical teaching at Northwest. I would rather be exploited by them anyway.
On a positive I was invited to be on the curriculum committee at Northwest. I'm hoping that this will also give me some insight and experience with curriculum development and evaluation that will help me with my thesis and this quarters teaching project.