University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center
| By Lauren Cruse, HSC Public Affairs Office |
The University of New Mexico College of Nursing (CoN) is hard at work continuing its mission to provide nursing students quality, cutting-edge education. The CoN is not alone in this effort though as University of New Mexico Hospitals (UNMH) continue to be an essential partner by offering its facilities and expert employees to students eager to gain clinical nursing experiences.
UNMH and the CoN have been working together for years to implement programs that allow students to learn in a clinical setting before graduating on to professional roles. With these programs, UNMH has helped the CoN continue its goal to expand the size of the nursing class while maintaining the quality and outcomes of the baccalaureate nursing program.
One program at UNMH that has been a huge success for the CoN is the Master Teacher/Master Clinician (MT/MC) model. This model was first developed by the CoN Dean Sandra Ferketich six years ago as a creative pilot to initiate a collaborative partnership for the education of nursing students between the CoN and UNMH.
The MT/MC model incorporates a CoN faculty member (Master Teacher), who is the teaching and curriculum liaison for the master’s prepared hospital clinician (Master Clinician). The Master Clinician has the primary responsibility of teaching a group of clinical nursing students. UNMH currently provides up to 10 employees as Master Clinicians per semester for this program.
The nursing internship is another great program that has given students an opportunity for hands-on clinical experience at UNMH while they complete their classroom courses at the College.
As an intern, students are under the direct supervision of a registered nurse and begin to practice nursing skills, including patient assessment, medication administration and implementation of the nursing process. Students who participate in the internship also receive hands-on instruction from clinical education professionals in the Basic Advanced Trauma Computer Assisted Virtual Experience (BATCAVE) facility. Nursing students must be in their senior year at the CoN to take part in the internship, and meet with fellow interns and CoN faculty to integrate their skill acquisition with academic and theoretical concepts.
UNMH Chief Nursing Officer, Judy Spinella, strongly supports the clinical education of UNM nursing students and as one of the hospital’s leaders, views the collaboration between UNMH and the CoN as a necessity in order to provide more quality nurses to the state of New Mexico and to UNMH.
“In coming to UNMH, it was my pleasure to find the Nursing Division already working in collaboration with the College of Nursing,” said Spinella. “Leaders from both sides have worked on revising the Joint Operating Plan and meet quarterly to review our progress in this collaboration. It is extremely important that we capitalize on our unique strengths as an academic medical center and to work together to provide stellar educational opportunities for current and future nursing professionals. Together we can optimize patient care access and outcomes for the citizens of and visitors to our state.”
Dean Ferketich is grateful for the support from UNMH and believes the partnership is very important to the College’s growth. The CoN is currently working toward doubling its enrollment, but continuing funds and the hiring of more faculty members are severely needed to support the increase in student numbers. While the CoN strives to receive extra funding and faculty, UNMH continue to assist the College by giving students an environment filled with clinical learning opportunities.
“UNMH has given the College of Nursing such outstanding support,” said Ferketich. “Our proposal for continuing funding to double enrollment makes good sense. Nurses are the largest proportion of health care providers and impact access to care. Upon graduation, our students find jobs in New Mexico (80 percent retention), and become productive citizens and taxpayers as well as excellent nurses.”
For more information on the UNM CoN, visit http://hsc.unm.edu/consg/.
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