SNHCL Newsletter - Spring 2024, Issue 30

Message from the Dean

Greetings UWT SNHCL Community!

April 1st (no fooling!) marked one year since I was appointed Dean of the School of Nursing & Healthcare Leadership – how time flies! As I reflect on the past year, I am grateful for the opportunity to lead our school with a team of dedicated faculty and staff. This month we celebrate National Nurses Week, and so a shout out to our nursing faculty, students and alumni! I want to also recognize a couple of our school’s amazing student leaders. First, Kalea Velasco-Cosare who served as SNHCL’s Student Senator this past academic year. Congratulations to HCL student Holly Wetzel who serves as ASUWT President, and was selected as one of seven UWT students selected for the University of Washington’s Husky 100 for 2024. Congratulations to both Kalea and Holly for their inspiring leadership and service!

It has been a busy year as we launched the new MN curriculum and continue to engage in our academic planning efforts to offer a pre-licensure BSN program and develop a DNP degree program. While there are many steps to take before this happens, I want to acknowledge the work of key individuals who are helping to lead these efforts: Dr. Sunny Cheng (BSN Program Committee Chair), Dr. Anne Mulligan (Pre-licensure BSN Program Coordinator), Jessica Immerman (Academic Services Director), and Dr. Christine Stevens (Graduate Program Committee Chair).

The end of the academic year will bring transitions among our faculty. We will be saying farewell to Associate Professor Dr. Susan Johnson, who is retiring, and Clinical Placement Coordinator Shamay Thomas who will be pursuing other professional opportunities. We wish them both the very best in the future!

Despite the departure of our colleagues, we will be welcoming two new assistant professor faculty members this fall. Joining SNHCL this fall are Dr. Jodi Erickson, PhD, RN, CNE, CNL, and Dr. Leo Labrague, RN, DM, PhD, CNE. Dr. Erickson may be familiar to you as she formerly taught as a part-time lecturer from 2016-2000 and comes to us from Pacific Lutheran University. She brings diverse professional nursing experience working in home health, long-term and adult care, critical care, and healthcare management and leadership. Dr. Labrague comes to us from Loyola University in Chicago, Illinois, with over 20 years of teaching undergraduate and graduate nursing students, including in the Philippines and Oman. Dr. Labrague’s expertise spans nursing administration, fundamentals of nursing practice, health assessment, nursing research, and advanced clinical nursing. We look forward to their joining us this fall!

By the time this newsletter is published, spring quarter will soon be over, and we will be celebrating the accomplishments of our school’s BAHCL, BSN, and MN classes of 2024. Our school’s Gonfalon (banner carrier) will be student Senator Kalea Velasco-Cosare. This year’s Commencement and graduation ceremony will be held on Friday, June 9th at the Tacoma Dome. It will be an un-ticketed event to allow all who want to celebrate with graduates to attend. I hope you will join me on this special day! 

In community…

David Reyes, DNP, RN

Dean, UW Tacoma School of Nursing and Healthcare Leadership

Kaisha Walker

Stay Focused and Don't be Afraid to Ask Questions

Living in Tacoma, Kaisha Walker had always been a Husky fan. When she decided to go back to school for her Bachelor’s degree, Kaisha looked up majors on UW Tacoma’s website and thought the School of Nursing and Healthcare Leadership’s Bachelor of Arts in Healthcare program would be a good fit for her. Kaisha started working in the healthcare sector in 2017 when she got a job with UW Medicine as a patient access representative, a position she ended up doing for five years. She later took on a different role for the State of Washington working to improve the health of Washingtonians. Kaisha hopes to combine her work experience along with her BAHCL degree to return to work in the hospital or clinic setting. After completing her BAHCL degree at the end of Spring ’24 Quarter and working for a few years, she hopes to get a leadership role doing something she enjoys and making a difference. 

Since Kaisha has always had a passion for numbers and math, she would love to be placed in a finance department within the healthcare sector during her upcoming fieldwork. Although math comes second nature to Kaisha, she is also a people person so she is open to opportunities other than just the finance side of healthcare. 

Kaisha thinks the BAHCL program is well-rounded and all the classes are great. She loves that the BAHCL program touches on a little of everything and that students obtain knowledge from many different areas such as finance, marketing, some legal issues in healthcare, and overall leadership. Students will have to get used to the expectations set by the professors. Different professors make different impacts. Working full-time and studying full-time while being a wife and raising two children has been a challenge, however, she has achieved a 3.98 GPA while juggling all this and having her second child during her second year of the program. She contributes her success to having a good support system and good communication with advisors and professors.

Kaisha thinks professor-student evaluations are beneficial and helpful for both the professor and the student. As long as the evaluations from the students are taken into consideration and looked at as constructive criticism, she thinks the BAHCL program will continue to excel. 

She has had some amazing professors in the program and especially liked being challenged by Dr. Sharon Laing. Kaisha appreciated Dr. Laing giving ample opportunity to give further explanations when or if the students did not understand the material. Kaisha would also like to give kudos to Dr. Tim Feagan and Dr. Sunny Cheng. She does not have any complaints about any of the professors within this program.

Kaisha recommends to future BAHCL students:

-    If able, start out doing the BAHCL program full-time. This is a cohort-based program and some of these courses are available only once a year.
-    Stay focused.
-    Keep your notes since the program builds upon what you have already learned in previous quarters.
-    Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Someone else in your class may have the same question.
-    Utilize the people and resources around you in order to succeed.
-    Don’t be afraid to lean on your classmates and build relationships. They are the true rock stars!

Would you like to learn more about our BAHCL student, Kaisha Walker? 

Listen to our Podcast:  SNHCL Meet & Greet on May 15, 2024! 

Madie Brown

Mentoring Students in the Area of Health Promotion

Madie Brown is the Health Promotion Specialist and Confidential Victim’s Advocate at UW Tacoma. She oversees Student Health including Student Health Services, Confidential Advocacy, UW Tacoma’s compliance with the tri-campus immunization requirement, health education and harm reduction initiatives, and Psychological and Wellness Services (PAWS) outreach such as:

• Anti-stigma and strengths-based efforts related to mental health
• PAWS and mental health resource awareness building
• Activities that promote mental health understanding and skill building
   

Health promotion and health communication have come naturally to Madie. She enjoys helping people understand as well as maintain and enhance their well-being while taking into account human related theories and best practices. There are certain models and ways of doing health promotion which she found very interesting. 

Madie embraces the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s wellness wheel model and has rebranded it at UW Tacoma as the Hendrix Wellness Wheel as a foundation for student health promotion work across the spectrum of preventive strategies that she implements. This wheel has eight dimensions of health:  social, occupational, financial, environmental, physical, intellectual, spiritual, and emotional. This wheel recognizes that health involves many moving parts sometimes outside of our control.  Madie wanted to work at a place where it was recognized that health is holistic.

Madie loves working with students as well as mentoring students in the area of health promotion. She enjoys helping students learn hands on skills in health promotion such as project management skills, assessment skills, data collection strategies, and how to use data to plan and implement initiatives and then evaluate for future needs such as continuing a program and proposals for leadership.

Most recently, she mentored Holly Wetzel, the President of Associated Students of UW Tacoma (ASUWT), to bring a NARCAN program to UW Tacoma’s campus. She worked with Holly for a year to make this possible. Since Holly wanted to assist Madie in an area that was needed for her programs, Madie decided that Holly could participate in drug prevention work by helping to bring NARCAN to UW Tacoma. Holly’s internship was a proposal for providing NARCAN on campus. Her research and assessment showed that there was a need for NARCAN on campus and a good level of acceptance showing that campus culture would support having NARCAN at UW Tacoma. 

Madie provided mentorship to Holly on how she could guide Bachelor of Arts in Healthcare Leadership (BAHCL) students in Dr. Christine’s social marketing class conduct research. Holly and Madie set objectives for the BAHCL students. Holly led them through question development and educated them on analyzing data and providing recommendations based on their data. Holly provided guidance and leadership on how to transcribe data and gave expectations on what she needed on their analysis of data via a research lens. Madie and Holly used this data to start the NARCAN program in Autumn 2023. NARCAN program users are required to view a NARCAN training video before picking up NARCAN in a brown paper bag with instructions. As of mid-February 2024, 20 people have used the program. Madie considers the NARCAN program successful and extremely beneficial for campus.

Madie is also co-chairing with Holly Wetzel the Husky Health Coalition to establish a goal of making UW Tacoma a well-being focused campus by June 2025. Madie is working with students to manage initiatives of student health and work on tasks on behalf of the Husky Health Coalition. Their work includes conducting focus groups on certain materials that the Husky Health Coalition has developed and managing the mental health promotion campaign process. Madie will also be training students and staff in certified Mental Health First Aid this year. She would love for the BAHCL students to take on Sexual Health programs and overall marketing and social media when Madie is a preceptor for BAHCL students’ fieldwork this spring. She will work with them in areas of project management so that they can work toward the Husky Health Coalition’s objectives:

1)    Incorporate well-being into the student experience.
2)    Engage campus partners in collaborative health promotion efforts. 
3)    Increase opportunities for information sharing.

Would you like to learn more about our community partner, Madie Brown? 

Listen to our Podcast:  SNHCL Meet & Greet on May 15, 2024! 

Shallae Hobbs

Serving Others Through Public Service so They Can be Their Best Selves

Shallae Hobbs is the Director of Health Services for the Tacoma Public Schools. She oversees a team of about 58 RNs and LPNs that serve students throughout the Tacoma School District. Shallae earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Pacific Lutheran University (PLU) and Master of Nursing from the School of Nursing and Healthcare Leadership (SNHCL) and Program Administrator Certificate at UW Tacoma. She is also a member of SNHCL’s Clinical and Affiliate Faculty.

In SNHCL’s Master of Nursing (MN) program, Ms. Hobbs made a lot of great connections and relationships. The MN program helped her develop research and best practices, create partnerships in the community, and opened doors for her to meet individuals in the Tacoma School District paving a pathway for her current career. Everything she learned in the Master of Nursing program was immediately practicable. Every project that she did was school health related. She focused on community health and leadership, and did social work that was K-12 centered. 

Since there is not a professional development standard or model for school nurses, Shallae is trying to create a network of support for Tacoma Public School nurses and the greater school nurse community within Pierce County. She started a professional development series, created an online platform for their nurses, and established partnerships with MultiCare, Pacific Lutheran University, and UW Tacoma. She started doing this about nine years ago. Right before COVID, she began the Pierce County School Nurse Leads that includes Administrators & Directors of Nurses in public schools, community providers, and the health authority. She has invited other nursing directors of nursing disciplines in Pierce County and also has provided training for school nurses in Tacoma School District and Pierce County. In this way, they are not working in silos.

Shallae is working on how school districts can create partnerships with providers to help close communication gaps and minimize health related barriers for students. This has helped create partnerships with nurses and local providers in the community while growing a very robust professional development program for the school nurses. They are currently partnering with UW Tacoma to train their school nurses in a mental health series. Some other examples of professional development series that were implemented were about supporting students with diabetes, using technology, and looking at mental health and chronic disease management. Shallae has also partnered with Multicare nurses who brought their equipment and allowed school nurses to get hands on experience which was called “Skills Day”.

Shallae started a school-based health center coalition for Tacoma Public Schools and Pierce County. Collaborating with partners in Pierce County, the coalition’s goal is to provide school-based health clinics in every region in each district so that students can access healthcare that they need without barriers. She would like to include mental and behavioral health, vision, hearing, dental and other services that will help students be academically successful. Members of the coalition established a health clinic at Mount Tahoma High School over a year ago that provides services three days a week. The coalition is now working to open another health clinic at Lincoln High School in June 2024. The coalition hopes to minimize negative health outcomes and absenteeism and provide wrap around services. 

Additionally, Shallae is still connected to PLU and teaches the ESA (Educational Staff Associate) program at PLU for school nurses to get certified.

Shallae would like to help K-12 students become successful learners and support school nurses in anyway she can. She wants to bring in great nurses, partnerships, and professional development to Tacoma Public Schools so that they can continue to improve the school nursing field. 

Would you like to learn more about our MN Alum, Shallae Hobbs? 

Listen to our Podcast:  SNHCL Meet & Greet on May 15, 2024! 

Patsy Maloney

Education, the Gift that Pays Forward

Dr. Patsy Maloney, aka Patsy, was the first person in her family to progress beyond the 8th grade. Books and school were an escape for her. She loved science, schoolwork and reading biographies. However, education was considered a waste of time in her family because it interfered with the daily work of surviving and could fill her with big ideas, making her think she was better than her kin. Heeding her family’s concerns, she grew to believe education does not make you better than those without the opportunity but is a gift that requires paying forward.

Motivated by the promise of an education, Dr. Maloney joined the Army at 18. The Army promised a scholarship and a salary. Patsy thought she would do Army nursing temporarily, but it ended up being a perfect fit for her, and the Army honored its promise, so she stayed in the Army for 24 years. For 20 of those years, she was a nurse. Patsy worked in various clinical specialties, including pediatrics, obstetrics, med-surg, critical care, and emergency nursing, which was her favorite and in which she is still certified. Dr. Maloney's love affair with nursing blossomed in the emergency department, which required collective competency and teamwork to save lives and limbs.  

While in the Army, Dr. Maloney was a nurse manager, chief nurse, and training officer for an evacuation hospital, interim chief nurse of a major medical center, and chief of a nursing development department. During her Army nursing career, she earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Maryland – Walter Reed Army Institute of Nursing, both a Master of Science in Nursing and Master of Arts in Behavioral Science from Catholic University, and a Doctor of Education from the University of Southern California. Patsy retired from the Army to become a faculty member and the Director of the Center for Continued Nursing Learning at Pacific Lutheran University, where she was honored with Professor Emeritus upon retiring to join the faculty at UW Tacoma School of Nursing and Healthcare Leadership.

Although Dr. Maloney has worked in many specialties, leadership and nursing professional development have been threaded throughout her career and are her areas of scholarship. Patsy is certified in nursing professional development and as an advanced nursing executive. Her studies are always done as part of a team. The most recently completed study, the Association for Nursing Professional Development (ANPD) Preceptor Competency Consensus Study, took over four years. It was an important study, achieving expert consensus on the competencies needed for preceptors that will serve to inform preceptor development programs. Although Dr. Maloney has other studies ongoing, her greatest impact is through publications. She has co-edited the Nursing Professional Development (NPD) Scope and Standards 3rd and 4th editions, and for the NPD Core Curriculum, she has authored a chapter or been a section editor for the 3rd, 4th, 5th & 6th editions. She is also the column editor for the Journal of Nurses in Professional Development’s Scope and Standards Column. Dr. Maloney’s experience and research provide rich examples to bring concepts to life in the classroom.

Patsy loves teaching, and the students inspire her through the diversity and lived experiences they bring to the classroom. This year she teaches the graduate practicum courses, the business and finance course for healthcare leaders, and the healthcare leadership course.

In order for students to be successful during their programs and after they graduate, Dr. Maloney shared, “Success in class requires engagement in the course and the learning community. After graduation, I encourage students to work in settings whose values align with their values and to fully engage in the work.”

In addition to teaching and being actively involved in research, Dr. Maloney serves on SNHCL’s graduate program committee and co-chairs the faculty search committee. She also chairs the Pierce County Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Training and Development Committee. Most of her professional service is with ANPD. Dr. Maloney is a past president of ANPD and teaches ANPD’s certification preparation course both virtually and in person. 

Would you like to learn more about our faculty, Dr. Patsy Maloney? 

Listen to our Podcast:  SNHCL Meet & Greet on May 15, 2024! 

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