Discussing the Value of Professional Development in Nursing Education

Naomi Fox: Hello, welcome to the NPD Forecast. I’m Naomi Fox, Director of Education at ANPD.

Stephanie Zidek: And I’m Stephanie Zidek, a current member of the ANPD Board of Directors and also serving as a Director of Nursing Education and Professional Development at a large health system.

Naomi Fox: We are your hosts of the NPD Forecast podcast. We are nurses and nursing professional development specialists and are passionate about providing you with information that will spark ideas, provide you with a sense of community, and motivate you to continue to excel in NPD practice. The NPD Forecast seeks to deliver topics that are relevant to assessing current needs reflective of the healthcare climate, as well as environmental scanning to forecast future trends for NPD practice.

Today’s episode discusses The Ohio State University’s program, the Doctor of Nursing Education (DNE), and key change agents for the program.

Our first guest is Dr. Tara Spalla King. She’s the director of the Doctor of Nursing Education Program. Dr. King has experience in acute care nursing practice and nursing education, and is an experienced on-site evaluator for the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education, a team leader, and an accreditation review committee member. She is a peer reviewer and member of the editorial board for the Journal of Nursing Education, a national publication, and is a peer reviewer for Nursing Education and Practice, a publication based in the UK. Dr. King’s prior research activity focuses on utilizing web conferencing technology to connect disparate groups of college students and their faculty.

Currently, she mentors faculty in global education projects utilizing collaborative online international learning. Dr. King was the principal investigator for a national needs assessment for terminal degrees for nurse educators and led curriculum development for a novel terminal degree, Doctor of Nursing Education. And she is currently the director of the DNE program.

Our second guest is Dr. Tara O’Brien. Dr. O’Brien is a nurse educator and researcher dedicated to enhancing patient care and transforming nursing education. She has over 30 years of experience in nursing. Her journey began in rural healthcare settings where she witnessed the profound impact of social determinants of health on patients’ lives. This fueled her lifelong commitment to advancing equitable healthcare and education. Dr. O’Brien serves as an assistant professor of clinical practice and co-director of the Doctor of Nursing Education program at The Ohio State University College of Nursing. She empowers the next generation of nurses and educators by equipping them with the knowledge, skills, and compassion to succeed in today’s healthcare setting. Her scholarly work focuses on self-management education for kidney transplant recipients and fostering innovation in teaching and learning with nursing education. As a dedicated mentor and advocate, Dr. O’Brien’s mission is to inspire and prepare future nurse leaders.

Stephanie Zidek: Well, thank you, Naomi, and welcome to our two Taras. We’re so excited to meet with them both today and for our listeners to hear more about this exciting program. So we’re going to dive right in, if that’s okay with our guests. And we have a question to start us off. Could one of you share with our listeners your role and a little bit about your journey on how you got to your current position within the DNE program?

Tara Spalla King: Sure, this is Tara Spalla King. So I began my career as a staff nurse in Philadelphia and then went back to graduate school there, and then moved to Miami, Florida, and then finally to Columbus and was a staff nurse at all of those places in a variety of acute care settings. And then I transitioned to academia and worked as a clinical instructor before completing my PhD, and then was academic dean of a private Catholic college before being recruited back to Ohio State College of Nursing.

Tara O’Brien: And hi, everyone. I’m Tara O’Brien. I’m the co-director of the DNE program. I’ve been a registered nurse for 31 years and an educator working in the academic setting for 18 years. My journey for my current role as the co-director of the DNE program is a result from my love for nursing education and educating nursing students.

Stephanie Zidek: Great. Thank you so much for joining us today. You’re obviously in good company with many, many listeners who are NPDs and nurse educators, so really exciting to hear more about this program. I’m going to turn it over to Naomi.

Naomi Fox: So this is a pretty novel terminal degree, and I think our listeners and audience are really excited to know, in addition to your passion for the topic, what caused the creation of the Doctor of Nursing Education degree, and if you can also address any key individuals that you worked with for the support of this program and any challenges that occurred toward the development.

Tara Spalla King: Thanks, Naomi. That’s a great question. People in nursing education recognize that existing doctoral programs like the PhD, DNP, and EdD do not have sufficient content in teaching learning practices related to the practice degree of nursing, specifically curriculum development and nursing education assessment. And so those gaps highlighted the need for a degree that was new that would prepare, at the highest level, nurse educators to tackle those things in both academic and clinical settings.

The person that we collaborated with the most, it was her vision, was Bernadette Melnick. And she was the dean of our college at the time. And she was noticing a trend in our DNP students who were identifying projects they wanted to do for their DNP, but they were education projects with their feet in the academic setting. And so their advisors had to help them shift to doing education projects in the practice setting. And so we just found that, when we know that the DNP degree, the primary role is to translate evidence at the bedside, but all of these students wanted to do education degrees, that there was a gap. And so [Bernadette] put together a task force at our college, of which both of us were involved, to look at this issue about a potential new doctoral degree.

And so we led a nationwide needs assessment survey, had 843 respondents. And we published this work in Nurse Educator, and it was called Doctoral Degree Preferences for Nurse Educators: Findings from a National Study. And we found through there that the respondents really did believe that there weren’t adequate options for them. If their passion was about teaching and learning and nursing, the PhD helped people create and disseminate new knowledge, and the EdD was more focused generically on education, but not specifically the practice of nursing. And then we already discussed the DNP. So, we set about to do that. And our study says that the respondents said that this bottleneck of lack of nurse educators was what was causing highly qualified applicants from getting a spot in a nursing program, because there simply aren’t enough nurse educators. And so, we decided we were going to do something about it in our corner of the U.S. instead of letting the problem get bigger and bigger. We’re going to try to solve it.

Naomi Fox: That’s absolutely amazing. I mean, gosh, Dr. Melnick, so many people that she has influenced and touched who have never met her or never heard of her, but she really has influenced the work that you are both doing. I know myself, you know, when considering the terminal degree, really struggled multiple times as a student with trying to, you know, communicate to the DNP team what my project was about and what impact it was having in the practice setting. And I’m pretty sure any of our listeners that have experienced that can agree. And so certainly making huge strides and opportunities for people in nursing professional development practice and nursing education.

Stephanie Zidek: I would agree. I’m actually precepting two DNP students right now, one from Chicago and one from Charlotte. So two very different schools and backgrounds. And both of these projects are very much education-based. That’s my role, but yet, not in necessarily an educational facing type of DNP program. So love that you were able to create this space. I know really pioneers, but [it] will be exciting to see kind of where things go, especially since this is a very much growing interest in the doctoral space. So kind of growing off of that, can you expand a bit more on the actual degree in the program, the DNE?

Tara O’Brien: Sure. So our program for the DNE, it’s 50 credit hours, post-master’s degree. The part-time track takes eight semesters. The full-time track takes five semesters. Our program, the degree, includes 450 immersion hours. And we have within our DNE degree, we have two tracks. We have one for the Academic Nurse Educator, and the other track is for Nursing Professional Development.

Naomi Fox: Well, truly not to be biased, but here I personally am really excited about the Nursing Professional Development track. Can you expand a little bit more about that, and if that was reflected also in the 843 respondents to the study?

Tara Spalla King: Yes, that’s a very good question. So interestingly, yes, there were lots of open-ended responses that said you should really consider nurses in professional development when they were answering those questions that we had. And then I will share with you that it really wasn’t on our radar at first. We are all academicians. And so we were ready to go in the academic nurse educator track, except national leaders from ANPD, Mary Harper and Patsy Maloney, they sent to [Bernadette] an email, and it was from all of ANPD. And they said, I’m greatly paraphrasing here without reading their two-page email to her.

Naomi Fox: Only two?

Tara Spalla King: I know. [laughs] It was really a great point. What they said is, if we’re reading the tea leaves right, we are anticipating you’re developing a new terminal degree in nursing education. And if that is indeed what you are doing, we would like a seat at this table because the current terminal degrees do not speak to the needs of our constituents. And so [Bernadette] really took this to heart and gave it to us to run with. And for two years, I worked with both Mary and Patsy, and we looked at everything we had developed for the ANE (Academic Nursing Education) students, and they helped us to put curricular threads in there through all the classes for the Nursing Professional Development students, and then they also helped to develop two track-specific courses for the NPD students. And so it was really exciting because it was an opportunity to hear from these experts who actually wrote or edited the Scope and Standards of Practice book, and so we feel really good about that collaboration and feel like we’re delivering a very fine product to students in that track.

Stephanie Zidek: Absolutely. What an exciting opportunity and kind of a Kismet connection there. I’ve had the great opportunity to work with both Dr. Harper and Dr. Maloney. I sat on the last open standards committee, and so to kind of see that evolve and now be able to impact students in this new way is even more exciting. So just exciting that you took up their challenge, and now you have students within this track that are continuing to thrive. So, with that, could you share a little bit specifically about the track? How many students might be in it, and how do you anticipate any further growth?

Tara O’Brien: Sure. So, in addition to the other courses that both the academic track and the Nursing Professional Development students take together, there are two courses that are designed for the Nursing Professional Development track students. And one of those courses is called Leading, Mentoring, and Collaborating Partnerships in Nursing Professional Development. And the other course is Program Management for Nursing Professional Development Practitioners.

So currently we have 16 students that are enrolled in our program that are in the NPD track. And as far as what is our prediction regarding the demand for the NPD track, well, the sky really is the limit. There’s a great need for the NPD track, and there’s a great need to link theory and evidence-based practice in the clinical setting. Not only that, but for a strategy to have more communication between our academic partners and our clinical practice partners as well.

Stephanie Zidek: And I’m not sure if you have this offhand, but does it seem as though those 16 students, are they more acute care based? Are you happening to see more across the continuum? Is there any trends in kind of the areas they’re coming from?

Tara O’Brien: So, I can tell you this might give you more of an idea of some of the current final projects that some of our NPD students, what they’re currently working on or developing. Some of those include implantation of an evidence-based mentoring program for new graduate nurses. Increasing confidence of nurses teaching and testing in a cancer center. Comprehensive evaluation of a nurse preceptor certificate program. Using gamification and simulation to teach and to practice civility in a multidisciplinary healthcare team. Using gamification to teach and test for telemetry competencies across the healthcare system. So that kind of gives you an idea in some of the settings from not only helping orient nurses in the setting, but to maintaining their clinical competencies in the healthcare setting.

Stephanie Zidek: Definitely. It sounds like a really diverse mix and very timely topics. Naomi and I sit on our editorial committee, and these are topics that we just were talking about very recently in terms of preceptor cert gamification opportunities. So love to see that there is opportunity here for these students to really dive in with their projects. So thanks for sharing.

Naomi Fox: I’m also really excited that it sounds like they all fit into the big six throughputs of the NPD practice model, you know, which are really competency management, education, some role development there with the EBP, a mentorship you stated, collaborative partnerships from the extra class you talked about, inquiry and onboarding and orientation. This is all our love language. And so hearing that sky’s the limit, really, you know, I won’t write a two-page letter yet, [laughter] but I’m wondering if in the future may hold a perfect case scenario where people who already have terminal degrees can get a certificate in this. Because there are some of us who have devoted our careers to nursing education and nursing professional development practice, and have whole degrees in executive leadership or nursing leadership for the practice setting, because that was the option that was available. So [you] never know, maybe in a few years, something like that could be considered.

The next question I have is really, you mentioned some of the final projects that the students have developed, and I believe they’ll resonate a lot with our listeners. And so just hearing all of this, what advice would you give any of our members or listeners who are in a nursing professional development to consider this program?

Tara O’Brien: Sure. So, one thing is just to consider that we are pioneering this online program that’s designed to prepare nurses for leadership roles in nursing education within the academic and healthcare settings. So, for the nursing professional development, that track is really tailored for nurses who wish to educate and develop nursing staff within healthcare organizations to enhance patient care outcomes.

So, considering this track, some of the key aspects that I would suggest or my advice is number one is the flexibility of our program. So our DNE program, as we said earlier, offers both full-time and part-time study options. So students can complete the program in two years. That’s approximately five semesters, or the part-time is eight semesters, which is about three years. This does include summer coursework.

The program is developed so that it’s an online delivery. So the courses are delivered in synchronous sessions, meaning that you will need to participate in live class times that are scheduled. However, we typically hold these scheduled times once a week. And we try once the track, once you’ve started in a certain cohort, we try to keep those days as best as we can within a certain day, so that students will have enough time to arrange the time with their organization to have that period of time off to be devoted for classes.

And again, we try to hold those in one day. So they are not attending classes on multiple days. And I really encourage for those that are interested to visit our website. We have our curriculum that’s on the website. We also have some testimonials from students, which I feel like really speak volumes compared to what we’re saying as the director and co-director of the program. We are the most proud of the students and their work that they’re doing.

Stephanie Zidek: Well, I think it’s a true testament because one of the initial ideas of how this podcast idea started was we had some reach-outs from your students in the fall that were really encouraging us to reach out, see if this could be a podcast topic. So I think that speaks volumes in itself. Those were folks I didn’t have any personal connections to, but they reached out via The Neighborhood, which is our NPD community, and really wanted other NPD professionals to hear about this great work happening, especially if they were unfamiliar or outside of the OSU area. So I think that speaks volumes, and I know that you have a lot of kind of boots on the ground promoters too outside of the school.

Naomi Fox: I also want to share that I do know one of the students. I’m not going to say names, but I’m just super, super proud of that student for joining this program and have no doubt that they are going to be equipped with all the knowledge and skills that they need to do the best in the practice setting and also the academic setting. There are a lot of folks who have a foot in each world. And so I do feel that this will be a place that they’ll benefit from, regardless of the track… But there are a lot of folks that also work in academia and work in the practice setting.

Tara O’Brien: And I will just add along those lines that we do for the projects, we do see a lot of overlap in the types of projects that the students are addressing from the academic setting to the nursing professional development setting. So again, it gives us another avenue to really address these problems or issues or opportunities, whatever you would like to call them, you know, across settings. Where we haven’t in the past always had the best communication across settings, from the academic to the practice world.

Naomi Fox: Well, thank you so much for sharing with our audience listeners all about your program. Is there anything else you would like to add?

Tara Spalla King: We thank you for the opportunity. This has been wonderful to share about our program. And we encourage everyone to get on the website. There are a couple places you could look, one is Ohio State Online. There are actually student testimonials that those folks at the university level reached out to our DNE students, and there are some on there that gave really nice testimonials, actually in their own words about our program, and some are in the NPD  track. Then also there is an NPD student that is highlighted in a video on our DNE page, OSU College of Nursing, and his name is Rob, and he did a great job explaining what he’s learning in the program, and he’s in the NPD track.

Stephanie Zidek: Thank you so much for highlighting. I have it up on my screen so I can see him, and excited to watch. And a lot of great information. It also looks like you have a lot of distance learner students too, which I know will be really helpful to our listeners.

Tara Spalla King: The guy that you see in that video, named Rob, he’s the one doing the serious gaming for serious problems, and it’s the telemetry one across a whole healthcare system in Texas. And so it really does have the potential to impact patient care on a big level because they’re doing then this telemetry competency through gamification. So we’re really proud of him. You know, since we both practiced for a long time, Tara and I, we get it. And the great thing, I think that, you know, that we can’t make a two-hour-long podcast. But the one thing that we didn’t mention is just some of the things we’ve seen. And in class, when you combine those two [tracks of] students and most of their classes are together. And because Mary and Patsy helped us put those threads of NPD in all the courses, eyes are opened and perspectives are shifted when the ANE (Academic Nursing Education) students see what NPD students do and what that role is. And then they start talking about how they can do handoffs and how they can do transition to practice. And so, I think those conversations are so important, and we’re starting them in this DNE program. So I think it has the potential to do things that we maybe don’t even know are happening yet.

Stephanie Zidek: I had the opportunity to do a little bit of class crossover with our DNP track. And those were some of my most preferred experiences just because we were able to melt in such a different way. And I come from, you know, more of a very practice-based setting versus the research and PhD world. So that was already a stretch. But I think anytime you can cross-pollinate and kind of get nurses thinking together, sharing experiences, you’re always going to have a richer product. So I love that your students from both tracks get the opportunity to really learn together and share off of each other. So thank you for making that a priority. And it’ll be exciting to see how that continues to flourish.

Tara Spalla King: Yes, it is. It is.

Naomi Fox: Absolutely. Thanks so much for joining us.

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Stephanie Zidek: Thank you for joining us along with our panelists of NPD practitioners. The NPD Forecast podcast analyzes information gathered through environmental scanning. Our goal at ANPD is to be your leading resource for NPD practice. If you like what you heard, please leave us a review or a rating on your preferred podcast platform. Tag and share each episode with your friends and colleagues on social media. We would love to hear from you and encourage you to reach out to editors at anpd.org with topic recommendations. For more information, please visit our website at anpd.org.