“A real jewel of a thing!”—
Retired docs pass on experience
to UT nursing students in pilot program
HOUSTON—(July 25, 2007)—The pitiful wail of a crying baby struggling to breathe drifts out of one room. Across the hall, a child has a high fever, red palms and an ominous rash on her abdomen. Next door, the leg of a boy who had a recent bout of the chicken pox has an angry-looking wound.
Nursing student Sylvia Brown examines "patient"
Amy Shohet in a new pediatric simulation
environment, part of a clinical skills lab taught by
retired physicians at the UT School of Nursing.
Fortunately, the illnesses are imagined, the baby is a mannequin and the two children dotted with red ink to simulate Kawasaki disease and cellulitis belong to nursing instructor Ellen Goss-Shohet. And this isn’t a hospital but the new pediatric simulation environment at The University of Texas School of Nursing at Houston, where retired pediatrician Alvin Jaffee, M.D., is helping teach nursing students.
When student Rachel Cain has a hard time reading the physician’s notes on the mannequin baby, Goss-Shohet tells her, “Never be afraid to ask the doctor to please clarify something.”
Jaffee’s presence at the pediatric nursing lab is part of a ground-breaking pilot program in which retired physicians are teaching nursing students.
“This is an incredible collaboration of seasoned physicians and brilliant nursing students, creating the environment and opportunity for healthcare education that usually is only acquired through years of experience and practice,” said Texas First Lady Anita Perry, who has worked in varied nursing positions. “I look forward to hearing great things from this progressive partnership.”
The brainstorm of the nursing school’s Dean Patricia Starck, D.S.N., the retired physician’s teaching program puts together people who are on the opposite ends of the medical education spectrum.
“I was having a luncheon meeting with a physician who was teaching in the medical school and he made the comment that he wouldn’t mind retiring if he could do something useful,” Starck said. “That gave me an idea. There is a shortage of nursing faculty and I wondered if retired physicians might be interested in teaching nursing students.”
Starck discussed the idea with L. Maximilian Buja, M.D., executive vice-president for academic affairs for The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Buja directed her to Shelly Liss, M.D., a retired physician and president of the Retired Physicians Organization of the Harris County Medical Society, who took it to the membership.
More than 24 retired physicians volunteered to teach the clinical skills pediatric lab and a health assessment lab for first-year baccalaureate nursing students. After the success of the summer courses, the program will continue this fall and an additional five physicians have signed up.
Retired pediatrician Alvin Jaffee, M.D. (left), goes
over the chart of a mannequin infant with nursing
student Rachel Cain during a clinical skills lab at the
UT School of Nursing at Houston.
“All of these physicians have years of learning and experience and education and if they don’t find a way to use it, it goes to waste,” Liss said. “You have young nursing students excited to learn and older physicians with lots of experience to relate to them. It’s very heartwarming to see.”
From Starck’s point of view, learning from physicians will help nursing students in a critical area. “They will be able to learn in their first course how to communicate with physicians, which is important because of those times a nurse has to call a physician in the middle of the night about a patient,” Starck said. “We hope that physicians will teach the students that if they have to make that call in the middle of the night, this is the information they need to have at their fingertips.”
Retired nursing faculty member Gerda Gomez, Ed.D., organized the health assessment program. Those labs, overseen by Erica Yu, assistant professor of nursing, are tightly scripted with a book and videotape to ensure consistency. After watching the videotape, students pair up and test their skills on each other. Physicians monitor them, answer any questions and check their paperwork.
“One day as I was making my rounds to see how things were going in the lab, I saw one of the retired physicians pull out a small vial from his pocket,” Starck said. “It was a set of bones from the inner ear. The students oohed and aahed as they saw how very tiny these bones really are. It makes testing for hearing come alive and also helps them visualize how these bones can become fused and impair hearing.”
On another not-so-typical day at nursing school, retired physician Dick Materson, M.D., was showing two students the finer points of detecting a reflex.
Karen Holland was having a hard time getting a reaction from Daniel Pinn’s left bicep muscle as she swung the rubber reflex hammer.
“Grit your teeth,” Materson instructed Pinn. “Now clench your right fist.”
The bicep twitched.
“You just have to get him to relax and get his mind off what you’re trying to do. This will happen with some patients,” Materson explained to Holland.
Materson, a friendly, engaging, retired physician who practiced physical medicine and rehabilitation for 36 years, was clearly in his element during a lab on neurology.
UT-Houston nursing student Karen Holland (standing),
watches as retired physician Dick Materson, who
practiced physical medicine and rehabilitation, shows
how to get a reflex reaction from nursing student
Daniel Pinn (far right).
“These are the crème de la crème of students. They’re very bright, very interesting,” Materson said. “My colleagues and I all studied before we started teaching the labs. We were a bit anxious but we got the cobwebs out of our heads. The interesting thing is that it makes these physicians contemplate the role of the nurse. We have a lot of neat tips to impart. It’s not just book learning.”
Before the labs began, the physicians had an orientation session and met with nursing students.
“The physicians have so much wisdom and humor and some of them really enjoyed quizzing us and helping us learn,” said student Holly Millican.
During a lab early this summer, students Melissa Tortorice and Lindsay Sample worked with retired orthopedic surgeon Jeff Kaestner, M.D.
“The physicians have been very helpful and willing to work with us to confirm what we’ve found or give us tips,” said Tortorice. “It’s interesting that they all have different specialties.”
“I think it’s a grand idea – a real jewel of a thing,” Materson said.