Above and Beyond the Call of Duty: Rural Home Care and Hospice Nurses' Experiences Caring for Veterans.

Approximately 4.7 million Veterans live in rural areas and face challenges receiving support and care for complex service-connected healthcare needs. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore nurses' experiences caring for Veterans in rural home care/hospice settings. Semistructured interviews (N = 14) were conducted between August 2020 and March 2021. Content and thematic analysis resulted in three central themes: Mission readiness: Ensuring safe home environments, Partnering with Veterans: Knowing when to lead and when to follow, and It's my duty: Caring with purpose and honor. Study findings highlight the need for cultural competence in both rural and Veteran cultures. Implications for practice reinforce currently emerging national priorities, including personal safety considerations and need for further professional development associated with screening for firearms and gun safety. Other implications for home care/hospice agencies, as well as nursing education, are discussed.

Caring for the Veteran, military and family member nursing competencies: Strategies for integrating content into nursing school curricula.

In the United States, one in every 15 persons is a Veteran (U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 2016; U. S. News & World Report, 2017). An estimated 27% of these Veterans receive healthcare through the Veteran's Health Administration (VHA), leaving 73% to seek care in civilian hospitals (Bagalman, 2014). Realistically, most nurses in the United States will care for military members, Veterans or family members in a variety of healthcare systems and settings. Nurse educators are positioned to lead efforts in providing nursing students with the knowledge necessary to provide competent care and serve as advocates for our nation's heroes. Recent military deployments and news about the VHA have increased awareness of this population. This article describes competency development resulting from an academic-practice partnership experience between two baccalaureate programs and a national military medical center. Project SERVE, Students' Education Related to the Veteran Experience, utilizes a didactic-experiential model consisting of activities designed to teach students core concepts, including understanding military culture, poly-trauma, traumatic brain injury (TBI), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and issues facing families and care-givers. This article includes competencies, delineating the Knowledge, Skills, Attitudes, and resources for the provision of care to the Veteran population. The authors offer strategies to integrate care of Veterans, and military/family members content into nursing programs and replicate similar experiences. Opportunities for future development, challenges, faculty resources for curricular inclusion, and student reflections of the experience are presented.

Exploring the world outside to increase cultural competence of the educator within.

As nursing educators strive to increase cultural competence among students, it is important to consider professional development in the process. There are resources available to faculty in the form of small grants, and conference attendance/presentation monies. The author shares experiences related to travel to the 6th National Nursing Congress "with International participation" to Cappadocia Turkey. Discussion will include practical aspects of securing monies for travel opportunities, and post journey reflections that have been integrated into improving teaching of cultural content.

Psychometric Analysis of the JSPE Nursing Student Version R: Comparison of Senior BSN Students and Medical Students Attitudes toward Empathy in Patient Care.

Background. Empathic communication skills are critical to providing high-quality nursing care to holistically understand the patient's perspective. A survey research design was used to address the research questions discussed in this study. Data consisted of responses from nursing students attending accredited programs in the southeastern United Sates using the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy Nursing Student Version R (JSPE-R). Findings. Comparisons of the total scores from JSPE Versions S and R yielded similar means and standard deviations with 115 and 114.57, respectively, and standard deviations of 10 and 10.94, respectively. The results of a one-sample t-test failed to render statistical significance (t = -1.22, P = .224), indicating that the overall attitudes of nursing students and medical students are similar. The 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles and overall instrument reliability were also comparable. Conclusions. This paper supports the emergence of alternative factor analysis structures as applied to nursing students through statistical progression from exploratory factor analysis to confirmatory structures. Implications for practice explore the utility of empathy instruments in nurse education, such as empathy progression through curriculum. As nursing educators, the utility of development of instruments to measure effectiveness of teaching strategies and pedagogy for empathy enhancement in practice is important.

Using the "write" resources: nursing student evaluation of an interdisciplinary collaboration using a professional writing assignment.

Nursing students need the necessary resources to successfully complete a professional paper writing assignment. The purpose of this article is to describe resource support and evaluation strategies used in a professional paper writing assignment in a baccalaureate nursing program. The impetus for the study is to address the need for nursing faculty to move students toward writing proficiency while improving their information management skills. Students need resources to successfully complete professional papers due to the need for mining relevant professional sources, assistance with editing, and refinement of paper gained through peer feedback. Methods include evaluation of the interdisciplinary resource collaboration with campus librarians (information literacy), campus writing center tutorial oversight, and peer reviewer support and feedback. Student evaluation of the teaching strategy found the resources helpful for completion of the writing assignment and the collaborative learning with campus colleagues and writing experts beneficial.

Headed in the "write" direction: nursing student publication and health promotion in the community.

Effective writing is vital to nursing practice. As educators, we sought to incorporate a meaningful writing assignment as part of a junior-level professional development course. We used innovative methods that support the missions of higher education in general and nursing education in particular while promoting healthful living and establishing the community-as-client. In addition to fostering health education and health promotion, this writing assignment served to enhance students' writing skills and provide them with an opportunity to have their work published. The venue for publication was The Auburn Villager, a weekly local newspaper with a circulation of 6,000 within the local community in East Alabama. The writing assignment was a tremendous success on many levels. Foremost among the positive outcomes was student pride in experiencing publication of their creative work. In addition, students reported a feeling of satisfaction that the assignment had both practical and educational utility.