Adjusting to sex and intimacy: Gynecological cancer survivors share about their partner relationships.

This study describes what gynecological (GYN) cancer survivors relate about their intimate partners and adjustments in their sexual lives following diagnosis and treatment. Conventional descriptive content analysis was used to examine participant responses about partner relationships following their diagnosis. Responses revealed three clusters and 15 codes of data. Findings report the influence of cancer treatment on sexual activity and functioning, women's sex lives, and their relationships. Health-care providers have a vital role in supporting women and their partners during the cancer care trajectory and should include both the survivor and the partner in conversations focused on sexual concerns and sexual well-being.

Becoming a nurse faculty leader: Taking risks by being willing to fail.

BACKGROUND: Higher education is undergoing rapid transformation requiring nurse faculty leaders to engage in risk taking. Consequently, what is known about the experience of taking risks? How do leaders decide what constitutes a risk worth taking? How do leaders who take risks tolerate failure? The purpose of this study was to explicate the leadership practices of risk taking in nurse faculty leaders. METHOD: Interpretive phenomenology was used to explore the experience of risk taking among 15 self-identified nurse faculty leaders. Unstructured audio recorded interviews were conducted in which participants described their experiences of taking risks. Transcribed interviews were analyzed by a research team to uncover themes in the narrative data. RESULTS: A theme, willingness to fail, and three subthemes, enacting a culture of experimentation, working hard for success, and learning from failure are reported. CONCLUSION: This study provides practical know-how and an evidence-base to support nurse academic leaders in the practice of risk taking during these challenging times in higher education.

Using Simulation Pedagogy in the Formation of Family-Focused Generalist Nurses.

BACKGROUND: Nursing practice with families is essential because a family member's illness affects the family and, reciprocally, the family influences health outcomes. Yet, nurses often report a lack of confidence in their ability to meet the needs of families, whereas family members often describe troubling experiences with nurses. These challenges may have beginning roots in nursing education. This article explores the use of simulation in the formation of family-focused generalist nurses. METHOD: Simulation pedagogy was used to guide students in developing an understanding of the importance of family nursing care, gaining confidence in family practices, and developing family competencies. RESULTS: Innovative simulation learning experiences in an undergraduate nursing curriculum helped students to learn how to develop nurse-family relationships and gain humanistic skills of family nursing practices. Students and faculty reported that simulation guides students to achieve meaningful outcomes. CONCLUSION: In this curriculum, faculty consistently directs attention to the family in simulation learning experiences, and students value this pedagogy.

Becoming a nurse faculty leader: taking risks by doing the right thing.

Risk taking is a key aspect of academic leadership essential to meeting the challenges and opportunities in higher education. What are the practices of risk taking in nurse faculty leaders? This interpretive phenomenological study examines the experience and meaning of risk taking among nurse leaders. The theme of doing the right thing is brought forth through in-depth hermeneutic analysis of 14 individual interviews and two focus group narratives. The practice of doing the right thing is propelled and captured by leaders through a sense professional responsibility, visioning the future, and being true to self and follow one's core values. This study develops an evidence base for incorporating ways of doing the right thing in leadership development activities at a time when there is tremendous need for highly effective leaders in academic settings. Examining the practices of doing the right thing as a part of leadership development lays a foundation for building the next generation of nursing leaders prepared to navigate the ever-changing and complex academic and health care environments.

Becoming a nurse faculty leader: doing your homework to minimize risk taking.

Risk taking is an important aspect of academic leadership; yet, how does taking risks shape leadership development, and what are the practices of risk taking in nurse faculty leaders? This interpretative phenomenological study examines the meaning and experience of risk taking among formal and informal nurse faculty leaders. The theme of doing your homework is generated through in-depth hermeneutic analysis of 14 interview texts and 2 focus group narratives. The practice of doing one's homework is captured in weighing costs and benefits, learning the context, and cultivating relationships. This study develops an evidence base for incorporating ways of doing one's homework into leadership development activities at a time when there is a tremendous need for nurse leaders in academic settings. Examining the practices of doing one's homework to minimize risk as a part of leadership development provides a foundation for cultivating nurse leaders who, in turn, are able to support and build leadership capacity in others.

Connecting in distance mentoring: communication practices that work.

BACKGROUND: As nursing and healthcare become more global, supported by technology, the opportunities for distance mentoring increase. Mentorship is critical to nurse educator recruitment and retention. STUDY OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to identify communication practices of nurse educators involved in mentoring at a distance. DESIGN/SETTINGS: A qualitative design, utilizing in-person or telephone interviews was used. Participants were twenty-three protégés or mentors who were part of a yearlong distance mentoring program. ANALYSIS METHOD: An iterative process of hermeneutic analysis identified three themes; this paper focuses on the theme of connectedness. RESULTS: Participant narratives illuminate practices of connecting at a distance: meeting face-to-face, sharing personal information, experiencing reciprocity, journaling, being vulnerable, establishing one's presence, and appreciating different perspectives. CONCLUSION: Distance does not appear to limit the connecting potential leading to a meaningful mentoring relationship; rather, it offers possibilities that local mentoring relationships may not. Nurse educators in under-resourced countries, those in small programs without a cadre of senior faculty, and students in distance programs are among those who stand to benefit from distance mentoring relationships.

The clinical nurse educator as leader.

The National League for Nursing recognizes leadership as an important aspect of the educator role. The purpose of this article is to describe leadership in the context of clinical nursing education and how clinical nurse educators enact leadership. The article identifies particular nursing practice skills and strengths that clinicians bring to nursing education that enhance leadership knowledge, skills, and abilities. After review of several leadership models, we identified five overarching themes that demonstrate how clinical nurse educators exemplify the various models including role modeling, providing vision, helping students to learn, challenging the system or status quo, and seeking relational integrity. We explicate the themes with examples affirming the leadership potential of clinical nurse educators, and suggest ways in which nursing faculty members and administrators might draw on the leadership capital of clinical nurse educators.

Interpreting the NLN Jeffries Framework in the context of Nurse Educator preparation.

The NLN Jeffries Framework describing simulation in nursing education has been used widely to guide construction of human patient simulation scenarios and serve as a theoretical framework for research on the use of simulation. This framework was developed with a focus on prelicensure nursing education. However, use of human patient simulation scenarios is also a way of providing practice experiences for graduate students learning the educator role. High-fidelity human patient simulation offers nurse educator faculty a unique opportunity to cultivate the practical knowledge of teaching in an interactive and dynamic environment. This article describes how the components of The NLN Jeffries Framework can help to guide simulation design for nurse educator preparation. Adapting the components of the framework-which include teacher, student, educational practices, design characteristics, and outcomes-helps to ensure that future faculty gain hands-on experience with nurse educator core competencies.

Becoming a nursing faculty leader.

Academic leaders are one component of a well-prepared faculty that is required to achieve and sustain excellent educational programs. But what is it like to become an academic leader? How does one become a leader? These questions were addressed in an interpretive study in which nurse faculty leaders were interviewed about the experience of becoming a leader. Interview texts were analyzed hermeneutically by a research team to uncover three themes (common, shared experiences): Being Thrust into Leadership, Taking Risks, and Facing Challenges, which are explicated in this article. This study develops the evidence base for leadership preparation at a time when there is a strong need for nursing education leaders in academia.

Becoming a nurse faculty leader: facing challenges through reflecting, persevering and relating in new ways.

AIM: The aim of the present study was to explore the experience of becoming a nurse faculty leader. BACKGROUND: In a recent interpretation of 23 interviews conducted with nurse faculty leaders from across the United States about their experiences of becoming a leader three themes were identified: being thrust into leadership, taking risks and facing challenges. EVALUATION: This interpretive phenomenological study further explicates three aspects of how nurse educators faced challenges in becoming and serving as a leader. KEY ISSUES: Facing challenges meant reflecting, persevering through difficulties and learning to relate to others in new ways. Exemplars of participant experiences are provided for concreteness, to assist readers in determining how findings resonate with their own experience and how they can actualize this resonance in their own leadership practice. CONCLUSIONS: In the present study, reflecting, persevering through difficulties and learning to relate with others in a new way was how leaders faced challenges. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: Leadership development opportunities that facilitate self-exploration, caring and thoughtful interactions with others and values clarification serve as the foundation for becoming a nurse faculty leader who is, in turn, able to build leadership capacity in other individuals and organizations.

An examination of five approaches to nursing education research.

This article illuminates how a new science of nursing education, one that is inclusive of not only traditional empiric-analytic research, but also alternative research approaches reflecting phenomenology, critical social theory, feminist theory, and postmodern discourse, is developing. Each of these research paradigms is reviewed and research questions are explicated in the context of research on the national licensure examination (NCLEX-RN). The author contends that research to develop the science of nursing education must be multimethod, multiparadigmatic, and multipedagogical. Implications for developing an inclusive science of nursing education toward curricular reform are discussed.

Trying something new: reform as embracing the possible, the familiar, and the at-hand.

Trying something new in the reform of teaching through the use of a new nursing pedagogy, Narrative Pedagogy, is illuminated. Pedagogies are specific approaches to teaching and learning. Narrative Pedagogy is a site-specific approach to teaching and learning that evolves out of present resources and creates new possibilities. Exemplar student, teacher, and nurse preceptor narratives about their experiences of trying something new in precepting junior-level students in the acute care clinical setting were analyzed hermeneutically as an interpretive phenomenological study. Although Narrative Pedagogy is site specific, the processes of using this pedagogy for reform are generalizable.