The Department of Nursing held it’s annual “Facilitating Teaching Excellence, Research and Scholarship Event, Friday, June 20th, 2014.

A special Thank you to our guest Dr. Pat Fahey Bacon from Minnesota who spoke about  “Incivility in Nursing Education: Breaking the cycle that threatens the profession of Nursing”. This was followed by group activities that were also facilitated by Dr. Bacon.

She stated that as Health Care Providers we have a contract with society to care and help, and as instructors, be role models to our students.  Her words emphasized “a need to take a step back sometimes; mean what you say, say what you mean; don’t sugar coat constructive feedback; provide students with the purpose for everything and to have students confront their conflict”.

After lunch, a panel presentation on Ethical Consideration in Nursing Education Research was held by Kim Mitchell, Deb Gural, Tom Harrigan, Cathy Baxter, Tracey Fallak, and Moderator Winn Briscoe, followed by a presentation by George Allan from the Research Ethics Board at RRC.

Later, in the afternoon, members of the Nursing Department learned about Ecoliteracy and it’s relevance to undergraduate nursing education from faculty member Jennifer Otto. Next, results of the Incivility Survey Pilot Project by the Nursing Dept’s Research and Scholarship Committee (Winn Briscoe, Kim Mitchell and Tom Harrigan) were shared. This survey was given to students in the classroom, labs, clinical areas and to faculty.  The students scored higher marks for incivility in the classroom vs clinical/skills lab, which, when analyzed, could have several factors. Higher incivility was reported from students involved with Medical units than students in more acute areas. Rural students scored the lowest of all with minimal reported incidences of incivility. This could also have several influences.

Cathy Baxter closed the day with the following message:

“Focus on the positive not the negative; change our perspective of the glass being half full not half empty”