College Updates

Everyone reading this post deserves a round of applause, because we made it through 2021! It took some hard work and determination, but here we stand at the end of another year, with 12 months of challenges that we have overcome in our rear view mirror, and a whole year of possibilities ahead.

The top reason to have an account on LinkedIn is so you can expand your professional presence far beyond the reach of your current position and immediate colleagues. Using this platform is an easy, practical and relevant way to build and strengthen your nursing and health care network.

In order to make the most of LinkedIn, it is vital that you engage on the platform. You can do this by posting content, sharing content and by following or joining groups and organizations like the Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation. If you do decide to publish articles or materials you’ve written as a subject matter expert here are a few things to keep in mind.

LinkedIn is the largest online network for working professionals which is why creating and maintaining a profile is extremely beneficial for those in the health care industry or those interested in getting into the industry, including students.

Campuses will soon be bustling with students again.

With all that’s required of educators, it’s not surprising that sometimes we get caught up in the day-to-day of teaching and lose sight of the incredible impact we have in the real world.

Edson College continues to make progress in addressing the pandemic of inequality.

“Let’s say there’s a day when nurses didn’t come to the hospital. It’s like, why do you even open?” Dr. Frank LoVecchio, an emergency medicine physician in Phoenix, spoke plain truth in the poignant short film “Death, Through a Nurse’s Eyes.” The recent documentary gives an ICU nurse’s-eye view of the pandemic’s winter surge at Valleywise Health Medical Center.

Arizona saw a major decrease in the number of pediatric influenza cases during the 2020-2021 flu season.

If this last year has taught us anything, it’s that effective modern health care needs to support everyone, not just a fortunate few.

Before COVID-19, there was robust thinking and conversation about social isolation and loneliness being the next public health crisis. Research provided ominous warnings about the broad impact of the pandemic, including a finding that isolation among older adults is associated with a 50 percent increased risk of dementia.

A new year is upon us and while many of us are ready to turn the page on an incredibly tough and tragic 2020 there is much work to be done. One clear reminder of this is the need for an entire month dedicated to the prevention of slavery and human trafficking.

What a year, eh? There are so many things that I could say about these past 11 months and I’ll get into that in a minute.

When will we have a COVID-19 vaccine? The answer to that question is what everyone around the world wants to know. Surely once we have a vaccine, we can get back to our regular lives. So why not rush one out today?

Health care, you would think, would be the place where the old adage about never letting a serious crisis go to waste would never apply. It’s an appalling thought on its face. But here we are, six months into the worst public health crisis of our generation, and we are seizing opportunities wherever we can in nursing education. We must.

Today, more than 200 students, across multiple majors and the three state universities, volunteer with SHOW each semester.

We’ve got a pandemic on our hands and we need to collectively wage the fight against it! I’m not talking about COVID-19. I’m talking about the pandemic of inequality.

Our role as health educators, researchers and practitioners is to teach, investigate and care for people. It is also our role to call out injustices and disparities and actively work on solutions that benefit the overall health of all communities.

We’re still unraveling the mysteries of COVID-19, but there’s no doubt about the impact of nurses in the global fight against the pandemic. Health care workers are on the front lines and nurses are the far-forward troops. Although masked and, hopefully, covered in essential PPE, nurses are the human faces of health care for COVID-19 patients and their families. As premier patient educators, nurses also are helping to counter rampant misinformation about an unprecedented public health threat.

In my over 40 years of nursing education, this spring’s graduation and convocation are going to be, by far, the most unusual I’ve ever been a part of. When the semester started and we were all just coming back from the holidays, none of us could have imagined that in just a couple of months our world would be completely turned upside down.