News
KCON Program Highlights
May 27, 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic serves as a reminder that healthcare’s most trusted profession, nursing, plays a vital role in the wellbeing of our communities. During the past year, nurses were on the frontline of the pandemic response, including Kirkhof College of Nursing (KCON) alumni and students, who utilized their value-based care training and critical thinking skills from their time at Grand Valley to save lives.
The Kirkhof College of Nursing’s extensive suite of competitive nursing programs continues to graduate more than one hundred nurses to the field each year and remains a premier destination for prospective students. Over the past year, even in the face of much challenge and change in the nursing profession, our programs have continued to adapt and thrive.
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New Curriculum Inspired by Student Needs: In the
fall of 2020, the Accelerated Second Degree (ASD) Bachelor of
Science in Nursing (BSN) Program welcomed 48 new students under a
new curriculum more intentionally designed for those who have
already achieved a baccalaureate degree in a major other than
nursing. Faculty, students, and community partners advocated for
these revisions and were integral in the redesign process.
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Accessible Education for the Working Student: The
Registered Nurse to Bachelor of Science in Nursing (R.N. to B.S.N.)
program completed its first year of course offerings in a fully
online format to better align with GVSU’s goal of reaching more
adult learners. Further, the growth of concurrent enrollment
agreements with Michigan community colleges better enables RN to BSN
students to dual enroll in their associate’s degree and in our BSN
program. This program shortens the time it takes to earn their BSN,
while also utilizing coordinated financial aid and advising
resources between the two programs, making the program more
accessible to working adult learners.
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Graduate Student Excellence: In the winter of 2020,
19 graduates took the highly challenging American Academy of Nurse
Practitioners (AANP) certification exam. All 19 graduates passed the
exam becoming board certified adult-gerontology primary care nurse
practitioners.
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Personalized Learning: A continued highlight of our
Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Program is the highly personalized
experience in which KCON staff coordinates preceptors and makes
every effort to find high-quality preceptors near the student’s
hometown. Faculty make regular visits to the clinical site in
support of the student and the preceptor.
Graduate simulation events continued this year in a virtual format, bringing in live actors to portray as patients. The events covered a wide range of issues from the basic yearly physical, a new diagnosis of diabetes, the management of COPD, back pain, unexplained weight loss, and many more. In-person labs resumed, with DNP students gaining hands-on experience learning how to perform skin biopsies, suturing techniques, and debridement.
The DNP-Child/Adolescent track worked with Michigan’s Child Protective Services in fall 2020 through a community collaboration for the Mandated Reporter/Child Maltreatment simulation. Students were able to call in CPS reports and volunteer as CPS intake workers.
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Serving Vulnerable Populations: The COVID-19
pandemic has intensified the need for capable end-of-life care.
Local and national demand for skilled and compassionate health care
professionals, caregivers, and volunteers remains high. The
Interprofessional Palliative and Hospice
Certificateexpanded to include new cohorts of
students from several locations in northern Michigan with courses
offered in Traverse City. Beginning fall 2021, there will be two
palliative and hospice care micro-credentials (“badges”)
available.
- Innovative Experiential Learning: In collaboration with the Physician Assistant Studies (PAS) and Theatre departments, VitalTalk was an interprofessional project focused on improving therapeutic communication skills in healthcare specifically around challenging, highly emotional conversations with patients. Funded by a Pew FTLC Teaching Innovation Grant, faculty were trained as VitalTalk facilitators before teaching KCON graduate nursing and PAS students how to effectively and empathetically communicate challenging subjects with patients. Students practiced the delivery of emotional content in a simulation communication experience with an adult actor and/or a theatre student in a virtual setting. Allison Metz, an Associate Professor from the theater department, developed a special course that taught theatre students how to act and respond like a real patient, one of the first courses of its kind.