Growing for New Mexicans UNM NURSE 2022 THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO HEALTH SCIENCESUNM Nurse Magazine is published by The University of New Mexico College of Nursing Office of Advancement. This issue is available online at goto.unm.edu/ unm-nurse-magazine. Your comments and ideas are welcome. Please contact marketing and communications at: HSC-CON-Advancement@salud.unm.edu. Creative Director Heather Lardier | Editors Michael Haederle, Leslie Linthicum | Writers Marlena Bermel, Megan Fleming, Heather Lardier, Ellen Marks | Photography Julian Gutierrez, Jett Loe, Kip Malone, Montoya Creative Growing for New Mexicans 2022 UNM NURSE EDUCATION – GOING WAY BEYOND THE CLASSROOM PRACTICE – PRACTICE MEETS PERFECT RESEARCH – RESEARCHING A HEALTHY START EDUCATION – DOCTORLY PREPARED COVER STORY – BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE ALUMNI – DRIVEN TO NURSING 2 4 6 8 12 19 Feature Stories 1 10 11 15 16 20 22 24 26 WELCOME MESSAGE EXPANDING PHD NURSING PROGRAMS & RANKINGS FACULTY – HIRES & PROMOTIONS PUBLICATIONS & GRANTS OUR YEAR READY FOR RETIREMENT 2021 NURSING AWARDEES CLASS NOTES At the College ON THE COVER College of Nursing and Public Health Excellence Building is scheduled to be completed in 2024Expanding our capacity to prepare nurses The UNM College of Nursing is growing to meet the health care needs of our state, increasing the number of students, building new classrooms and lab spaces for students to learn in and introducing new pathways to advanced practice nursing and nurse-midwifery. In this issue of UNM Nurse, you’ll read about the many ways the faculty and staff are working hard to serve New Mexico and our nursing students as the number one nursing school in the state, according to U.S. News and World Report. This year, the College broke ground on a new three- story building at the UNM Health Sciences Campus in Albuquerque. This facility will create additional classrooms, skills and lab space to better equip the College to admit additional nursing students, which will in turn build New Mexico’s nursing workforce. We opened a new skills and simulation lab at the Rio Rancho Health Sciences Campus to ensure student nurses in Sandoval County can hone their skills in state- of-the-art training labs that are also close to home. We’ve also launched a modified pathway to a doctorate of nursing practice, a post-bachelor’s DNP, which will expand the number of advanced practice nurses and nurse leaders prepared at the highest level in our state. Working to serve New Mexico The College is not just supporting learners across the state, but working to empower the health of communities across the state, too. In partnership with the Navajo Nation and Indian Health Service, BSN students are able to complete two-week clinical intensives caring for patients and supporting public health on the Navajo Nation in Chinle, Arizona. This year, in partnership with the Mescalero Apache Tribe and the Indian Health Service, we expanded this opportunity to the Mescalero Apache Reservation in southern New Mexico. More than 130 students have participated in these clinical intensives. You can meet some of these students in our story, “Going Way Beyond the Classroom” in this issue. Discovering how to better care Researchers at UNM – whether faculty, staff or graduate nursing students – build our understanding of the challenges faced by the profession of nursing today in order to positively impact tomorrow. We’re learning WELCOME more about disease and illness processes. Discovering how to better care for and improve access to care for our communities. Exploring how to improve our workplaces and the field of nursing as a whole. The College’s research spans many areas: women’s and children’s health, military nursing, public health and disaster preparedness, big data and toxicity and heavy metals. Most of all, the faculty and students are able to implement new research and understanding into practice as clinicians to improve patient outcomes. In this magazine, you’ll get to know Katie Kiviglhan, PhD, RN, CNM, an assistant professor, certified nurse-midwife and endocrinologist who is studying how to better support parents who want to breast or body feed their child, but face challenges in doing so. Kivighlan also supports patients by providing care and lactation counselling as a practicing nurse-midwife at UNM Hospital. She’s just one example of the many excellent Lobo nurse researchers working hard in the lab and in the clinic to improve patient outcomes. I am also proud to introduce you to the powerful and expansive community of Lobo nurses who are building a stronger, more equitable health care system in New Mexico and beyond. Sincerely, Christine E. Kasper, PhD, RN, FAAN, FACSM Dean and Professor Virginia P. Crenshaw Endowed Chair HSC.UNM.EDU/NURSING | 1UNM College of Nursing students work on the Navajo Nation and the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation Going Way Beyond the Classroom W orking with medicine men, traveling for hours to make a house call and exploring the connection between indigenous communities and their sacred lands aren’t typical elements of course descriptions at The University of New Mexico College of Nursing. But the College offers educational experiences that are anything but typical. Undergraduate nursing students in their fourth semester participate in two clinical experiences. Traditional options include working in clinics and health care facilities in the Albuquerque area. But students can opt for a “clinical intensive” in Chinle, Ariz., on the Navajo Nation or in Mescalero, N.M., on the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation, and immerse themselves in a clinical setting they can’t experience anywhere else. The two-week clinical intensives are specially designed to prepare students to work with New Mexico’s diverse population. “We recognized the importance of providing experiences for our students to learn about American Indians and Indigenous people because they’re important populations that they will care for when they practice medicine in New Mexico,” explains Loren Kelly, MSN, RN, senior lecturer 2 and clinical instructor. The Chinle program began in 2014; Mescalero started last fall. More than 150 students have participated in the intensives. The clinical intensives focus on community health, population health and primary care. Before the pandemic, students in the Chinle program worked in schools, chapter houses and senior centers, and traveled around the reservation to help care for patients. Pandemic restrictions EDUCATION THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO COLLEGE OF NURSING2narrowed the scope of what the students could do, but the two student cohorts that went to Chinle last fall still gained valuable experience administering vaccines, learning about contact tracing, working in clinics, observing in the operating room and even teaching about long COVID. The two students who piloted the new Mescalero program had the added benefit of helping shape their own clinical experience. “The benefit of being the first was that it fostered a sense of independence,” says nursing student Grace Jordan. “We were the first nursing students they’d ever had, so we helped wherever we were needed and got a wide variety of experiences.” That included COVID testing, working in the outpatient clinic, and helping with pediatric immunizations at a local school. Students come away from the intensives with much more than clinical experience. They receive cultural humility training from the Center for Native American Health before their programs start and expand on that as they learn about culture, customs and the land from tribal members, rangers and medicine men. “There are so many cultural aspects that pertain to medical treatment that I was unaware of until my clinical rotation in Chinle,” says undergraduate “ WE RECOGNIZED THE IMPORTANCE OF PROVIDING EXPERIENCES FOR OUR STUDENTS TO LEARN ABOUT AMERICAN INDIANS AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLE BECAUSE THEY’RE IMPORTANT POPULATIONS THAT THEY WILL CARE FOR WHEN THEY PRACTICE MEDICINE IN NEW MEXICO. ” LOREN SAPPHIRE KELLY, MSN, RN SENIOR LECTURER II nursing student Paige McCall. She’s planning to become an advanced nurse practitioner and hopes to open a clinic in a rural community. “Native Americans have a more holistic approach that combines Western and Native beliefs, so this experience helped improve my clinical practices and understanding of these patients,” she says. Paige says a highlight of her experience was the ranger-led hike into Canyon de Chelly, known as the heart of the Navajo Nation. Importantly, the program also helps students understand how critical primary care services are to rural communities. Judging by two of the program’s recent participants, the process is working, and that’s good news for the future of rural medicine. Christina Apostolou, an undergraduate nursing student from Alaska, participated in the Chinle clinical intensive. “I love making connections with patients, understanding what the community needs, and then getting that for them,” she says. “This experience solidified for me that I want to be in public health and primary care.” Jordan echoes that sentiment. “I’ve always wanted to work in women’s health, ideally in primary care where I can impact people’s long-term health. This clinical intensive showed me that having more access to primary care providers is so important.” “ THERE ARE SO MANY CULTURAL ASPECTS THAT PERTAIN TO MEDICAL TREATMENT THAT I WAS UNAWARE OF UNTIL MY CLINICAL ROTATION IN CHINLE. ” - PAIGE MCCALL, UNDERGRADUATE NURSING STUDENT HSC.UNM.EDU/NURSING | 3PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT H ospital patient Pat Martinez had a history of COPD and was low on oxygen, so University of New Mexico nursing students Luis Acosta and his partner increased her levels. When she complained she was getting too much, they had to quickly reduce the flow. When Mrs. Martinez said she was in pain, they gave her an opioid. These soon-to-be nurses are still learning, and without noticing they gave the incorrect dosage. It was a good thing for everyone involved that Mrs. Martinez was not real. Although she can breathe, blink and bleed, display a pulse and cry, the patient is actually a high-tech simulator that helps UNM nursing students test their skills in real-world scenarios. Acosta’s mistakes are part of the learning process, and he says this experience made such a deep impression that he will never repeat them. With the opening of the Rio Rancho Skills and Simulation Labs on the UNM Health Sciences Rio Rancho campus in June, Acosta and other students now have even more opportunities to hone their skills through practice. The new facility occupies just over 4,100 square feet and cost $1.8 million. It includes hospital beds, a camera system for recording simulated clinical activities and high, medium and low-fidelity manikins, the specialized mannequins of human form used “ HAVING THE SIMULATION LAB HERE IS GOING TO ATTRACT A LOT MORE STUDENTS, SO IT’S DEFINITELY A LOT BETTER FOR THE SCHOOL, ” - LUIS ACOSTA, BSN RIO RANCHO STUDENT THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO COLLEGE OF NURSING4PRACTICE New skills lab in Rio Rancho expands learning experience for medical or scientific purposes. Each room is equipped with a bed, a mobile side table, a sharps container, cabinetry, clock, curtains, panel with oxygen, monitor, IV pumps and poles. The high-tech addition in Rio Rancho and a student cohort of 32 there means more opportunities for learning, says Adreanne Cordova, MSN, RN, CNE, interim director of simulation. The Rio Rancho Skills and Simulation Labs is in addition to the Interprofessional Healthcare Simulation Center, a 28,000-square-foot state-of- the-art lab designed for simulation activities on the College of Nursing’s main Albuquerque campus. “So now we’ve got more people and places allowing us implement our state of the art evidence-based simulation learning experiences” says Cordova. “It’s like we made the subway train bigger, like we added an extra car. Everybody can breathe a little bit more.” And it means Rio Rancho students, like Acosta, no longer have to drive 54 miles round-trip to North Campus. “Having the simulation lab here is going to attract a lot more students, so it’s definitely a lot better for the school,” Acosta says, adding that Rio Rancho students can now work on a familiar campus, allowing them to tackle simulation with more confidence. “I was very nervous,” he says of his experience. “During simulation, it’s 100 percent your own critical thinking skills.” And that’s the point, Cordova says. It’s the first time students are on their own without supervision, although instructors and students are watching through a one-way glass. There’s a debriefing afterward, to assess what went right, what went wrong and how to improve. Acosta, for one, has learned from the experience with Mrs. Martinez. “I feel like it’s just something you will carry forever,” he says. HSC.UNM.EDU/NURSING | 5B reastfeeding is a natural, beautiful part of parenthood. But not every new parent has an easy time of it. One study found that 60% of new parents wean their infants earlier than they’d like due to various concerns, including problems with lactation. It’s the reasons why that captured the attention of Katie T. Kivlighan, PhD, MS, RN, CNM, an assistant professor at the UNM College of Nursing. She became interested in lactation research through her work as a certified nurse-midwife. “We had a lot of patients who wanted to breastfeed, but despite our best efforts, they just couldn’t,” she says. Kivlighan has several studies underway on early supports for new mothers and biological factors related to lactation. UNM Hospital was the first hospital in Albuquerque to earn “Baby-Friendly” designation, an initiative created by UNICEF and the World Health Organization to promote breastfeeding and mother-baby bonding. While evaluating inpatient support efforts used in UNMH’S Baby- Friendly hospital program, Kivlighan looked at how synthetic oxytocin, a medication used during labor, might impact a parents’s ability to breastfeed. In another study, she is evaluating how biomarkers in human milk may help identify women at higher risk for breastfeeding challenges. Recently, Kivlighan received a grant to study how body temperature during labor and the postpartum period might play a role in the ability to breastfeed. She says findings from her research will help support parents and their newborns in New Mexico and beyond. Working with new parents to overcome early hurdles to breastfeeding not only helps them achieve their goals, it also reduces the pressure on the formula supply, which has been limited due to production problems. Kivlighan stresses that decisions about how to feed a baby are complex. “Everyone comes to their own decision in their own time and in their own way,” she says. “We must respect that.” Kivlighan’s background gives her a unique perspective. She earned a PhD in biobehavioral health from The Pennsylvania State University and Researching a Healthy Start on Life RESEARCH THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO COLLEGE OF NURSING6completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. During her research, Kivlighan became interested in pregnancy. “It was so cool that I decided that I didn’t want to just study it, I wanted to have a direct impact on people’s lives,” she says. She moved to New Mexico and earned a post-master’s certificate in nurse-midwifery from UNM. Today she splits her time between teaching, researching and, as she says, “catching babies” in her clinical practice. “It’s so nice to be able to do a little bit of all the things I love,” she says. Another gratifying part of her work is seeing her students graduate and start their clinical practices. “Seeing them go from the start of our program to caring for families and making a direct impact on New Mexico is amazing,” she says. From researcher to nurse-midwife, assistant professor is helping improve breastfeeding outcomes “ WE HAD A LOT OF PATIENTS WHO WANTED TO BREASTFEED BUT, DESPITE OUR BEST EFFORTS, THEY JUST COULDN’T. ” - KATIE T. KIVLIGHAN, PHD, MS, RN, CNM, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR #77 NATIONWIDE DNP PROGRAM #11 NATIONWIDE NURSE-MIDWIFERY PROGRAM Our programs consistently rank among the best in the country and the top in New Mexico according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2022 edition of America’s Best Graduate & Undergraduate Schools. Proud? Absolutely. We are proud to serve the people of New Mexico. As part of our mission, we create opportunities for our students. NO. 1 NURSING SCHOOL IN NEW MEXICO HSC.UNM.EDU/NURSING | 7Next >