Higher education began for me at The Ohio State University from which I graduated in 1975. Experience in critical care nursing was gained recovering fresh open-heart surgery patients. Accepted to Middle Tennessee School of Anesthesia in 1980, I graduated with a certificate in 1982. During my first few years of practice, Middle Tennessee School of Anesthesia began to rotate its students through our hospital's operating room, which provided me withan opportunity to clinically instruct. Soon thereafter, the opportunity to instruct in the classroom was offered and accepted. In 1994, I completed my Masters Degree with a focus in Nurse Anesthesia in order to continue teaching on a graduate level.
For over twenty years now, I've been privileged to participate in the education of the next generation of nurse anesthetists.Both in the classroom and in the operating room, the rewards of teaching include the requisite of staying current. Education is not static: it isongoing. To encourage a bright minded college educated student pursuing an advanced degree and to challenge them to critically think, is to empower them now and for the future.
Becoming a course developer and didactic instructor at Sumner College of Health Sciences in 2007, whichoffers both innovation and a fresh paradigm in nurse anesthesia education, is a welcome challenge.