Competing to be the best on the field and in health care
Janel Shoun-Smith |
To be successful in today’s competitive and high-stress health care industry, practitioners must be skilled in areas beyond caring and knowledge application. Time management, the ability to set and carry out goals and teamwork skills (growing in importance as interprofessional practice becomes more common) are often the key to a thriving health science practice.
Lipscomb students come to the university having cultivated these skills in a variety of ways, but there is one arena with a particularly strong link to the health sciences: athletics.
“Athletes have trained so much to hone their bodies, that they often develop a strong interest in how the body itself works,” said Ruth Henry (’74), vice chair and professor of kinesiology and nutrition. “They have learned how to make their bodies perform, so they become interested in helping others achieve that performance level either through fitness training, coaching or other more clinical health fields.”
Over the past decade, many former undergraduate athletes have joined Lipscomb’s graduate programs in pharmacy, exercise and nutrition science, and its Dietetic Internship Program. In addition, the School of Nursing works with its current undergraduate students to allow them to participate in NCAA athletics while also pursuing a nursing degree, something that many other nursing programs prohibit, said Mary Hesselrode, interim associate dean of the School of Nursing.
Greg Brown, Lipscomb’s women’s basketball coach, currently coaches junior Kennedy Potts and says that allowing nursing students to play intercollegiate athletics—despite the extra work required by faculty to arrange clinical and academic schedules—is a definite recruiting advantage for him. He has noted several of his potential recruits showing interest in nursing, he said.
“We appreciate our student athletes for their dedication,” said Dean Roger Davis. “They have an appreciation for the rigor of study in the health sciences because of their work ethic established through their athletic endeavors.”
“I believe that being on an athletic team at the college level prepares you to work collaboratively with others in a way that nothing else can,” said Jenni Whitefield (’96), an instructor in the nursing program and a former Lipscomb Bison cheerleader.
“You must adapt and learn how to work with many other personalities on a very intense level. This is closely mirrored in the health care setting when you are working intimately together in sometimes very serious and life-threatening situations,” she said. “Learning how to be a leader on your team and still maintain a level of humility that facilitates effective communication and collaboration is one of the most important factors one can take away from years on an athletic team.”
Kara Price, adjunct faculty in the nursing program and a frequent member of the crowd at Lipscomb athletic events, said: “Athletes also understand pain, setbacks and working towards a goal, which can be similar to a patient’s recovery.”
In fact, among the following sampling of Lipscomb athletes and former athletes, all were influenced to go into health sciences in part by their own injuries or health conditions and their positive interactions with the health care professionals they worked with.
Whether you are a health care fan or a sports fan, the following stories of Lipscomb’s athletic-minded students will inspire you both on and off the field.
Lee Stowers
Dietetic Intern
EXNS graduate student (Class of 2018)
Warwick, Rhode Island
Stowers competed at the University of Alabama as a hammer thrower on the track and field team from 2009 to 2013 and then worked as a performance nutrition intern for Alabama’s athletic department for two years.
Her father was a football coach, so she grew up in a sporting family. During her intercollegiate career, she enjoyed getting to know her teammates, who happened to be from locales all over the world.
“Athletics also gave me friends I will have for life and exposed me to different cultures. It was exciting to get to know all of them. I loved hearing about their backgrounds, traditions and other things unique to their country,” she said.
She always wanted to pursue a career in the health sciences, but “sports directed my path into the field I wanted to pursue,” said Stowers, who will work with Lipscomb athletes for 12 weeks this year as part of the DIP program’s sports nutrition emphasis.
“I was diagnosed with Celiac disease in high school, which made competing in college difficult at times especially on the road. After working with Alabama’s performance dietitian, I saw just how much nutrition positively impacted my health and performance,” she said.
“Athletics influenced my life and career decisions tremendously. All of the failures I had in athletics taught me how to deal with failure in life and how to get back up and keep trying,” Stowers said. “Growing up in a competitive world really prepares you for the competitiveness of the real world. Constantly being coached in athletics also helped me learn how beneficial constructive criticism can be in my professional development.”
Brittany Spitznagel (’12, Pharm.D. ’16)
Pharmacy, Class of 2016
Auburn, Alabama
Even while playing on the Lipscomb women’s basketball team and competing in track and field as a thrower, Spitznagel was actively pursuing a career in the health sciences, successfully juggling practices and games with research hours in the lab to emerge in 2017 as one of the first pharmacy graduates to pursue a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in Lipscomb’s partnership program.
As an applied biochemistry major, Spitznagel worked with Associate Professor of Chemistry John Smith and fell in love with research. Even before starting her pharmacy classes, she participated in the College of Pharmacy’s Summer Research Program.
“Time management is definitely something basketball taught me from day one,” laughed Spitznagel. “Health care is really moving toward an interdisciplinary approach to taking care of patients, and I feel like I picked up on that process much easier in my hospital rotations. Because I had been on a team, I recognized that we each have our own role but we each give our best for our patients.”
Her teamwork skills are also valuable in the research arena, she said. “Within my lab, each one of us has skills we have acquired along the way. We can teach each other those skills, and I don’t have a problem asking for help, because we are all working together for the same end goal.”
Like many athletes headed into health science, Spitznagel also had a run-in with a debilitating injury: torn cartilage in her hip that kept her consulting with orthopedic surgeons, physical therapists, pharmacists and others to help her keep competing during her junior year. The experience pushed her toward practicing research with tangible patient benefits, she said.
“Both degrees (Pharm.D. and Ph.D.) will allow me to research areas where I can see the impacts in my patients,” she said. “I am able to research diseases and treatments and then see those make a difference in people’s lives.”
Kerry Meier
EXNS graduate student (Class of 2017)
Pittsburg, Kansas
Meier had a rough start to his intercollegiate football career at the University of Kansas, as he was immediately diagnosed with a heart condition during the pre-season cardiovascular screening. After surgery and a redshirt season in 2005, Meier went on to play quarterback and then transitioned to wide receiver for Kansas.
After college, he played two years as a wide receiver for the Atlanta Falcons.
“As the youngest of four, I had to work just to get a seat at the table. It was an environment of constant competition,” Meier said. “The deeper I got into athletics, it was the qualities of hard work and a craving for competition that pushed me daily. I found great enjoyment in pushing myself beyond my level of comfort, to equip myself with a repertoire of skills that allowed me to be successful on and off the field.”
Meier was drawn to nutrition because it is an area of sports the athlete can control: diet. “There’s a lot of things that are out of one’s control when it comes to sports. I always knew that I could control my diet, my preparation and my attitude towards sports. I want to help communicate, educate and elevate aspiring student-athletes to allow them to reach their potential in their field of play through nutrition,” said Meier who aspires to become a sports nutritionist in collegiate athletics.
After spending a few years away from competition, he’s excited to get back into the sports world in a new role. “The hard work, the competition, challenges, sacrifices and the camaraderie of a team—those qualities are the same ones that carry over into my everyday life in a little different context. As I dig deeper into nutrition, I will carry that same approach into helping young student-athletes,” he said.
Wayne Newman
Nursing, Senior
San Manuel, Arizona
Newman, a member of Lipscomb’s track and field team in the hurdles event, was a jack-of-all trades in high school, participating in football, swimming, wrestling and cross country.
“I was a very hyper child when I was little,” laughs Newman. His parents were involved in marathons and triathlons, so getting Newman involved in sports channeled his energy in a positive direction.
As a high school freshman, Newman was competing well in his school’s indoor season when he suffered a bi-lateral stress fracture in his L5 vertebrae. He was left in a back brace doing physical therapy for six weeks. The experience showed Newman how much an illness or injury can affect a person’s life, far beyond simply not being able to compete.
“I know how much your life can change when your body is not working at 100 percent,” Newman said. “When I saw the people helping me through my injury, it solidified my desire to be there for people when they are not at 100 percent, to be able to explain how the treatment is going to allow them to do the things they want to do in their life. I saw how people supported me, and I want to be supportive to other people in that way.
“Athletics taught me to work hard, to set goals and to shoot for them. In life and my career, there may be those tough days or times, but as long as I have goals and can push through that moment, I can reach them,” he said.
Newman is currently leaning toward becoming an operating room nurse. But as the good goal-setter he is, right now he is focusing solely on passing his licensing exam this spring.