Two new faculty positions added for newly launched RN-to-BSN program
This fall the School of Nursing welcomed two new faculty charged with launching the school’s new fully online RN-to-BSN program, designed to fit into the lifestyle of a working professional and to integrate a competency assessment for leadership skills already mastered.
Janel Shoun-Smith | 615.966.7078 |
Katie Watson ('07), left, and Gail Humes, right, have been hired to launch and carft the new RN-to-BSN degree program.
This fall the School of Nursing welcomed two new faculty charged with launching the school’s new fully online RN-to-BSN program, designed to fit into the lifestyle of a working professional and to integrate a competency assessment for leadership skills already mastered.
Associate Professor Gail Humes of Whites Creek, Tennessee, came to Lipscomb from Cumberland University. Previous to that she had professional nursing experience at Nashville’s Centennial Medical Center and Vanderbilt Medical Center.
Humes holds a Doctor of Nursing Practice from Union University and a Master of Science in acute care nursing from the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
“My draw to work with RN-to-BSN students comes from my passion to help the associate’s degree (AD) nurse continue their professional development,” said Humes. “It’s so important for nurses to get their BSN degree as it opens the door to many other possibilities and prepares them to pursue an advance nursing degree.”
Many health care providers and hospitals are requiring nurses to have a four-year college degree. In 2010, the Institute of Medicine recommended that 80 percent of the United States nurses have a BSN by 2020.
According to the Critical Care Nurse Association, many hospitals and other medical facilities are following the institute’s guidelines and strongly encouraging associate-prepared RNs to earn their bachelor’s within five years of graduation.
Assistant Professor Katie Watson (’07) of Nashville brings a lifetime of experience with Lipscomb to the RN-to-BSN program. She is known as a “Lipscomb Lifer,” someone who attends Lipscomb from kindergarten through college. Watson graduated with the first class of Lipscomb BSN holders.
Since then she has earned her Master of Science in nursing from Austin Peay University in 2015, worked with HPIHair Partners and the Edmonson Pike Family Practice as a nurse practitioner and worked as an instructor of nursing at Lipscomb since August 2015.
Both Humes and Watson have been students in online nursing programs, and Humes has taught in an online environment at the master’s level.
“I will strive to help our online students feel they are a part of the Lipscomb community and to empower them to integrate their faith into their nursing practice,” Watson said. “Our program is designed to be offered through six week courses so that the degree can be finished in 16 to 18 months. Each course will have a few synchronous meetings, and the rest of the time the student will be given the freedom to complete the weekly assignments as their schedule allows.”
“An online program is beneficial as it allows busy students the flexibility to do the work on their own time, in a setting of their choosing all while still being provided guidance from an instructor,” Humes said.
Lipscomb’s RN-to-BSN is also the first such program in the nation to include an assessment that awards up to 27 credit hours for demonstration of knowledge and skills already mastered.
The School of Nursing has partnered with Lipscomb’s College of Professional Studies to intentionally integrate key leadership competencies essential for success in the workplace into the curriculum. Students enrolling in the program will have the opportunity to demonstrate such competencies through a professional assessment simulation that mirrors a day in the workplace.
“This program will not only provide nurses with the professional edge needed to excel in the workplace, but also equip them in preventing burnout and compassion fatigue, two serious issues crippling health care today,” said Chelsia Harris, associate director of nursing for degree development at Lipscomb.
“Research links improved patient outcomes, decreased medication errors and lower mortality rates to nurses educated at the baccalaureate level,” said Harris. “Nurses at the associate degree level are wonderful clinicians. However, there is a gap between an associate degree RN and an RN with a bachelor’s degree, she said.