Celebrating Nurse Practitioner anniversaries
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| Early PNP graduates Ann Noordenbos Smith, at left, and Madeline "Maddie" Nichols, second from right, with physicians and public health nurses during a trip to do physical exams at the Migrant Workers Tent City, in San Luis Valley, Colorado, in September 1967. |
Two significant events in the Nurse Practitioner movement will be celebrated
this summer at Keystone Resort. This year marks the 30th anniversary
of the National Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Symposium and the 40th
anniversary
of the Nurse Practitioner (NP) Program.
The annual National Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Symposium will be
held July 21-24. Presented by the University of Colorado Denver and
Health
Sciences Center's School of Nursing, the 30th annual symposium will feature
an educationally dense and diverse range of sessions and clinical workshops
throughout the
four day event.
For information about the 30th National Primary Care Nurse Practitioner
Symposium, visit the UCD School of Nursing website at www.uchsc.edu/nursing/nps.htm
Mary Murphy
For Mary Murphy, the NP program was an attractive offer. She was already
considering going back to school, but discovered that the10 hours of graduate
courses she had taken wouldn’t be accepted for a master’s program.
When the nursing director from the Visiting Nurse Service called and asked
her if she would like to go school for a semester for the NP program, Murphy
didn’t know what it was or what it was about. But it was school, and
it had to do with nursing.
Murphy remembers that she was given a few minutes to think about it. The
service was asked to send two nurses to the program, and if Murphy didn’t
want the opportunity, the director would need to check with others.
Murphy recalls that after making her decision, she had until the next day
to “close up her little black bag” and go to the university.
Three decades later, Murphy believes that she absolutely made the right decision,
and that NPs have significantly changed nursing.
“For people who go into nursing to work with people, this is the way
to do it,” she said. “Being an NP is the way to still be tied
to the patient. It gives you a certain amount of being a team member, and
working
with physicians, not under them.”
According to Murphy, if you’re going into nursing, you had better go
into an NP program. As a nurse, you will learn more theory; as an NP you
get to apply the theory and work with people.
“The NP program changed my life,” said Murphy. “Working
with Dr. Loretta Ford, we went and did things clinically, we read and studied
and
had a blast. I discovered that learning is fun.”
“I would like to think that we’re not going to lose nursing because
of NPs. NPs are the cream of the crop,” said Murphy. “As an example,
when you go into a new system and there are barriers, NPs go in and take
problems on one at a time. We are a group of nurses that says we can do it,
and we do it, and we’re positive about it.”
“I think we are nursing,” said Murphy.
Madeline “Maddie” Nichols
Madeline “Maddie” Nichols graduated in the fourth NP class at
the CU School of Nursing.
The year was 1967, and by then, the graduating class had expanded to eight.
The class size had more than doubled since the program’s inception
in 1966.
Nichols was a public health nurse with the visiting nurse service out of
Denver General, doing well-baby clinics at the time.
“They were actively recruiting people from the visiting nurse service,
and I knew some of the people that had gone through the newly-formed NP program,” said
Nichols. “I decided to enroll because I really thought it would enhance
my ability do to what I was already doing,” she said.
Nichols said it was four months of straight academia. The way the program
worked, she was still an employee of the visiting nurse service, but took
a four month hiatus to finish the program.
Following graduation from the NP program, Nichols recalls she did a bit of
everything: home visitations for moms and babies; school nurse for a parochial
school; and classes for parents and kids.
Nichols believes that the importance of the Nurse Practitioner role in today’s
health care scheme is the ability for the NP to meet the needs of the patient
on a preventive as well as holistic basis.
“It’s been my experience as a preceptor for NPs, that what makes
us unique is our overall approach to the patient – to give them a caring,
health-driven experience,” said Nichols.
“Nurse practitioners have the ability, and training, to look at the
whole patient and to call for help from the appropriate health care provider,
when
necessary.”
For Nichols, being a NP has been a rewarding, flexible career.
For those looking into the program for their own career, she recommends patience
and fortitude. “You will have to prove yourself,” she said. “You
will have to be able to prove what you can do, what you are good at, and
how you can be an asset to a program or clinic. You have to know how to be
tactful, resourceful and how to take chances.”
The NP program, when it began, was a chance – a risk. Nichols remembers
that in the beginning, the nursing field was just as difficult about accepting
the NP role as the doctors were.
“Once everyone knew the service we could provide, they were very accepting
of the way NPs could help the health care profession overall,” she
said.
Nichols believes that the creation and implementation of the NP degree program
has allowed NPs to be considered a primary force; part of a team that is
more collegial than hierarchical. It has given nurses the ability to show
that they can provide quality health care that the public needs and wants.
Ann Smith
When Ann Smith graduated as a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner (PNP) from the
second class of the Nurse Practitioner program in 1966, there were two
others graduating along with her. During May 2005 convocation, which coincided
with the 40th anniversary of the Nurse Practitioner (NP) program, 18 NPs
graduated from the CU School of Nursing. In 2004, a total of 50 NPs graduated
from the program.
In 1966, Dr. Smith had just finished her master’s degree in community
health nursing when Dr. Loretta Ford, who served as her advisor, called and
asked her to take the NP program.
“I had public health nursing experience and knew public health, so
after being recruited by Dr. Ford, whom I greatly admired, I began the program
in Feb.
of 1966 and graduated in June of the same year,” said Dr. Smith.
Following four months of classroom and clinical work at the Health Sciences
Center, Dr. Smith helped to open the Stapleton Health Station in North Denver
and continued in the program for one year of supervised clinical practice.
The station provided well-child counseling and was able to help many children
that otherwise would not have received care.
“With my background in nursing, I knew the problems and knew that there
was much we could do without referring.”
Dr. Smith understood that the idea behind the PNP program was to increase
manpower training. Community health nurses were already in place. If they
could be taught to do more, and they could do it legitimately, that would
only strengthen the nursing profession, as well as health care.
Now, Dr. Smith believes that the nurse practitioner education is the basis
of all the NP master’s programs in the U.S.
“One of the current issues for the profession is that nurses are being
pushed into seeing patients at an accelerated rate,” said Dr. Smith. “Physicians
and nurses are colleagues, and neither likes to be pushed around. The two
professions need to be a team to resolve issues facing both of them. They
need to bargain together for what they want as a unified group.”
There are now nearly 106,000 NPs in the U.S. Significant changes have occurred
in what nurses do and in their contribution to giving care. The NP program
that began 40 years ago was a huge social movement that has been very successful.
“The CU School of Nursing is still known as the starting place – or
birthplace – of the NP Program. I hope that future graduates can keep
the original model in mind and constantly review to keep the thought of being
a good nurse.
“I think those of us who are in it remember how much fun it was. It
was a bunch of turmoil. We were on this project, it was new and exciting.
We knew
it was a good idea. We had a lot of enthusiasm. We were ready to go!” added
Dr. Smith.
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