Nurse Mentor

The stories I hear from my colleagues in academia with kids living at home are something else, especially if they are young. For those on tenure track, the pressure to succeed in the face of such uncertainty is staggering. Some places, like my home university, have extended tenure clocks for those who may need it and have mobilized support groups. There will be, of course, the inevitable faculty members who simply can't understand why non-tenured faculty on research tracks with children living at home are struggling so much. After all, in their day they did not have all the legal provisions and extra protections that young faculty have today. Or just put the kids on a schedule! Scheduling is the key to success in everything! Sound familiar?  Wouldn't you like those folks to see how working and homeschooling goes if their grandkids or grand nieces and nephews came over and spent a week with them? Faculty who think that way are thinking from a highly privileged place. No one ...

Happy 2019! Much to my surprise, I realized I went all of 2018 without posting anything. I got tenure in 2018 so technically, I should have had more time with that monkey off my back. Yet as a wise colleague told me, tenure usually means more work. Sure enough. Nonetheless, let's start 2019 off fresh with a burning question I get from many of my PhD students: To post-doc or not to post-doc. For those of you not in academia, I post-doctoral fellowship (post-doc) involves additional training. You see, science has evolved so much these days that despite doing a PhD for 4 to 7 years, you might need more training. I went into my post-doc reluctantly. After 5 years of PhD study, I was really hoping to have a just one job and a regular salary that might actually allow me to travel and start paying down my student loans. A post-doc just seemed like more years being poor. It was, however, the best decision I ever made. I was lucky to have a great mentor who passed along many wonderf...

In 2011, some colleagues and I wanted to see what factors might influence someone's choices for going back for a PhD. Our pilot study found some interesting results and you can read about them in our 2014 published study here . Among our findings, family and financial factors were major concerns. This is a pretty common concern among most women returning for graduate study, and increasingly for men. Let's take a look at common questions and concerns around family issues that come up among potential PhD applicants.  Most responses are geared toward individuals returning for full time study and modified for part-time study as needed. These responses also apply to the US context. They may not be relevant outside the US. _______________________________________________________________________________ My family can't afford for me to quit my job for full time study. _____________________________________________________ Full time PhD study is at least a 4 year commitment ...

This is a hot topic these days: Should someone be admitted to a PhD program in nursing without ever having worked as a nurse, straight from their bachelor's degree? Good question. A common reaction from most people is that well, of course they should! How can you know what healthcare is like from a nursing perspective if you don't have experience? Of course, one could make the same argument about a PhD in public health where it is also common to go straight from an undergraduate bachelor's degree right into a PhD program. How can you understand the context of public health without any experience? Do we assume that bright people will be able to make reductionistic arguments about their research findings based purely on what trends in numbers show?  In many cases, it happens all the time. Kind of like management consultants with no life or healthcare experience that make recommendations for hospitals and how they should operate. Happens more than you think it does. ...

I've been thinking about this topic for a long time.  It's one where I get the most questions from students about which doctoral degree to do in their future career path. The short answer comes with questions: What do you want to do with your doctoral degree?  Do you want to design and conduct research?  Do you want to focus on applying and testing evidence in clinical practice?  Your answer to that question will determine your educational program choice. Let's start with why you would choose a PhD. Around the world, everyone knows what a PhD is as a degree.  Doesn't matter where you got it from, with a PhD after your name people will recognize you spent a lot of time in school and must have passed some higher standard of educational preparation.   Outside the United States, except for maybe Canada, no one knows what a DNP degree is or what you can do with it.   It will take decades before that happens.  If you think you want a career with an...