Nurse Mentor

 Over the years, I've written a lot about pursuing a PhD in nursing and I'm including midwives because we need more PhD prepared midwives too.  Getting a PhD is a great way to address the problems you've seen on the frontlines of COVID-19, another way to address the social injustices of racism and discrimination on health outcomes, and to make your voice heard by the decision-makers. A third of the 1% of nurses with PhDs will retire in the next five years so we need people to take their place. We cannot lose our voices in all the places where nurses and midwives with PhDs work. Here's a compilation of the posts I've written about getting a PhD and the things to think about as you figure out where you want to apply. PhD or DNP?   This is where many people start when trying to decide on their doctoral-level career advancement. This post has my two cents on the topic. Should you work as a nurse before getting a PhD?   There's a lot of opinions out there on this sub...

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...

Congratulations! You've decided to take your career to another level and pursue a research degree. I can assure you that you've not lost your mind (however, you can email me during years 1 and 2 when you're sure you've lost your mind and I'll give you a pep talk), you've just probably come up with more questions that you cannot find answers for in the existing evidence. Even though your undergraduate self that probably did not like your introduction to research course is in shock at the moment, you've made a good choice. So at this moment you're trying to figure out where to go to study. Here's how you should choose.  This is the first post in a series getting published in the Fall of 2015. Do you see yourself doing research just about all the time or maybe part of the time? Just about all of the time = You need to choose a top 25 graduate school that is designated as a Research I university. Most of your time will be spent doing research and l...