2009 National Summit

UVA's second-degree MSN-entry Clinical Nurse Leader program at UVA was extremely well represented at the national CNL Summit held in New Orleans January 29-31, 2009. The CNL Summit was co-sponsored by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, and was attended by over 400 practicing clinical nurse leaders, students, faculty, and nurse executives. Our own Kathryn Reid, CNL program coordinator, serves as a member of the AACN's national CNL Steering Committee, and in her role, moderated several sessions and co-led a CNL faculty forum. In addition, the following UVA abstracts were presented at the conference:

• Dorothy Tullmann gave a podium presentation titled Enhancing Students' Vision of Quality and safety in the Microsystem: The Role of Clinical faculty in Precepted Clinical Experiences.

• Rebecca Salisbury (Class of 2008) and Audrey Snyder gave of podium presentation of Rebecca's UVA Emergency Department capstone project titled A Healthy Work Environment Improvement Project.

• Jae-Hoon Kim (Class of 2008) also gave a podium presentation titled A Clinical Microsystem Approach in an Acute Inpatient Psychiatric Unit, detailing his capstone project on UVA's Rucker 3.

• Jess Keim (Class of 2008 and now a student in the PhD program) and Tim Cunningham (Class of 2009) also gave a podium presentation titled Utilizing CNL Roles to Initiate the Development of Global Health Partnerships.

• Sherry Kausch (Class of 2009) presented a poster titled Impact of a CNL Student Impact in Home Health Care Nurses' Teaching.

• Drew Walton (Class of 2008) and Gayle Coolidge (Class of 2008) presented a poster titled Clinical Nurse Leader Students Create a "Green" Tipping Point in an Academic Medical Center. Co-authors include Kiernan Calef (Class of 2008) and our medical center colleagues Kim Sutphin, Kathleen Rea, and Pam Dennison. Please note also that the CNL "Go-Green" initiative has been highlighted last fall by Johnson and Johnson as well as Working Nursing: http://www.workingnurse.com/articles/Nurses-Going-Green, and the Luminary Project: http://www.theluminaryproject.org/story.php?detail=272.

Tim Cunningham's (Class of 2009) work titled Ngudo Nga Zwinepe (Learning through Photos): A Modified Photovoice Methodology Assessing Community Water and Health Perceptions in Limpopo Province, South Africa has been accepted for presentation at Yale's 6th annual Unite for Sight Global Health Conference and at the Global Health Education Consortium & the Western Regional International Health Conference in Seattle, WA, both of which will be held this spring. In case you've not had the opportunity to meet Tim, he also serves as the CNL 2009 "class clown" - literally! His background includes professional clowning with the organization known as Clowns Without Borders, and he attributes these experiences as contributing to his desire to become a nurse.

On a last note, Kathryn Reid has been invited to speak at the upcoming AACN MSN Education conference. She will be speaking during one of the opening sessions titled Moving Graduate Nursing Education into the Future on the topic of Educating Non-Nurses for the CNL Role: Second Degree Master’s Advanced Generalist Preparation. Co-panelists for this presentation include Jean Novotny speaking about Transitioning BSN Graduates to the CNL Role via Master’s Programs and Jean E. DeMartinis speaking about Elevating Specialty Preparation From Master’s to the DNP.