Hester Klopper served as moderator for the Nurse Faculty Mentored Leadership Development special session. Klopper is also co-author of three studies presented at congress and two poster presentations.

Mentoring nurse faculty
Wednesday's special session featured the Nurse Faculty Mentored Leadership Development program, offered by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI). Fifteen scholars and their mentors comprise the inaugural class of the 18-month program, intended for nursing educators within the first four years of their academic career. Organizers Deborah Cleeter, RN, MSN, EdD, and Ainslie Nibert, RN, PhD, presented descriptions of three domains of evidence-based leadership development and outcomes from the first workshop. STTI Director Hester Klopper, PhD, MBA, RN, RM, BACUR, MCUR, was moderator for the session.

Sample sessions
Following are recaps of two sessions presented today.

Unpacking key issues in evidence-based practice—Translating research into practice is critical for improving health care, but it’s a task not easily accomplished. Jo Rycroft-Malone, PhD, MSc, BSc, RN, editor of the award-winning STTI journal Worldviews on Evidence-Based Nursing, explored several key issues related to implementing evidence-based nursing, including pros and cons of different approaches. In response, attendees shared their experiences with evidence-based practice. The session was moderated by Margaret-Rose Agostino, MSN, MSW, BA, RNC, IBCLC.

Pain behavior observation by nursing home nurses—Successful pain management is difficult to achieve in cognitively impaired elderly people who cannot verbally describe their pain. Pain behavior observational methods (PBOMs) seek to overcome that problem. A possible barrier to their use is whether or not nursing home nurses find the methods acceptable in their practice. A study by Yat-wa Justina Liu, PhD, of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University School of Nursing found that these nurses were able to identify pain behaviors such as facial expressions, body movements and vocalizations. In general, these nurses were confident about using PBOMs in their daily routine.

Focus on exhibits

Donna M. Nickitas (left), Ken Dion, Beth Ulrich

Research congress exhibitors—30 in all—ranged from the American Nurses Credentialing Center to Zynx Health, with schools of nursing, publishers and health care companies in between.

“The honor society’s annual research congress is a key event for Wiley-Blackwell and has been for the past six years,” says Kathleen Mulcahy, senior marketing manager at Wiley-Blackwell. “Congress provides us with an important opportunity to interact with this highly engaged and influential group of global nurse leaders."  

Exhibitor and sponsor Ken Dion, RN, MSN, MBA, founder and CEO of Decision Critical Inc., will present one of Friday's sessions, "From novice to expert: The critical role of the electronic portfolio in the 21st century nursing workforce." Dion was recently elected president of the board of trustees of the Foundation of the National Student Nurses' Association.

Pictured with Dion above are Donna M. Nickitas, RN, PhD, CEA-BC, who presented "Faculty-staff-student issues during the transition from paper-based to electronic health records systems," and Beth Ulrich, EdD, RN, FACHE, FAAN, who presented "Improving turnover, confidence, competence and professional engagement of new graduate nurses: Results of a 10-year longitudinal study."

More scenes from the research congress exhibits:

Taste of Orlando—Monday, 12 July
Taste of Orlando—Tuesday, 13 July
Taste of Orlando—Thursday, 15 July
Taste of Orlando—Friday, 16 July