Celebrating 75 Years of Excellence

During National Nurses Month, we recognize the millions of skilled, caring individuals committed to the nursing profession. The nurse’s pledge outlined by Florence Nightingale in 1893 ends with a promise to “devote myself to the welfare of those committed to my care.”

A great deal of trust continues to be placed in this nation’s nearly 4.2 million nurses, with nursing ranked the most trusted profession year after year. Today’s U.S. nursing workforce includes 355,000 licensed nurse practitioners who care for patients in over 1 billion visits annually, according to the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. The number of states giving nurse practitioners full practice authority continues to expand, and U.S. News & World Report, for the second year in a row, ranked the nurse practitioner (NP) role first on its “2023 Best Health Care Jobs” list and second on its “100 Best Jobs of 2023” list.

Lately, though, the conversation has also centered around the welfare of nurses, the reasons they seem to be in short supply, and how to make impactful changes benefiting both patients and providers while sustaining our complex health system.

As editor of the American Journal of Critical Care, I have addressed and will continue to emphasize tough, honest topics about the well-being of nurses in this current climate, including moral distress and burnout exacerbated by COVID-19 and the rise in violence against nurses, which escalated to an all-time high last year.

As editor of AJCC, I also have the chance to highlight bright spots I see in nursing and patient care. As the Dean of the School of Nursing and Health Studies at the University of Miami, my optimism centers on our future nurses, the robust, well-rounded education we prepare them with, and the incomparable educators who make the advancement of knowledge possible for our profession.

This time of year, and this writing space, give me a broader platform to bring to light the need for the kind of novel, optimistic, world-changing work we promote here at the School of Nursing and Health Studies (SONHS). The importance of evidence-based, accredited nursing education for this nation cannot be understated. Nursing education has been a part of the University of Miami curriculum for 75 years.

In fact, in 1948, UM offered South Florida’s first collegiate nursing program. We launched South Florida’s first public health bachelor’s degree program and introduced Florida’s first nurse anesthetist doctoral program, received the first P60 center grant ever awarded to a nursing school, and offered one of the nation’s first executive-style M.S.N. to D.N.P. degree programs, among other forward-thinking moves.

Over these past 75 years, the school has grown immeasurably as an educational leader for nursing, here and across the hemisphere. That was evidenced most recently with our hosting of the Pan American Nursing Research Colloquium. Presented biennially by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), the event drew over 200 participants from around the world, including the U.S., Canada, Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Spain, the United Kingdom, El Salvador, Chile, Israel, Portugal, Cuba, Jamaica, Bolivia, and over a dozen other countries. Many more logged on globally for the virtual portions of the hybrid conference.

For over seven decades, the didactic and clinical programs, community and global outreach, and research initiatives innovated by this school’s faculty, students, and alumni have helped shape and improve the health care landscape in this community immeasurably, expanding access to care among our most vulnerable and neglected populations.

Our programs have maintained top academic and health care accreditations. Our graduates’ first-time pass rates on licensure exams for registered nurses, nurse practitioners, and nurse anesthetists are consistently high, well above state and national averages.

Today, our school is taking nursing to new heights. Not only are we growing the profession by educating future nurses at all scopes of practice, but we are preparing future nurse scientists, nurse leaders, and nurse educators, all of whom are desperately needed in today’s health system. We have an internationally known and utilized 41,000-square-foot simulation facility, Simulation Hospital Advancing Research and Education, or S.H.A.R.E.™ In this cutting-edge environment, our faculty are developing and delivering new simulation-based educational techniques targeting health care professionals and providing experiential learning opportunities for the global health care workforce. In this environment, we can safely replicate and debrief on virtually any scenario, from high-risk to routine, that our students may encounter.

In addition to preparing outstanding RNs, preparing exceptional nurse practitioners is a significant part of our role here at SONHS. We offer nearly a dozen specialized tracks to follow toward this path, designed to meet the needs of today’s nursing professionals. The most recent of these is the Master of Science in Leadership (MSL) / Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) joint degree program, offered in coordination with the University of Miami Herbert Business School.

Another important area we are focused on is the need to address South Florida’s human trafficking public health crisis. Florida ranks with California and Texas in the top three U.S. states impacted by human trafficking, with South Florida an epicenter of the crisis.

Yet awareness and education about human trafficking remain remarkably low among health professionals. SONHS is targeting this public health crisis by educating nursing students and others via a hybrid didactic and simulation-based curriculum to raise awareness about how to recognize and address human trafficking in the clinical setting.

Over 600 nursing students in a variety of specialties have experienced immersive education to prevent human trafficking since the Spring of 2021 when the program officially started. The award-winning curriculum we’ve implemented, “Do You See What I See? Recognizing Human Trafficking,” uses trauma-informed best practices established by HEAL Trafficking and other nationally known stakeholders to promote education for survivor-informed, person-centered care that is culturally and linguistically appropriate, multidisciplinary, and data-driven.

Included in this curriculum is a simulation component in which students engage one-on-one with a trauma-informed Standardized Patient (SP) portraying a potential trafficking victim in an emergency setting. These lifelike encounters help prepare students for the complex array of indicators, challenges, and symptomatology this vulnerable population may present within a real-life clinical setting.

The reception has been excellent, with students saying they feel more comfortable knowing they will be aware of what to do and how to recognize someone who is being trafficked or exploited.

Generous funding from the Harcourt M. and Virginia W. Sylvester Foundation is enabling SONHS to significantly expand its efforts over the next two years to educate frontline health care professionals, collaborate with major hospital systems such as UHealth and Jackson Health System, engage a consultant, form an advisory board, and establish reproduceable resources for the local, national, and international community.

This Fall 2022, we debuted the Maria G. Lamas Featured Speaker Series for Human Trafficking Education and Prevention and continue partnering with community stakeholders to promote awareness and facilitate interconnectedness among cross-professional entities aligned against human trafficking.

Other critical support to date has come from Heidi Schaeffer, M.D. ’98, and the UM Citizens Board.

Moving forward, we are actively working to establish the Academic Center for Human Trafficking Education and Prevention as one of our school’s top three fundraising priorities for the University of Miami’s Ever Brighter: The Campaign for Our Next Century. Our other complementary priorities include promoting health equity across diverse communities and strengthening the science of holistic health care. (For more information, visit https://everbrighter.miami.edu/school-units/school-of-nursing-and-health-studies/index.html).

As we celebrate National Nurses Month and our 75th anniversary of educational excellence at SONHS, there is no question of the need for nurse educators to continue leading and lighting the way for the welfare of our community.