Their presentation, 鈥淯sing Simulation to Bridge Faith and Health in a Non-Traditional Setting,鈥� highlighted a unique, interdisciplinary approach to simulation design that integrates healthcare, ethics and religious studies. Developed as part of Koonts’ Bridging Faith and Health work, in collaboration with interdisciplinary partners 黑料不打烊 faculty members Brian Pennington and Helen Orr, and supported by Interfaith America, the project addresses a growing need to prepare future nurses to navigate complex patient situations where religious beliefs, patient autonomy and evidence-based practice intersect.

The session showcased a multi-module educational initiative and an accompanying simulation experience designed to foster interprofessional collaboration, communication, and clinical judgment in ethically challenging scenarios. By engaging learners in realistic, non-traditional simulation environments, the project aims to strengthen students鈥� ability to deliver patient-centered care while respecting diverse values and beliefs.

Conference participants responded enthusiastically to the presentation, particularly its emphasis on:

• Addressing moral distress in clinical practice
• Enhancing interprofessional education (IPE)
• Expanding simulation beyond traditional clinical settings
• Promoting culturally and spiritually sensitive care

This work is part of a broader, Interfaith America grant-funded initiative that will continue over the next two years, with plans to expand the simulation model and contribute to the growing body of knowledge in faith-health integration and simulation-based education.

The conference brought together educators and simulation specialists from across the state to explore emerging trends such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality and innovative teaching strategies. 黑料不打烊鈥檚 contribution reflects the department鈥檚 ongoing commitment to excellence in nursing education, leadership in simulation and preparation of practice-ready graduates.

Their podium presentation, titled 鈥淗avana to Home: A Reflection on Global Learning and Cultural Immersion,鈥� highlighted their transformative experience leading 24 nursing students to Cuba during the January Term of 2025 (J-Term). The presentation explored how immersion in Cuba鈥檚 healthcare system expanded students鈥� understanding of community health, cultural competence and global nursing practice.

Professors Koonts and Kussman shared insights into how transcultural experiences deepen empathy, adaptability, and cross-cultural communication, key components of providing holistic, patient-centered care.

Transcultural nursing is聽a field of study and practice focused on providing culturally competent, congruent, and sensitive healthcare to diverse populations. It involves understanding and respecting patients’ cultural differences, beliefs, and values to create care plans that are meaningful and beneficial to them. Key goals include improving health outcomes and reducing health disparities by ensuring care is tailored to individual cultural contexts, such as incorporating traditional healing practices or dietary needs.

The and the conference were inspired by the pioneering work of Madeleine Leininger, the founder of transcultural nursing. Among the most memorable moments was meeting nurse colleagues from across the country and the world, including Larry Purnell. Purnell, a renowned transcultural theorist, is known for developing the Purnell Model for Cultural Competence. Purnell鈥檚 model visually represents the complexity of cultural understanding through twelve interconnected domains surrounding a central core. At the heart of the model lies a 鈥渂lack hole,鈥� a powerful symbol representing the unknown aspects of culture that healthcare providers must continuously seek to understand with humility and curiosity.

The goal was to learn more about the reproductive system, the link between its anatomical structures and the common signs and symptoms women experience while pregnant, as well as the link between these structures and potential pregnancy complications.

黑料不打烊’s Anatomical Gift Program allows individuals to donate their bodies for research when they die and become “silent teachers” for 黑料不打烊 students. Whole body donations are used to teach undergraduate biology students who are interested in pursuing graduate degrees in healthcare and graduate students in the Physical Therapy and Physician Assistant programs.

The students are enrolled in Professor of Nursing Jeanmarie Koonts’ Reproductive Health nursing course.聽As part of an interdisciplinary, engaged learning opportunity in her Reproductive Health course, Koonts asked Dr. Cindy Bennett, associate professor of physician assistant studies, who teaches anatomy and was an OB/GYN before coming to 黑料不打烊, Matthew Clark, associate professor of biology and coordinator of the undergraduate anatomy TEATAPS (黑料不打烊 Anatomy Teaching Assistants) program and the Anatomical Gift Program to provide the students with an opportunity to experience the donor lab.

This experience marked the first time the ABSN students had experienced the donor lab and served to reintroduce the BSN students with the donor lab having last interacted with donors in their first-year anatomy course.聽 Using four of the 鈥渟ilent teachers鈥� and together with assistance from faculty and TEATAPS stationed at each donor, students located the reproductive structures and discussed their role as well as the interaction and interference of structures in proximity. Armed with this visual, students take this knowledge and work to apply it throughout the semester, often referring to 鈥渞emember what we saw.”

Students reflected on the opportunity to 鈥渦nderstand what鈥檚 happening on the inside鈥� positively and express their gratitude to the individuals who, in their selfless act, donated their bodies to the Anatomical Gift Program at 黑料不打烊 to advance healthcare education.

Available to all of the school’s students but primarily used by those in the nursing program, these mannequins can mimic cardiac arrest and other conditions. They can speak and have heart, lung and bowel sounds. The mannequins can be used to practice IV insertion, foley catheter insertion, medication administration and assist students in developing a variety of other skills. They provide a 鈥渞eal-life鈥� patient experience within a safe learning environment where mistakes don鈥檛 cause injury.

With all of these capabilities, these mannequins essentially become the first patients that 黑料不打烊 nursing students learn to care for. Given that nursing is based on a patient-centered, holistic care model, it seemed only fitting that each of these patients. And so this spring, as sports fans were captivated by the NCAA basketball tournaments, the School of Health Sciences had its own March Madness brackets 鈥� nursing style.

Members from each of 黑料不打烊’s first bachelor of science in nursing cohorts (the classes of 2025, 2026 and 2027) along with the Class of 2024 accelerated bachelor of science in nursing cohort had a chance to submit a name for contention. As names were submitted and voted on, top contenders rose to the top, resulting in a final slate of names and an overall champion.

Now visitors to the School of Health Sciences can stop by to Ryan Guaze-ling (BSN, Class of 2027), Annie T. Omical (BSN, Class of 2026), Ferb (BSN, Class of 2025) and Cathy Ters (ABSN Class of 2024), Gerald and Francis (Staff/Faculty selections). They鈥檒l be happy to say 鈥渉ello鈥�.

Construction continues in the SHS with the final phase under construction.聽 Watch for information about open houses to tour the space during planning week in August.

With two stations on main campus and one in the School of Health Sciences, volunteers worked to spread the news of (NMDP) registry program. NMDP is a national nonprofit agency whose mission is to share awareness of the need for bone marrow donation and to increase the number of participants in the registery.聽 Armed with the knowledge that someone in the United States is diagnosed with a blood cancer every 3 to 4 minutes, 70% of patients don鈥檛 have a family member match and more than 75 diseases can be cured or treated with blood stem cells,聽 the effort gathered over 300 samples from 黑料不打烊 students to add to the national registry for matching.

This event marks the first philanthropic activity for Club Nursing.聽 Watch for more social and civic engagement opportunities to come.

Special thanks to Amanda Cooley and Cavin Villarreal from NMDP, club nursing executive board especially President Amanda Jacobson and Vice-President, Taylor Capello, the Department of Nursing for financial support and the faculty and staff advisers for the football and nursing program.

This work is part of their program of research exploring how nursing students build and maintain skill competence in nursing education. The goal of this current study was to evaluate ongoing skill competence and the means of maintaining it, after students had a summer break in their clinical learning.

In this study, Kussman and Koonts had students track their clinical experiences related to six core clinical skills (known as caring interventions) that each student had previously demonstrated competency doing. Following this clinical experience and a summer break, Kussman and Koonts re-evaluated students for ongoing caring intervention competency. Their research showed that not all students had an opportunity for continued skill development in the clinical setting and that competency lagged after a summer clinical break. Major themes important to nurse competency and didactic education related to ongoing assessment of competency, the role of independent practice and demonstration, the role of the skills lab, skills bootcamps and more emerged. Nursing education programs can use this knowledge to design curricula that supports ongoing assessment, evaluation, and development of caring interventions.

The National Nurse Education Summit is a national nurse educators conference where nursing professionals from across the country gather to focus on the critical issues facing healthcare and nursing education today. This Assessment Technologies Institute (ATI) organized event highlights research and educational podium and poster presentations which address topics important for the advancement of nursing practice and education. In addition, the conference highlights ATI鈥檚 varied platforms and programs (didactic, skill, testing, NCLEX preparation, AI, nursing school readiness, etc) available to help support and educate the next generation of nursing leaders.

Special thanks to CATL for their travel grant which supported faculty鈥檚 attendance at this conference.

This annual regional conference promotes the advancement of nursing education through podium and break-out presentations, posters and networking with local and regional leaders.

Koonts gave a poster presentation highlighting one of the engaged learning strategies she uses in the NRS2200 Health Assessment course. Utilizing a blank template, students build a puzzle person throughout the semester by earning a focused assessment body system part each week. Once the puzzle is “complete” students explore the role of culture and religion in holistic assessment by working through designated case studies and class discussions led by Brain Pennington, director of 黑料不打烊’s Center for Religion, Culture and Society. Next, Koonts challenges them to decorate their puzzles in a religious or cultural group they identify with or in their image and likeness.

The result is a scaffolded, semester-long engaged learning activity that grows students didactically, kinestically, socially and emotionally, and which helps students to “see” and appreciate their classmates as well as,聽the diverse and unique client population they will be caring for as professional nurses.

Each week during the Assessment of Health and Wellness for Nursing Practice course, Class of 2025 Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing students focus on learning to assess a different body system (respiratory cardiac, etc.) with the goal of being able to put it all together into a head-to-toe assessment.

A foundational skill and core component of nursing care, assessment knowledge and skill and the relationship of each body system to each other, can be a difficult concept for students to master. To better grasp this concept, Assistant Professor Jeanmarie Koonts established The Puzzle Project. Working with Dan Reis in the Maker Hub and supported by a grant from the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning (CATL), a puzzle person template was developed and the semester-long scaffolded learning activity was born.

At the conclusion of class and lab each week nursing students “earned” a body system puzzle piece. As their assessment knowledge and skill grew in class, lab and clinical, so did their puzzle and their knowledge of the interconnectedness of the body systems to form and shape the whole person.

Once the puzzle was complete, the students were confronted with a blank puzzle person who looked exactly like their colleagues’ puzzle. To reinforce the unique nature of the clients nursing cares for, and in keeping with nursing’s holistic approach to assessment, students spent the next class periods exploring the impact of culture, spirituality, the environment and more on the clients they serve and how these influences make each client unique. To reinforce this concept, as the final step in the puzzle, students were asked to decorate their puzzles as they liked. Some decorated them in their likeness or based on a group they identified with or which they had studied.

The end result: puzzles as unique as the clients nursing cares for and a tangible reminder that the sum is more than its parts.

Millions of Americans live in poverty every day. Many more people have incomes above the poverty line but their incomes are still low enough to qualify for programs like SNAP and Medicaid. The recent economic downturn has seen unemployment rates rise and the use of emergency food pantries increase.

It is difficult for those will access to basic necessities without private or governmental assistance to truly understand the situations that families living in poverty experience every day 鈥� the decisions they have to make, and the fears and frustrations they feel.

The Community Action Poverty Simulation (CAPS) provides participants with the opportunity to assume the role of a low-income family member living on a limited budget. The experience is divided into four 15-minute sessions, each of which represents one week in which you must provide for your family and maintain your home.

As part of NRS 2200 Health Assessment, taught by Assistant Professor of Nursing Jeanmarie Koonts, 44 nursing students joined together to experience the CAPS and explore the question: could you survive in poverty for a month?

鈥淭his poverty simulation dramatically demonstrates how much time and energy many families have to give just to survive from day to day. It quickly dispels the myth that people would do fine if they would only go out and get a job,鈥� one participant said.

With the help of the faculty Cyra Kussman, Nita Skillman and Bethany Fearnow from the School of Health Sciences Interprofessional Simulation Center and facilitated by Tiffany Morris, chair of the Department of Nursing, this activity brought focus and attention to the more than 24,000 Alamance County residents leaving below the poverty line each day.

Students had roles assigned placing them into family units/groups which required that they lived in poverty for a 鈥渕onth.鈥� During this 鈥渕onth,鈥� students had to pay rent, utilities, childcare, groceries, get their children to school and themselves to work. Along the way, they encountered life events-both good and bad such as appliances breaking, cars being reposed, winning money on a lottery ticket, the kindness of a stranger or being evicted.

During the first week, the 30 nursing students from the Class of 2025 started with smiles and nervous giggles but as the simulation progressed, frustration levels rose.

By the end of week four, 50% of the families had been evicted from their homes (communicated by the overturning of their chairs) and many of the children were going hungry from lack of food. Several parents lost custody of their children, while others found themselves out of work or in jail. Smiles and giggles turned to anxiety, frustration and sorrow.

The 14 ABSN Class of 2023 students, having previously completed the simulation as participants, served in the roles of community partners. In this role, they served as bankers, case workers, faith leaders, members of a community health clinic and more, representing the variety of resources, or lack thereof, for clients living in poverty.

Following the simulation, a debriefing took place where all students were invited to share their feelings and emotions. The event was described as powerful, eye-opening and empathic.

鈥淚 see the value of being a nurse and seeing the patient as a whole person and not just a diagnosis,鈥� a participant said.

Many of the students in the room restated their commitment to being a nurse and to the mission of 黑料不打烊’s Nursing Department to embrace Healthcare Disparity and Diversity and To Be the Change the World Needs.