Spring Semester 2008

January 7

Classes begin

In 2006, Millikin launched a Master of Science in Nursing with two tracks: Clinical Nurse Leader and Nurse Educator. “After PACE” looks at two PACE nursing graduates who have chosen to continue their education, each in a different track.

When Julie Sims (06) returned to school as a dislocated worker, she looked for a career that combined her love for people and science. That new career was in nursing. After years of working as a housekeeper in a nursing home, followed by managing a convenience store, she enrolled in Lakeland College in the nursing program and graduated in 1997. In January 2005, she enrolled in the PACE program and graduated in 2006 with her Bachelor of Science in Nursing.

Julie has worked at Decatur Memorial Hospital (DMH) for ten years as a surgical, oncology and orthopedic nurse. As Millikin was developing the Master of Nursing program, DMH partnered with Millikin for the Clinical Nurse Leader specialization to pilot the Clinical Nurse Leader role in the orthopedic unit when it separated from the surgical unit. The purpose of the Clinical Leader is to keep the nurse at the bedside to provide more thorough care. When she learned of the opportunity to serve in this new leadership role, Julie decided to continue her education with the MSN Clinical Leader program, and will graduate in December 2008.

In her current role as an Orthopedic Nurse Leader, she is involved with pre-operative teaching, following patients through their stay and coordinating their care, and assisting with staff education. After she receives her MSN, Julie plans to stay at DMH and move into the new role as one of the few Clinical Leaders.

Julie supports the PACE program because it was convenient with her work schedule. She feels she attained a different level of professionalism, and became both more assertive and a better public speaker. Julie feels the PACE program is well-rounded and the nursing classes prepared her for the next step of professionalism. She also enjoyed many non-nursing classes including Introduction to Contemporary Drawing, Racism and Sexism in the Media, and Civil Liberties. Best of all, Julie has recommended PACE to several people who are now in the PACE program.

Barbara Connelly (05) was a primary care medical nurse for many years. She was a diploma graduate from Decatur Memorial Hospital. She left her position to care for her mother, and enrolled in the first PACE Nursing RN to BSN class in 2004. After her husband unexpectedly passed away in 2004, her life plans changed dramatically. She found the PACE program filled a void and gave her a new sense of direction.

She graduated from PACE in 2005 and heard about the Master in Nursing program that was about to be launched. Barbara was interested in the Nurse Educator track, and began the program in 2006. She has been in both the first PACE Nursing class and the first MSN class. She liked being in on the ground floor of both programs because she and her cohorts were able to offer opinions and advice. She says she and other cohort members have the reputation of being vocal. “We definitely told them what worked really well and what did not.”

The PACE program prepared her to move directly into the masters program. Barbara says most of her fellow PACE graduates went directly into some type of graduate program.

Barbara chose to continue her education because she has a passion for the nursing field but the demands of working long hours for the hospitals are both stressful and physically demanding. With her MSN degree and Nurse Educator specialization, she hopes to combine her passion for nursing with her ability to mentor others by teaching at the university level.

Barbara found both PACE and the MSN program to be challenging. She’s learned new skill sets and has found the combination of research and writing to be very rewarding. Her research for the MSN program focused on the community variety of Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA), also known as the “super-bug”, a hot-topic in health news across the country.

What’s next for this well-schooled, highly experienced nurse? She hopes to find a teaching position at a community college or university within a one-hour radius of Decatur. Ideally, she would work with beginning nursing students to teach the essentials of nursing and to reinforce the value of a nursing career.