December 6, 2018

White coat ceremony held for Elms’ doctor of nursing practice students

REGIONAL
Staff report

Elms College doctor of nursing practice students received their white coats at a special ceremony held Dec. 5. The coats signify their entry into the clinical training phase of the program. (IObserve photos/courtesy of Elms College)

CHICOPEE – The College of Our Lady of the Elms School of Nursing held a white coat ceremony Wednesday, Dec. 5, to honor the college’s fourth cohort of DNP (doctor of nursing practice) students as they transition from the classroom into clinical practice experiences.

The 15 honorees started in the DNP program in fall 2017 and will begin their clinical practice in January.

“This ceremony is an important tradition that formally recognizes nurse practitioner students as having mastered the knowledge and core skills to transition into mentored clinical practice settings, and into their advanced nursing specialty courses,” said Teresa Kuta Reske, director of the DNP program at Elms College.

“Each one of you brings depths of knowledge, expertise, and dedication to the profession of nursing,” Reske told the white coat recipients in a speech during the ceremony. “The next few months will be a journey of self-discovery as you begin to develop your own set of guiding principles and humanistic qualities most important in advanced nursing practice.”

The DNP white coat ceremony included opening remarks from Kathleen B. Scoble, dean of the School of Nursing; an address from Elms president, Harry E. Dumay; and a keynote address from Conventual Franciscan Brother Michael Duffy, associate dean of the School of Nursing. The ceremony also included an oath, a blessing of the white coats, and the presentation of the coats to the students.

“Today, you are needed more than ever,” Dumay told the honorees. “The demands on our health care system are more varied and complicated than ever before. The need for skilled and experienced nurse practitioners who are trained at the highest level, and are ready to evolve as knowledge expands and technology advances, is ever more pressing. Your training as a doctor of nursing practice is preparing you well to meet the needs of today and tomorrow.”

Conventual Franciscan Brother Michael Duffy, associate dean of the Elms College School of Nursing, delivers the keynote address Dec. 5 at the doctor of nursing practice white coat ceremony.

In the keynote address, Brother Duffy shared a quote attributed to St. Francis of Assisi: “Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”

Brother Duffy most recently served as coordinator of the accelerated second degree in nursing program; assistant professor of nursing; and director of the Elms College caRe vaN, a free health clinic on wheels that serves homeless and underserved people of Chicopee while affording clinical experience to pre-licensure students. In his keynote, he shared his journey to becoming a friar and a nurse, and now a nurse leader with a DNP who delivers healthcare to the underserved and helps to guide Elms College nursing students to excellence.

“It starts with listening and taking a good history,” Brother Duffy told the white coat recipients. “Then, with trembling hands, you start your first focused exam, and before you know it you are spitting out differential diagnoses, considering labs and diagnostics, reconsidering medications – and then you sit at the fire pit after the final assessment competency exam and ask yourself, ‘How did I get here? How did I do it?’

“You started with what was necessary. You soon did what was possible and, in amazing 11-week intervals you are doing what was thought to be impossible,” said Brother Duffy. His closing advice included a reminder to step outside the comfort zone, and to regroup and refocus when necessary.

The DNP degree is a clinical practice doctorate. Students also take advanced specialty courses to become nurse practitioners. Elms College’s DNP graduates will be eligible to take the advanced certification examination in one of the two specialty tracks: family nurse practitioner or adult-gerontology acute care nurse practitioner.

Qualified master’s-prepared nurses who are advanced-practice nurses or nurse leaders are eligible to apply to a third DNP track: health systems innovation and leadership.

“Having our fourth class of doctor of nursing practice- nurse practitioner (NP) students receive their white coats is a very important event for both our students and our DNP program,” Scoble said. “We are proud that 100 percent of our NP graduates are achieving board certification and are filling critical NP positions in Western Massachusetts. We are confident that this is yet another cohort of NPs that will be well prepared to contribute to the much-needed advanced practice workforce of the future.”

Captions:

Conventual Franciscan Brother Michael Duffy, associate dean of the Elms College School of Nursing, delivers the keynote address Dec. 5 at the doctor of nursing practice white coat ceremony.