Volume 13, Number 1, 2004
A CHNS faculty member, who says she decided at age 5 that she would grow up to be a nurse and never looked back, has been elected president of the American College of Nurse Practitioners (ACNP).
Judy Hendricks, CHNS '71, '78M, assistant professor of nursing and an actively employed nurse practitioner for more than two decades, will assume the presidency in February. The Washington, D.C.-based organization is an advocacy group that represents more than 10,000 nurse practitioners, working to unite and inform them on legislative, regulatory and clinical practice issues affecting their profession.
Hendricks, who has been active with the ACNP for many years, describes herself as "thrilled" to represent the group.
"I was on their board in the early 1990s, when we began to unify nurse practitioner groups in support of health-care reform," she says. "I also was chair of a Delaware committee that worked to pass legislation that would allow advanced-practice nurses to prescribe medication. We also wanted to increase access to health care for vulnerable populations."
Nurse practitioners are registered nurses with advanced education and clinical training in a health-care specialty area. They work in a variety of settings, including hospitals, nursing homes, businesses, private practices, health maintenance organizations, schools and community centers. Although some have their own practices, most work in collaboration with a physician.
Hendricks says her involvement with the ACNP has enhanced her other roles as a teacher at the University and as a nurse practitioner in the community.
"I've had the privilege of meeting and working with some wonderful nurse practitioner leaders from across the country, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it," she says. "I enjoy taking that enthusiasm back into the classroom and instilling it in graduate students."
Her enthusiasm for nursing began early, she says, and grew when she discovered the popular series of Cherry Ames books for young readers, by Helen Wells and Julie Tatham, about a fictional nurse who also solved mysteries.
"I have wanted to be a nurse ever since I was 5 years old," Hendricks says. "This interest has never wavered. I've never considered doing anything else."
Today, she has taught both undergraduate and graduate courses at UD and serves as a primary-care nurse practitioner at the Health Care Center at nearby Christiana Hospital. Combining teaching with professional practice is personally rewarding as well as beneficial to her students, she says.
"I enjoy interacting with students and seeing them grow and evolve," she says. "I also like helping patients with their health problems. Having someone with diabetes that is way out of control, for example, and then seeing it brought under control, is phenomenal. It's a wonderful experience."
The combination of classroom and clinical work is nothing new for faculty in the College's Nurse Practitioner Program, in which students earn a master of science in nursing degree, with either a family nurse practitioner or adult nurse practitioner concentration. Those who teach in the program say they have learned how to balance a dual set of professional challenges and academic duties--to the benefit of both.
"As a nurse practitioner, clinical practice is required to maintain your national certification," Carol Moore, an instructor in nursing since 1994 and coordinator of the Nurse Practitioner Program from 1998-2000, says. "You also have to be certified to teach at UD."
Moore works at Claymont Family Health Service, which is based in a northern Delaware community center and serves patients who generally do not have traditional health insurance.
"I do one clinic a week, in which I function as the primary health-care provider," Moore says. "Because these patients are uninsured, they have complex problems and it is not unusual for people to have serious problems on their first visit. It is not a routine medical practice."
Besides helping to provide quality health-care services to the community, she says her work enhances the graduate classes she teaches, which range from caring for adults to pediatrics, psychology and mental health.
"There is always something about the clinic to tell my classes," Moore says. "I have discussions about what my students are seeing when they visit the clinic, and this gives them a sense of the barriers that exist for those without health-care insurance."
The College's Nurse Practitioner Program is geared toward educating students in primary care, according to Barbara Sheer, associate professor of nursing, who came to UD in 1992 to develop the program.
"Students are required to have a minimum of 500-700 hours of clinical practice," she says. "Our program is clinically based, because as a professional group, nurse practitioners are clinically based."
Sheer, who holds a doctorate in nursing and whose clinical background includes work in pediatrics, says she gradually became interested in women's health issues and today works mostly with women and children. "As a family nurse practitioner, you have flexibility to move from one area to another," she says, adding that her work keeps her reality-based in the classroom.
"As a professor, you need to be up to date in clinical practice," she says. "You also have to practice one day a week and take continuing education courses, and you must be recertified every five years."
Hendricks agrees with Sheer and Moore that the dual roles of teaching and practicing are mutually supportive.
"I can't think of a better way to teach nursing at either the graduate or undergraduate level than to be a practicing nurse in the community," she says. "Each of these roles complements the other and makes you a better teacher and practitioner."
-- Jerry Rhodes, AS '04