From Bedside to Breakthrough: The Power of Nursing Research – PediaCast 602

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Description

Drs Laura Beth Kalvas, Samantha Boch, and Kylie Dougherty visit the studio as we consider the important role of nurse scientists. These researchers often start with questions at the bedside… questions that lead to improved experiences and elevated outcomes for kids and families. We hope you can join us!

Topic

Nurse Scientists

Guests

Dr Laura Beth Kalvas
Nurse Scientist
Nationwide Children’s Hospital

Dr Samantha Boch
Nurse Scientist
Nationwide Children’s Hospital

Dr Kylie Dougherty
Nurse Scientist
Nationwide Children’s Hospital

Links

Nursing at Nationwide Children’s Hospital
Center for Child Health Equity and Outcomes Research (Boch Lab)
Patient Care: Clinical Inquiry at Nationwide Children’s
Beyond the Bedside: Nurses Conducting Research to Transform Pediatric Outcomes
National Pediatric Nurse Scientist Collaborative
Caring for Children of Incarcerated Parents – PediaCast CME 084

Episode Transcript

[Dr Mike Patrick]
This episode of PediaCast is brought to you by the Center for Nursing Excellence at Nationwide Children's Hospital. 

[MUSIC]

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of PediaCast. We are a pediatric podcast for moms and dads.

This is Dr. Mike coming to you from the campus of Nationwide Children's Hospital. We're in Columbus, Ohio. It's episode 602.

We're calling this one, From Bedside to Breakthrough, The Power of Nursing Research. I want to welcome all of you to the program. We are so happy to have you with us.

You know, when families think about pediatric research, they often picture investigators in white lab coats, standing at a bench with beakers and flasks, studying new ways to diagnose and treat childhood disease. Well, this does happen, of course, but there is another avenue of research, one that is extremely important and aims to transform how children and families experience care. This type of research is often carried out by nurse scientists.

These are researchers who start with questions at the bedside. How can we improve the patient experience? What ideas can we put into practice, ideas that meet families and kids where they are?

And how can we innovate to improve experiences and outcomes? Very important questions that generate equally important answers. And today we are talking with three nurse scientists from Nationwide Children's Hospital about what nursing research is, why it matters, and how it directly improves the lives of kids and families.

Our guests today are Laura Beth Kalvas, Samantha Boch, and Kylie Dougherty. Again, all nurse scientists at Nationwide Children's. Before we get to them, I do want to remind you the information presented in every episode of PediaCast is for general educational purposes only.

We do not diagnose medical conditions or formulate treatment plans for specific individuals. If you're concerned about your child's health, be sure to call your health care provider. Also, your use of this audio program is subject to the PediaCast Terms of Use Agreement, which you can find at pediacast.org.

So, let's take a quick break. We'll get our nurse scientists settled into the studio, and then we will be back to talk about the power of nursing research. It's coming up right after this.

[MUSIC]

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Laura Beth Kalvas, Samantha Boch, and Kylie Dougherty are nurse scientists with the Center for Nursing Excellence at Nationwide Children's Hospital. So, what is a nurse scientist? What do they do?

How do they improve care and elevate health outcomes? And how does one become a nurse scientist? We have answers to these questions and many more.

But before we dive in, let's offer a warm PediaCast welcome to our guests. Laura Beth Kalvas, Samantha Boch, and Kylie Dougherty. Thank you all for stopping by the studio today.

[Dr Laura Beth Kalvas]
Yeah, excited to be here. 

[Dr Samantha Boch]
Thank you so much for having us, Dr. Mike. 

[Dr Kylie Dougherty]
Really looking forward to this conversation. Thanks.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, I am looking forward to it as well. And Laura Beth, I wanted to start with you. Can you tell us what exactly is a nurse scientist?

And how is that different from a bedside clinical nurse?

[Dr Laura Beth Kalvas]
Sure. Yeah, I'd be happy to. So, when you think about a bedside or clinical nurse, that's typically someone who has an associate or bachelor’s degree in nursing, and they take care of patients either in the hospital or in a clinic or in the community.

You're talking about a nurse scientist. That is a nurse who has obtained a doctoral degree, typically a PhD in any health-related field, likely nursing, and they are able to conduct independent research after obtaining that degree. So, in addition to conducting that independent research, nurse scientists can also work with bedside nurses who identify problems with patient care or things that they would like to improve in patient care.

Those nurses conduct that research.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, very, very important work. I think that a lot of folks, you know, are obviously familiar with the role of nurses within health care. And there's always been a science component of nursing.

I mean, there are nursing journals that are out there, colleges of nursing or academic institutions. But it does seem like we're hearing more and more about the role of nurse scientists. Why is it, do you think, that more hospitals are embedding nurse scientists directly within their health care system?

Samantha?

[Dr Samantha Boch]
I think that's because nurse scientists, we accelerate nurse ideas. Nurses are closest to the patient and spend the most time. The patients are therefore nurses may be closest to the solution.

Nurse scientists here, we help to translate research into bedside practice more quickly. So, we ask key questions, we find evidence, we solve care problems, and this partnership helps build better care systems because we use the latest research to help patients every day.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
And then Kylie, how do nurse scientists turn those bedside observations into change? Like it's one thing, you know, to make an observation and say, hey, this could be done better or the patient's going to have a better outcome if we do it this way. How do you actually turn those observations into change that impacts families and kids and patients really in all fields of medicine?

[Dr Kylie Dougherty]
Yeah, absolutely. So, Sam kind of started to talk about this when she discussed nurses being at the bedside and being there for such extended periods of time with the family. And so, when they come up with those ideas, the nurses are really starting to see patterns.

So, things like delays in care, gaps in communication, concerns that the family members have, and then they can take that information kind of into a couple different avenues, which we like to call clinical inquiry. So, they might do something such as quality improvement. So, looking at ways, how can we better improve a system that we're already doing, and small changes like that.

Or evidence-based practice. So maybe they see something that, you know, is bothering them. They think, hey, we could do this better.

So, they can go into the literature and see, has somebody else had this problem too? And if so, what did they find the solution was, and can we bring that to Nationwide? Or if we go in and we look and there really isn't an answer to that question, and we might need to find evidence or data to help us find that solution, that's when we can really go into the area of research.

So going in and creating that novel information. And the way that we do that at Nationwide is by supporting the bedside nurses through the Center for Nursing Excellence. So, when these nurses come up with these patterns, when they have these ideas, they can bring it to the nurse scientists who are a part of the Center for Nursing Excellence, and we're able to help them walk through that process.

So, figuring out, you know, what is the research question that we want to ask here? And what does the literature tell us? Are there solutions available?

And if not, how should we progress? And so that helps us to get the answers we need for Nationwide specifically and see the positive outcomes that we want at the bedside.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, yeah, so important. Laura Beth, if you can just tell us a little bit more about clinical inquiry at Nationwide Children's. And I know there's a particular project that you're involved with called the Rooming in Project.

Can you just talk a little bit about the overlay of the land and then a little more on that particular project that you guys are working on?

[Dr Laura Beth Kalvas]
Yeah, I'd be happy to. So, as Kali was saying, the clinical inquiry team oversees projects that are initiated by nurses as well as advanced practice providers here at Nationwide. So that can include the research, evidence-based practice, more clinical innovation, and we assist these clinicians from idea to dissemination of that clinical inquiry project.

So, I would say that our nurses and advanced practice providers have a very strong spirit of inquiry. So, we currently manage over 30 projects across the hospital and outpatient settings, in addition to our own research addressing all of these different kinds of nurse-identified patterns and problems. So, our team is rapidly growing to support that work.

So, in addition to Sam, Kali, and myself, we have two other part-time nurse scientists, Doreen Baldoff and Stephanie Hosley. And then we also have a research coordinator, Kaylin Coan, who helps manage all of our projects. And then thinking specifically about the Rooming in Project, so this is being led by a group of nurses and discharge planners within the hospital.

They're working to standardize the process of rooming in. So, rooming in is typically a 12- to 24-hour period in which families provide all of the care for their child who has some sort of new medical need while they're still hospitalized. So, they have that nurse oversight of, you know, something's going wrong or they have a question about how they are supposed to be providing this care.

They have that support. And the ultimate goal of this process is to help the family be ready for a successful discharge home. We all know that the best place for a kid to be is within their own home.

And so, if you're able to prepare parents to care for their child with that new medical need at home, that's, you know, the best outcome. So, it's important for families because they can feel more confident when they're taking that child home. And also, the ultimate goal is to help reduce, like, unnecessary visits back to either the emergency room or the hospital.

You know, once you leave, you don't want to come back. And so, we want to help assist in that successful transition home. So, as a nurse scientist, I've been working with that team of clinicians to kind of identify, now that we know we need to standardize this process, how can we measure outcomes related to that?

So, looking at a family's readiness for hospital discharge, how do we measure that? How do we measure the quality of the discharge teaching? How do we measure that unplanned readmission to the hospital?

So, we've measured all of those things kind of in our baseline pre-implementation of this new standardized rooming in process. We're currently in the process of rolling out that new standardization and then we'll be measuring in the spring kind of those outcomes after we have that new process. So, all of this is the ultimate goal.

The reason the nurses started this project is they wanted to make sure their families felt confident going home.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
So that, I mean, and that really is where having nurses involved is so important. The clinical bedside nurses, even for you guys, to be able to make those observations and think, because they begin to see patterns, like what are the typical barriers? And then you can use those patterns to say, well, what are, how can we overcome those barriers?

And then test different ideas and see what really does work best and translates into better satisfaction on the part of the families and better outcomes. Kylie, could you share with us a little bit about your projects?

[Dr Kylie Dougherty]
Yeah, absolutely. So, my projects really focus on how do we improve care for mothers and babies, both locally and globally? So, I specifically work in a space called implementation science, which focuses on, we know that there's a lot of great research out there and we know that there are innovations and solutions that work really, really well, but we don't always see that impact at the direct bedside.

We know things might help our patients, but they might not be getting those treatments that we need. So, I, my work studies and focuses on how do we move that needle? How do we get these great interventions actually to the bedside?

And I kind of do this on both the domestic and the global front. So historically for the last several years now, I work with an alliance called NEST360, where I support work to improve care for small and sick newborns across hospitals in Sub-Saharan Africa. And I really do that by focusing on tracking if we're doing the interventions that we need to see, and if not, we've got stumbling blocks.

How do we overcome those? And then in the States, it's focusing on that same adoption of evidence-based practice and interventions that we know work, but really from the lens of nurse-led innovations. So, with nurses seeing, hey, there's a reason we're not doing this.

And so how can we come up with ideas to overcome that? And so, I think that's basically where my work sits is just helping people do the things that we know will make them healthy.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, and I would imagine that in addition to increasing satisfaction and outcome for patients and families, that your nursing colleagues and other members of the multidisciplinary medical team, physicians, psychologists, social workers, nutritionists, all of, you know, really the whole package really benefits from this work because it's not just nursing specific necessarily. It really can be useful for all disciplines, right?

[Dr Kylie Dougherty]
Absolutely. It's definitely a team sport. Nurses bring a unique perspective, but when we think about how we want to make sure our patients get the highest quality of care, it involves the whole team.

So, our physicians, our respiratory therapists, our social workers, everyone has that important information to help us really provide that care.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, and each one kind of sees the issue from a little bit of a different lens and can kind of add nuance to the best practices. Because if you just think, if everyone just thinks about their own area in their own silo, you pretty soon get clashing and, you know, the beats don't match up if we're thinking about music. And so really getting everybody on board is so important with these research projects and really with any research that's going to be important.

Laura Beth, you also have done some work with the pediatric critical care units. Can you talk about that a little bit?

[Dr Laura Beth Kalvas]
Sure. Yeah. So, my own research focuses on nurse-led interventions in the pediatric intensive care unit.

I'm really specifically interested in what the bedside nurse can do to promote sleep-wake cycles for kids while they're hospitalized. So, as part of that work, I'm currently leading a pilot trial of morning light therapy for kids in the pediatric ICU to help. This is daytime, so let's be awake and hopefully help promote sleep at night.

The reason I'm interested in that sleep promotion is because it can help prevent delirium, which is this acute, confusional state that kids can experience when they're critically ill. And it's linked to poor outcomes. And so, whatever we can do as nurses to prevent it is super important.

And the reason I love my job here at Nationwide as a hospital-based nurse scientist is that I have the opportunity to work really closely with nurses in the pediatric ICU to help address that problem. And so not only is it, you know, my own specific passion for sleep, but then I have nurses who can identify other ways that we might be able to prevent delirium. So last week I was working with a nurse who's very experienced in the pediatric ICU, and she'd recently read a research study from the adult ICU that family voice recordings for patients who are mechanically ventilated can help reduce delirium.

It brings comfort, but it also reduces delirium. And so, we're thinking about how we can implement recordings from loved ones for kids who are in the ICU, especially when families aren't always able to be at the bedside, to kind of help reorient the child, provide comfort, and hopefully also decrease rates of delirium. So really great opportunities for those nurse-led interventions in the ICU.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, and you know, you talked about the adult literature and what's happening there. I imagine that that translation happens both ways in terms of new findings, new ideas in the adult world, and then, hey, let's see if that works in pediatrics. And the other way around too, like, hey, the pediatric folks are doing it this way.

Is that something that adults could benefit from? And so, this type of medical research really helps not just kids, but adults as well.

[Dr Laura Beth Kalvas]
Definitely, yeah. And I think the nice thing about being in a pediatric hospital too is that we always say that, like, kids are not tiny adults. And so, you always, there's always room to improve what's being done here in the pediatric world.

But also, yeah, then bringing that back, our unique perspective, just as pediatric clinicians, I think it can be different from the adult world. So, a great way to kind of translate ideas back and forth.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, yeah. Samantha, your research revolves around families that are impacted by incarceration. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and why it is important?

[Dr Samantha Boch]
Yes, definitely. So, incarceration is uniquely American and very common in the U.S. And the U.S. leads the world compared to other nations for incarcerating the most people per capita. And the majority of those who are incarcerated are parents.

And so, we have a lot of children who are left behind. And when you remove a parent due to incarceration, that separation can impact their health and well-being, their financial security, housing and custodial status, and in numerous ways. So, I, about 15 years ago, I started working clinically in prisons and that radically transformed my ideas and approaches to public health.

So, I really come in with a cross-sector science lens. And then here at Nationwide Children's Hospital, we have a contract to run the medical care for the local juvenile detention center. So, in addition to incarcerating a lot of adults, we also incarcerate a lot of kids in the U.S. And so, my program of research is dedicated to advancing the science and to better understand how to care and support children and families who are impacted by incarceration.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, it is a very large problem and PediaCast has had an episode specifically on incarcerated parents and how that impacts their families and I'll actually try to find a link to that put it in the show notes for this episode 602 so folks can find it easily because it really is an important topic there, you know, there's most likely there's someone that you know who is impacted by having an incarcerated parent and you may not even know it but it really is impacting that that child in that family's life, but people don't like to talk about it. But those kids and families certainly need. Kylie, can you fill us in a little bit on nursing research and how it may be the same or different from I guess traditional medical research?

Is there some nuance to nursing research that makes it a little bit different in terms of methodology and process or is it just like any other type of research that's done?

[Dr Kylie Dougherty]
Yeah, absolutely. I think the answer is kind of yes and so nurses are going to be involved in research that is all across the board. So, anything to do with health or well-being, you'll probably find a nurse who's interested in finding ways to make it better and improve the experience for the patient.

Oftentimes when people think about medical research, you want to be focused on things like discovering cures and medications or a specific procedure and you don't often think of your bedside nurse doing that work, but there are a bunch of nurses doing that. However, because of our education and our clinical experience, we've seen that often that guides us to focus on really patient and family-centered research. So, thinking about how our patients experience care or experience interventions in the clinic or at the bedside, how families manage those conditions and how to make care ultimately safer, transitions more efficient and improve communication and quality of life.

So, when we think about comparing traditional medical research versus nurse-led research, we're all involved in all different kinds of activities. However, our training and our perspectives are different and that helps to inform how we look at an issue and think about solutions. Kind of goes back to what we were talking about earlier with an interdisciplinary team needed for implementing.

Nurses can bring a unique perspective, but really, it's about having everybody at the table to help tackle these health issues that we come up with.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, Samantha, you know, the nurse as a member of the healthcare team probably spends, not probably, spends the largest amount of time with families and patients. Can you talk a little bit about why their perspective is essential in medical research and not just nursing-led research, but really even clinical trials and you know, when we think about things, you know, published in medical journals that are advancing the science of medicine, you know, in terms of new medications, new procedures, that sort of thing. The nursing perspective is essential in all of that.

Can you talk to that point?

[Dr Samantha Boch]
Yeah, so as you mentioned, you know, we spend the most time with patients and families and we are at the bedside longer and we are also listed as the most trusted health profession, and I think that trust matters in this space. So research, there's a lot of families who don't want to participate, who are confused by it, and nurses are the front line to help educate, not only on, okay, this is a new medication, but nurses will be able to see, okay, well, what are some of the side effects this family's experiencing? Did that family have trouble filling that medication and why?

So, we kind of see the gaps a little bit more because of that time we spend with the family. In addition, we're the largest clinical workforce in the hospital. So, our size, the time we spend, that trust, it matters in every step in research, whether it's a nursing journal, a medical journal, criminology, our perspective is a bit unique.

I want to mention, too, that compared to our physician colleagues, nurses are more likely to come from lower income households. They're more likely to be first generation. Our demographic is more likely to be racially and ethnically diverse compared to the physician.

Our physician colleagues and that perspective matters and we bring value to the hospitals who are serving mostly low income and racially diverse families. And so, we look more like the families we serve and that also matters. This is why nurse scientists frequently lead work focused on equity, vulnerable populations, family-centered care, and community engagement because we want to ensure that families who are impacted are embedded in research along the way.

And I think nurse scientists bring that important perspective. And I do just want to mention that all healthcare provider perspectives matter. There's incredible value in becoming a scientist in social work, psychology, in all of our fields.

And again, here at Nationwide Children's, we're one team and we're just one of those perspectives.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. Yeah. And I will say a really important perspective.

I mean, they're all important, but you know, how often does the doctor come in and talk briefly on rounds about what the treatment plan for the day is going to be? Or the social worker stops in, you know, with resources and wants to get support. The nutrition folks stop in.

And, you know, they ask families, hey, what questions do you have? And answer their questions. But all the time then when those folks leave, it's the bedside nurse that comes in and gets asked the questions.

And so, it's really important for them to be involved and to understand the science, to have that input in, you know, what works for families. Understanding, you know, can we explain things better? Is there a better way to ask if folks have questions when the physician or, you know, other team member is in the room?

You know, the nurse may have important insight into what is going to help that family understand more. And I love your point of nurses often look more like families and that is just so important in health care. So, such a really important work.

How have you seen the nursing research really directly benefiting families at Nationwide Children's Hospital?

[Dr Laura Beth Kalvas]
Sure. Yeah, I love that question. I think the best way to be to just share some of our other ongoing projects that we have.

So, we've already talked about efforts to help prepare families to take their kids home. Talk about promoting sleep-wake cycles for kids while they're hospitalized, helping to prevent delirium, which is an extremely, you know, distressing experience. But also, we have initiatives, projects around promoting lactation for those who have their infants in the NICU, improving nurse assessment of nausea for kids who are hospitalized with cancer.

And then we also have nurses in our outpatient clinics working on telephone follow-ups to troubleshoot issues with families who are newly providing injections for their kids at home. And so, I think a lot of those projects just kind of speak to the breadth of issues that nurses are passionate about addressing and helping their families with. And so, there's so many different ways in which I can see the work that we're doing here benefiting families, for sure.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, and then when that gets published as nurse scientists and you're working on this, an important piece of all research projects is to try to really spread the word about what you're doing so that that translation doesn't just happen at Nationwide Children's, but really all children's hospitals around the world can benefit from the research that's being done here. And so that publication component of it, while a lot of work and sometimes a thorn in your side, is really important, right?

[Dr Laura Beth Kalvas]
Definitely. Yeah, we're very passionate about helping nurses feel confident that they can write, you know, these research articles that they can publish. And I love, again, that's another part of my job that I love, is working with clinicians and helping them, you know, get the word out there because we are doing amazing work.

And so, yeah, it is important to share it.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
One last question, and I want to ask each of you this. Let's say you have a young nurse who is maybe in nursing school or a newly graduated bedside nurse or maybe an undergraduate who's interested in nursing science. What advice do you have?

Well, I guess I should start with what do you have to do to become a nurse scientist? And is that something like, do you have to have bedside experience before you do that? Or can you do it like right from the get-go out of high school, like an undergrad, start preparing for it?

So, I just wanted each of your thoughts on sort of the profession and in particular for folks who may be interested in that as they're listening to this podcast. And Kylie, I'll start with you if that's okay.

[Dr Kylie Dougherty]
Yeah, of course. I would say that it's not required to start doing research in high school or undergrad, but we love to have student involvement, and I am working with students right now on projects that are in medical school, in high school, getting their BSN. So, there is a place for you to do that.

I'm very passionate that it's the role of the nurse to be a part of clinical inquiry and knowledge generating knowledge. And so, as a bedside nurse, what I would love them to know is that like absolutely your patterns and ideas are important and we want to study them and we want to explore them and you have the knowledge and capacity to do that. We're here to help support that.

I think to become a nurse scientist, that's really focused more on getting a PhD and being doctorally prepared. But what we want nurses to know is that we would love to have you join that group and become a nurse scientist, but also not everyone has to do that. If you really are passionate at staying at the bedside, our role as the nurse scientists is to help you be successful with conducting that research, writing that paper, but still being able to keep doing what you love, a bedside clinician.

So, I think what I would really want to say is that there is a space for all different types of nurses to be involved in clinical inquiry and we would love for you to be a part of it.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
And Samantha, how about your insights for folks interested in this field?

[Dr Samantha Boch]
Yeah, I think any time if you are working here at Nationwide Children's Hospital or in the community and you're listening to this podcast is that if you've had a question like or if a family comes to you and you're like, oh, I think that's a great question. Let me go find that out for you and you don't know immediately, but then you go to the literature, you ask your team, that process is inquiry. And so on for a nurse scientist, we amplify that and then we ask those questions that may have started at the bedside or may have, you know, through our training as nurse scientists, we may think a little more broadly or about systems and environments in which shape health and well-being.

So, I would say that there are multiple pathways for a nurse who's interested. You can become a clinical research coordinator. You could be a participant in a study.

You could explore graduate pathways, but there are multiple projects. It may not be human subjects research. It may be quality improvement.

It may be evidence-based practice where we look at the literature together with the librarian. So, there are multiple types of projects, multiple types of pathways. And if you are hearing this and you are interested, you can always reach out to the nurse scientist here in the Center of Nursing Excellence.

And how I've shared about that center with onboarding nurses here, we will routinely have some educational seminars to share what we do here. And in that presentation, I'm like the Center of Nursing Excellence feels like a small school of nursing within the health system. We help educate nurses, onboard nurses.

We achieve magnet status. This is a designation that hospitals receive to acknowledge nursing excellence. We also have nursing science embedded within the Center of Nursing Excellence.

So sometimes it's easier to conceptualize and think about, oh, we have this little school system here. And that should, you know, there's multiple ways and projects for you to be involved.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, and you may as a bedside nurse have an idea for a project that no one else has had. And by getting in touch with the Center for Nursing Excellence, you know, you can share your idea, and it may be something that you want to actually get involved with or you may just be an idea generator. But it may be ideas that others hadn't considered that really can make an impact for our patients and families.

So, I will also put a link to the Center for Nursing Excellence in the show notes for episode 602 over at pediacast.org so folks can find you all very easily. And then finally, Laura Beth, I'm going to give you the last word. Great.

Thank you.

[Dr Laura Beth Kalvas]
I think if I'm thinking about a nurse who's currently working at Nationwide or who is in nursing school getting ready to become a nurse, I think there's always a question of can you become a nurse scientist? You know, can you go straight from that from nursing school to the PhD program? And you totally can.

That's definitely a pathway if you come out of nursing school knowing what you're passionate about researching or exploring. Personally, when I came out of nursing school, I did not know what I was passionate about and I found the time that I spent at the bedside to really inform the rest of my career. Getting that personal clinical experience of the issue of delirium was what sparked my interest in research of taking care of elderly patients who had delirium in the hospital, experiencing how distressing it was for the patients, for the family, and then for us as clinicians who have to care for those patients, it can be really tough.

You know, sometimes those are the hardest patients you take care of, especially at night shift. So that really sparked my curiosity about what is this, what's going on, you know, linked with poor outcomes was kind of the game changer for me about what can we do to fix it. So, I think clinical experience can be super valuable, but everyone's path is different towards becoming a nurse scientist.

So, it's open to everyone for sure.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, for sure. Also, that just kind of sparked something in my head that, you know, it's easier to complain when the system is not working. But what is really more helpful is to come up with solutions so that it can work correctly.

And I think it's just human nature, you know, and especially like you say, you're on the overnight shift, it's three o'clock in the morning, things, you know, there's a family that's not happy and they're understandably not happy, but it's easy then to sort of complain about it without necessarily offering constructive feedback. And this is really the Center for Nursing Excellence is an opportunity to have constructive feedback, you know, what is not working, but then taking it to that next step of what can we do to make it better, and then how can we share those findings with others so that we can make it better across multiple units within a hospital or within multiple hospitals across the country. So really important work.

I'm so glad that you guys were able to stop by and you're welcome anytime to talk about particular research projects. We'd love to have you guys on a regular basis here on PediaCast. We are going to have links to a lot of the things that we have talked about.

So again, Nursing at Nationwide Children's Hospital and the Center for Nursing Excellence will have links to those things. The Center for Child Health Equity and Outcomes Research, which I know Samantha, do you want to talk about that real quick, just your lab on the Center for Child Health Equity and Outcomes?

[Dr Samantha Boch]
I would love to share a bit more about the Center of Child Health Equity and Outcomes Research. So that is led by Dr. Dina Chisholm, and that is a center, one of many, in the Research Institute Nationwide Children's Hospital. And so, I am associated with in that and it's a group of investigators that are really dedicated to advancing research on equity.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, and it has your name on it, right? The Bok Lab.

[Dr Samantha Boch]
Yes, the Bok Lab. It's also called the Health Justice Lab, and we focus on numerous projects to try to better understand the health and well-being of kids and families that are impacted by incarceration.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Great, and we will put a link to your team's work since you have a website. We'll put that in the show notes as well. And then the National Pediatric Nurse Scientist Collaborative.

Does someone want to explain what that is?

[Dr Laura Beth Kalvas]
Sure. Yeah, I would be happy to do that. NPNSC is what we call it for short, is a national group of pediatric nurse scientists.

We meet monthly to talk about how we handle clinical inquiry. What is the role of the pediatric nurse scientist? How is that different from academically focused nurse scientists or adult focused nurse scientists?

It's a lovely community to help provide kind of some support and mentorship through the process of being a nurse scientist. So, yeah.

[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, great. And we'll have a link to that group as well in the show notes. So once again, Laura Beth Kalvas, Samantha Boch, and Kylie Dougherty, all nurse scientists at Nationwide Children's Hospital.

Thank you so much for stopping by and chatting with us today.

[Dr Laura Beth Kalvas]
Thanks for having us. 

[Dr Samantha Boch]
We really appreciate the time and thank you for highlighting this topic and we would love to come back.

[Dr Kylie Dougherty]
Thanks for having us. And if anybody's listening and interested, we'd love to connect and continue talking about nursing research.

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[Dr Mike Patrick]
We are back with just enough time to say thanks once again to all of you for taking time out of your day and making PediaCast a part of it. We really appreciate your support. Also, thanks again to our guests this week, Laura Beth Kalvas, Samantha Boch, and Kylie Dougherty, all nurse scientists at Nationwide Children's Hospital.

Don't forget you can find us wherever podcasts are found. We're in the Apple Podcast app, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Audible, YouTube, and most other podcast apps for iOS and Android. Our landing site is pediacast.org.

You'll find our entire archive of past programs there, along with show notes for each of the episodes, our terms of use agreement, and the handy contact page if you would like to suggest a future topic for the program. Reviews are helpful wherever you get your podcasts. We always appreciate when you take the time to share your thoughts about the show.

And we love connecting with you on social media. You'll find us on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, LinkedIn, X, and Blue Sky. Simply search for PediaCast.

We have a couple of other podcasts I want to tell you about. One is PediaCast CME. It is similar to this program.

We do turn the science up a couple notches and offer free continuing medical education credit for those who listen. And that's not only for physicians, but also nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, pharmacists, psychologists, social workers, and dentists. And it's because Nationwide Children's is jointly accredited by all of those professional organizations that we can offer the exact credits you need to fulfill your state's continuing medical education requirements.

Shows and details are available at the landing site for that program, pediacastcme.org. You can also listen wherever podcasts are found. Simply search for PediaCast CME.

And then one other podcast that I host is called FAMEcast. This one is a faculty development podcast from the Center for Faculty Advancement, Mentoring, and Engagement at the Ohio State University College of Medicine. So, if you are a teacher in academic medicine or a faculty member in any of the health sciences, then this is a podcast for you.

And you can find FAMEcast at famecast.org and wherever podcasts are found by simply searching for FAMEcast. Thanks again for stopping by. And until next time, this is Dr. Mike saying, stay safe, stay healthy, and stay involved with your kids. So long, everybody.

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