NCWV nursing students challenged to take leadership roles in new profession

Apr. 22—FAIRMONT — When Lisa Eades was working on her master's degree in nursing, she was inducted into an international honor society that provides leadership education for nurses.

The only glitch was, she now admits, at that time, as a new member, she really didn't understand what Sigma Theta Tau meant by leadership training. However, today, as interim chair of the Associate of Science in Nursing Department at Fairmont State University, leadership is what drives Eades in and out of the classroom.

"Our mission is to develop nursing leaders anywhere and to improve health care everywhere," Eades said April 14 as the guest speaker at an induction ceremony for new members of the Epsilon Delta-at-Large chapter of Sigma Theta Tau. "Our vision at Sigma is to connect and empower nurse leaders and to transform them in the health care that we provide."

Only the top 35% of nursing students are inducted into Sigma Theta Tau. The Epsilon Delta-at-Large chapter encompasses the nursing programs at Davis & Elkins College, Fairmont State and West Virginia Wesleyan College.

In the fall of 2020, in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, Eades took the lead role on obtaining a two-year, $40,000 grant from the Morgantown-based Milan Puskar Foundation. She used the funds to create a rural health care program dubbed "Caring for Our Neighbors," which targeted the homeless and those at-risk of losing their housing.

She said not only has the program reached hundreds of individuals who have not had health care in weeks, months or even years, the program also has helped Fairmont State nursing students set aside any biases they may have had.

"Our students learn to embrace cultural, ethnic and socially-diverse concepts. With the ability to be engaged in patient-centered care, they develop professional self worth, and they also engage in teamwork, so they're helping build other leaders amongst their classmates as they work in professional collaboration," Eades said.

Eades, now carrying out a second Puskar Foundation grant for $20,000 that expands "Caring for Our Neighbors" to neighboring counties, credits Sigma with helping her improve local health care.

"They are part of the emotional rebuilding of a partnership within our community and so they get to develop a culture to build culturally competent care. So the power of leadership in nursing, what's that mean?," Eades said.

Eades challenged new inductees to look beyond their job descriptions and seek opportunities to lead in the field of nursing.

"I hope that each and every one of you that are going to be inaugurated today, but also every one of you as members take the opportunity and look inside of you and see what kind of way you can support our community," Eades said.

Eades' fellow members of Sigma are proud of the work she has done to help the underserved. Epsilon Delta-at-Large President Melissa Franke said Eades has "aimed to bridge the gap between nursing education and community health."

"These initiatives have been close to her heart not only because they allow nursing students to provide direct assistance to local groups but they also provided invaluable experiential learning activities for nursing students. By integrating these projects into their curriculum, she has sought to demonstrate the nursing profession's critical role in some social, societal, welfare, extending our care in non-traditional health care settings," Franke said.

Franke said Eades' work is key to helping students develop compassion and professionalism.

"(It) shows the impact nursing education can have on community service and advocacy," Franke said.

Renee Rose, who was inducted April 14, is recognized as a community/nurse leader within Sigma. She said working with Eades' homeless health care program when she was a Fairmont State student was an invaluable learning experience.

"You would be surprised how many homeless and how many people are just looking for one person — one person — to help them, one person to say 'I do care about you,'" Rose said.

Rose also teaches nursing and has borrowed a chapter from Eades' rural health care playbook that she implements in the classes she now teaches in Morgantown and at Fairmont State.

"There are humans honestly in Fairmont that didn't know how to brush their teeth, did not know how to care for themselves," Rose said. "So teaching a student, educating a person or human being, it impacts their lives."

Reach Eric Cravey at 304-367-2523.