Knowing that he wanted to work in a health care job that offered plenty of options, John Summerville chose nursing in 1979.

Summerville, BSN, MN, worked in the emergency room, the intensive care unit, the med-surge unit and orthopedics and was a nurse recruiter. Later, as a representative for a hospital supply company, he was required to teach his clients about the products, and discovered that he liked the education aspect of that job.

BARRY WILLIAMS/Special (ENLARGE)

John Summerville, assistant professor at the Georgia Baptist College of Nursing of Mercer University, reviews the day's clinical experiences after making rounds with nursing students at Piedmont Fayette Hospital.

BARRY WILLIAMS/Special (ENLARGE)

Lindsay Barnette, a student at the Georgia Baptist College of Nursing of Mercer University, listens intently to professor John Summerville.

At the same time, his wife's company transferred her from Boston to Atlanta, and Summerville was able to attend Emory University's Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing to earn his master's degree.

"Sometimes God just puts you in the right place," said Summerville, assistant professor at the Georgia Baptist College of Nursing of Mercer University in Atlanta. "I tell my students I could double my salary working somewhere else, but I believe this is where the Lord put me, and what an impact I'm having on health care!"

Nurses often talk about the importance of critical thinking in their jobs. Summerville believes it's just as important in teaching.

"I love the creativity of taking something that is really complex and multifaceted and making it understandable to all kinds of students," Summerville said. "There are the super-deluxe students, who get things immediately, the middle-of-the-road students and the ones who have to struggle. I like the challenge of hitting all those spots."

Getting and keeping his students' attention mean constantly coming up with ways of presenting material. Summerville's favorite method is what he calls "Socratic questioning." Walking around the classroom with a microphone, he'll suddenly pose a question, put the microphone in someone's face and wait for an answer.

Students call him the "game-show host," but they also tell him that his method forces them to keep up with their studying. Graduates have told him that it taught them how to think.

"Teachers are faced with a variety of learners, and a variety of strategies are needed if you're going to reach everyone," he said. "You need a pocketful of tools that you can pull out, and you have to have passion if you're going to get over the bumps of helping people understand.

"The greatest satisfaction is when a student tells you, 'Wow, that thing you did in class really helped me understand it!' As a nurse, I know that equals better care for patients."

Years ago, Summerville created cartoons to represent different diseases and their symptoms. He was beginning to think the cartoons were out of date in today's high-tech world. But, while teaching clinical skills at Piedmont Fayette Hospital, where he works part time, he ran into a former student. She told Summerville that the cartoons helped her and that she still remembered the character he created for diabetes.

"Just when I was thinking of changing the method, someone tells me that I'm doing it right. It's the unpredictable piece of teaching that fascinates me," he said.

Summerville is exploring how to teach better online and how to use simulation mannequins more effectively in classes.

Summerville was chosen as one of 12 Georgia faculty members to attend last summer's Governor's Teaching Fellows Program, where he learned more about teaching skills and emerging technologies.

"What an honor that was! I wanted to know a lot more about cutting-edge technologies like podcasts, but what

I also learned was about grant-writing and finding new resources for teaching," he said.

Despite the shortage of nursing faculty and the difficulties in recruitment because of salary disparities between clinical and academic jobs, Summerville is optimistic about the future.

"I'm hopeful and positive that we'll come up with a way to teach the next generation," he said. "I think we'll see people come to teach who aren't expecting to, and we're going to use more creative approaches in finding teachers and training them."