A nurse since 1973, Natasha Laibhen-Parkes has always wanted to be the best possible caregiver to her patients at the bedside. That’s still a goal, but now she wants to make a broader impact on her profession.
A pediatric nurse at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston, Laibhen-Parkes is also pursuing a doctorate degree in nursing from the Georgia Baptist College of Nursing of Mercer University.
With a passion for evidence-based practice (nursing based on science), Laibhen-Parkes created a curriculum in her pediatric unit that made nurses comfortable asking questions and researching answers about their practices. “The point was to build competencies and create a culture of ongoing continuing education,” she said.
Promoted to staff nurse leader in 2010, she’s now implementing her program in five hospital units.
“I’ve always been an advocate for learning, but I never thought about getting a Ph.D. until I met CHOA’s Ph.D. nurse researcher, Dr. Linda Riley,” Laibhen-Parkes said. “I had the perception that Ph.D. nurses would be kind of stuck-up, but she was so accessible and I saw the impact she was making on everyone. I really admired her.”
Laibhen-Parkes enrolled in the nursing Ph.D. program with a focus on education at Mercer University in 2010. She has taken courses online, passed the comprehensive exams and is designing her dissertation.
She plans to teach her evidence-based curricula to pediatric nurses online; then collect and analyze data to see if it increases their competencies and use of evidence-based practices. She’s aiming for a May 2014 graduation.
“I never want to leave the bedside totally, because that’s where I’ll keep my skills sharp and get ideas for research. But, I want to do it all — be a nurse, do research and teach students,” she said. “So much of what I’ve done as a nurse has been inside hospital walls. This degree is showing me how to make an impact outside those walls.”
Laibhen-Parkes credits mentors in the hospital and in academia for encouraging her to dream big and find ways to implement her ideas. “We need nursing faculty and we need nurses doing research on health care issues. That’s the kind of leadership that will advance our profession as a science,” she said.
Facing a shortage
Only about 2 percent of American nurses hold a doctorate in nursing. It's not nearly enough to serve the profession or the health care needs of a growing and aging population, said Ann E. Rogers, professor and director of graduate studies at Emory University's Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing.
“We are facing a nursing shortage, and we already have a nursing faculty shortage. We can’t increase the number of nursing students without having faculty to teach them, so having more doctoral-prepared nurses is incredibly important,” Rogers said.
According to an American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) survey from 2011, about 67,000 qualified applicants were turned away from nursing programs in 2010 due to a lack of faculty, facilities or clinical sites.
“We’re seeing almost 1,200 faculty vacancies in 2012,” she said. “The average age of a Ph.D. nursing professor is 53.5, and we’re not educating enough younger nurses to replace them at retirement, so the situation is only going to get worse. We need to attract younger nurses into Ph.D. programs.”
The Future of Nursing, a landmark report issued by the Institute of Medicine in 2010, recommended doubling the number of nurses with doctoral degrees in the U.S. work force. But creating new or expanding Ph.D. degree programs is not so easy.
“We have about 19 or 20 students in our Ph.D. program and can only accept about six new candidates a year in order to maintain quality. Last year we had more applicants than spaces,” Rogers said.
To prepare doctorate nurses, a university is required to have an active research faculty, research facilities, collaborative opportunities and mentors who are good matches for student’s interests and needs. It takes three to five years to earn a Ph.D., depending on whether the candidate enters with a bachelor’s or master’s degree.
Nurses enrolling in Ph.D. programs increased by 10.4 percent in 2010, according to the AACN survey. There are about 124 doctoral programs nationwide.
By earning her Ph.D. at 32, Rogers has enjoyed a long career of treating patients, teaching and doing significant research in sleep medicine.
“Besides being intellectually rewarding, the Ph.D. opens up unlimited employment opportunities in health care administration, research and academia,” she said.
Emory doctoral graduates are working as college professors, top executives in hospitals or agencies, and at the forefront of health care reform. Some are researching for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other agencies, and one is the chief nursing officer for the department of health in Jamaica.
“It opens up endless possibilities,” Rogers said. “That’s the beauty of the Ph.D.”
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