TERRE HAUTE —
When parishioners at Southport United Methodist Church come to worship on Sundays, they can get lessons in health care as well as the spiritual.
Felicia Stewart, a family nurse practitioner and church member, established a health care ministry at the church and recently developed a toolkit for use by people recently diagnosed with a chronic illness and family members who help care for them.
When Stewart needed to come up with programming or research-based health care interventions as part of Indiana State University’s new Doctor of Nursing Practice program, it didn’t take her long to come up with an idea.
The Sullivan native’s parents, Tom and Sharon Stewart, were diagnosed with cancer just two weeks apart in January 2008. As a health care provider, Felicia Stewart bore the brunt of helping her mother and father understand their diagnoses, ensure that each took a lengthy list of medications at the right time, and juggle their chemotherapy treatments and doctors’ visits.
“It was overwhelming. It was very obvious that we needed a way to be able to organize their health information, appointments, test results and medication lists,” she said. “We discovered that if we just kept two separate bags — one bag for mom, one bag for dad — that was a big help.”
Recording audio of doctor visits helped reduce what could have been a two-hour phone conversation with her siblings about how each visit went to a fraction of the time that might otherwise have been required. Separate calendars also helped manage health care appointments with little or no confusion.
Tom Stewart fought his cancer for 11 months before his death and Sharon Stewart battled for more than two years.
Felicia Stewart hopes the lessons she and her parents learned can help others beat their illnesses — or at least make it easier to cope.
“I had just finished my nurse practitioner program the month before they were diagnosed. I think in some ways that equipped me to be able to look at their situation and be more of a health advocate for them and be a daughter at the same time,” Felicia Stewart said.
In both cases, her parents’ cancers were in advanced stages by the time they were diagnosed, prompting her to consider this advice as the most important lesson in her health care ministry:
“I have a passion for early detection because it gives patients the best tools to be cured or live a longer life,” she said.
Stewart’s “New Diagnosis Toolkit” includes items available at office supply and big box stores — an audio recorder, a calendar, a pen and notebook, a folder to keep track of paperwork and a bag in which to carry it all.
“It’s a very simple concept,” she said, “Sometimes when people are first diagnosed, it takes a while to be able to look objectively and see what their needs are and pull in those resources. It may be several months afterwards when they finally think to start taking notes. That initial shock just freezes people.”
The toolkit puts patients in a position to keep better track of information from day one, Stewart said.
“Being able to do that empowers them to be more active in their health care visits,” she said.
Angela Young, a Southport United Methodist Church member who has multiple sclerosis, credits Stewart’s health care ministry with helping her better manage her visits to both a general practitioner and a neurologist.
“It’s just good to know that you can be more prepared, especially when I go to see my doctor, so we can talk about things,” Young said. “Felicia really opened up my eyes in the sense that I really need to write things down. Don’t just assume that your doctor has all the information. Most likely they do, but you need to be your own advocate.”
Helping caregivers cope
Jessica Durbin of Terre Haute focused her attention on parents as caregivers for children with physical or developmental disabilities.
She developed an online tool for parents to assess their stress level and learn steps to take to reduce stress. Of 35 parent volunteers who used the tool between January and March of this year, an overwhelming majority pronounced it a success.
“Ninety-five percent felt like it was a significant factor to decreasing their overall strain. That was exciting, first just deciding to try something, then seeing that it really does work,” Durbin said.
“We as health care providers can take from this that many of the parents in our practices caring for disabled children may be experiencing significant levels of role-strain and we may be forgetting them,” she said. “We can start more routine screening in our practices, we can develop sites such as the one used in this study and refer our patients to it and above all we can let our families experiencing role strain know they are not alone.”
Durbin’s project was influenced by her own family’s experiences.
“Having seen my grandparents raise a child that was disabled along with 10 other siblings and seeing how that affected everyone else in the situation, it just propelled me to think of what we can do as providers for these patients,” she said.
Durbin and Felicia Stewart completed their doctoral degrees as part of the inaugural class to do so in Indiana State’s College of Nursing, Health, and Human Services.
While each was already on the front lines of efforts to help Americans become healthier, they realize much work remains as more people rely on nurse practitioners for primary health care.
The Doctor of Nursing Practice is the highest degree possible for nurse practitioners. Indiana State’s program is just one of several new initiatives the College of Nursing, Health, and Human Services has launched to help address the growing shortage of health care providers — especially in rural areas.
Web-based program serves working professionals
The online program is designed to serve working health care providers.
“When you work 40 hours a week, it’s very difficult to find time for going and sitting in a classroom and making that time work because you can’t,” Durbin said. “The online program and the way Indiana State has integrated it with phone conferences was very impressive.”
The program also enabled Durbin and Stewart to take adjunct teaching positions in ISU’s nursing faculty.
While she is not ready to make a career in standing in front of a class — virtual or otherwise — just yet, Durbin is pleased to have had the opportunity to help share her knowledge with future nurses.
“Teaching definitely added fuel to the fire,” she said.
“Our graduates have been able to improve the lives of patients and families in their communities. To say we are proud is an understatement,” said Susan Bronte-Eley, chair of the advanced practice nursing department at Indiana State. “We look forward to the future and continued growth of the program.”
Schools
ISU Doctor of Nursing Practice grads develop community programs
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