New approach to nursing curriculum
The pandemic has fueled demand for highly qualified nurses. Saint Xavier University’s School of Nursing and Health Sciences is doubling down on efforts to better prepare them.
As a first recipient of the Gerald F. Loftus, M.D. and Mary Clare Loftus, RN, M.Ed. Endowed Professorship, Jeanine Reilly, of Chicago’s Beverly neighborhood, is taking the lead in what the university calls an ongoing initiative to “overhaul” its nursing curriculum.
“In the previous traditional curriculum, faculty focused more on disease processes and task-based interventions, emphasizing memorization, which fostered linear thinking,” Reilly said. “Today the school is more concept-driven rather than content-driven.”
To explain this newer approach, Reilly offered an example of a student nurse responding to a patient who asked why it was necessary to take a certain medication. The student nurse was unfamiliar with the exact drug, but she understood its classification, so Reilly encouraged the student to share that knowledge with her patient.
The idea was to support the patient in taking a more active role in recovery to achieve a better outcome.
“Students can readily apply knowledge of a concept to any patient situation,” said Reilly, who has taught for four years at Saint Xavier and who practiced as a pediatric nurse for 30 years.
The university adopted the concept-driven curriculum in 2019, and the endowed professorship allows Reilly to work with an expert in curriculum evaluation for revisions and development of a comprehensive curriculum plan.
Reilly aims for the new concept-based curriculum to align with the university’s 2017 designation as a Center of Excellence by the National League for Nursing. She also intends to create an environment that supports nursing school faculty in carrying out the transformation.
Having earned a master’s degree in nursing from Saint Xavier in 2008, Reilly was chosen to receive the endowment “through a competitive process based upon her record of excellence in teaching, scholarship and service,” said Gwendolyn George, dean of Saint Xavier’s School of Nursing and Health Sciences.
The university also expressed confidence in Reilly’s ability to fulfill the professorships’ strategic priorities.
The two-year endowment represents the largest individual gift to Saint Xavier since 2006 and the first endowed professorship in the university’s 175-year history.