Nursing Education Theory of Adeline Nyamathi

Nursing Education Concept By Adeline Nyamathi

Who is Adeline Nyamathi,As a Nursing Educator ,Journey to Education ,Interest in Teaching,Preparation For Task,Training For Teaching,Evolution as An Educator,Research as an Educator,Subject of Interest,Sense of Comfort Feeling As a Teacher,Teaching As a Challenge,Embarrassing Teaching Moments,Rewarding Side of Teaching,Less Rewarding Aspects of Teaching,Gaining Excellence as A Teacher,Advice For New Educators.

Who is Adeline Nyamathi

    Adeline Nyamathi is Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Nursing. 

    She earned the BSN at Hunter College Bellevue School of Nursing, MSN at State University of New York at Stony Brook, and PhD from Case Western Reserve University. She is a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and has received numerous teaching awards over the course of her career.

As a Nursing Educator 

    Dr Nyamathi is responsible for organizing and implementing educational programs locally and internationally. Her funded research has been directed at assessing the effectiveness of health education and resource programs among homeless and impoverished populations. 

    She is presently conducting an investigation in one of the largest Indian System of Medicine programs in Delhi, where there is an integration of HIV education and prevention. She is widely published on works related to HIV/AIDS.

Journey to Education 

    Dr Nyamathi believes that teaching, research, and administration is a wonderful and very fulfilling academic role combination. 

    Along with her administrative responsibilities, she teaches courses in the doctoral program on the state of the science in family and community research, and maintains a continuous engagement in funded research projects. 

    Although she did not participate in a formal mentoring program, she learned a lot from her teachers. She guides new faculty to seek the resources that they will need to help them become the best that they can be.

Interest in Teaching

    She first became interested in teaching after she had completed her master's program and was in the doctoral program. The idea of working in an academic setting and doing research was very appealing to me.

Preparation For Task

    She went through the Francis Payne Bolton School of Nursing Program at Case Western Reserve University. We did not have any formal classes on how to teach and this is why it was very important for me to offer education courses to our doctoral students. 

    We offer a special course where students are enrolled in a four-unit course and spend 10-12 hours a week with a faculty member who is engaged in teaching. 

    They help the faculty member develop the course objectives and the exams for the class, including evaluating the psychometric properties of the exams. The students also provide lectures in the class as well as sit in and observe the expertise of the faculty member.

Training For Teaching

    They did not have mentors in the doctoral program she attended; however, at the UCLA School of Nursing, she learned from the people who inspired me. These are teachers who have impressed me greatly in terms of their ability to engage students, while being humble. 

    They were able to provide a wealth of information and inspire students to become wonderful in their own right, and to achieve the goals they had envisioned for themselves. It is these people whom you emulate and strive to model in your teaching.

Evolution as An Educator

    Her expertise has evolved over time in that she was becoming less rigid. She has always been good at listening to students and learning from them. Over time, you become more expert in your area of research and the theoretical constructs that you teach. 

    It almost becomes second nature, so that you could do it in your sleep. When one becomes so engaged in research, then the actual practice of what you do makes the teaching much more natural and fuller of examples and illustrations that really provide depth and quality to the experience of teaching

Research as an Educator

    Her research is situated in Los Angeles and in India. In Los Angeles, she has been an NIH funded researcher for 17 years, and has focused on improving the health and well-being of homeless populations. 

    What we have done in 17 years is to provide intervention programs, where we enroll homeless adults in an intervention or a usual care program. They educate them about HIV risk reduction and health promotion activities, and evaluate the impact of the intervention when it is 6 months, 1 year, or 2 years out. 

    They have engaged a wonderful group of nurses who are very much a part of the community where we work. The community is called Skid Row. It is where the homeless pitch their tents and cardboard box condos. It is where they live on the streets and where they function. 

    Our staff is situated there and she go out and have meetings with them taking part in the research side by side with them as often as she can. The clients/participants involved in our program have known the staff for many years and are always interested in knowing what will be our next grant. 

    They help us in terms of being a reality check as far as where we are going next. They have expanded our HIV prevention focus to include TB and hepatitis prevention. Currently, theyenroll homeless adults who are TB positive into a TB prevention program. 

    These people have all been exposed to TB, are not active yet, but are much more likely to become active TB patients because they have poor immune systems, improper diets, are into drugs and alcohol, and live in very close quarters. 

    All the factors place them at high risk for acquiring active TB. In this study homeless adults are enrolled in a special nurse case managed program or usual care, and are paid a nominal amount of money to receive twice weekly INH medication for 52 weeks. 

    We had 72% in this special nurse case managed program complete TB chemo-prophylaxis, compared to 46% in the control group. They both were paid the same amount of money, so it was not the money. It was engaging with nurses who really cared for them and encouraged them to come to the program.

Subject of Interest

    The courses she teaches in the doctoral program relate to the state of the science in terms of family and community research. They very much focus on what she does in my day-to-day activity with research. 

    They talk about ways to engage the community and become culturally competent. she teach three doctoral classes and am the Associate Dean, thus part of my time is spent in administration teaching, research, and administration are a wonderful combination. 

    She interacts with the faculty in revising the curriculum, keeping the curriculum up to date, and minimizing redundancies throughout the program. She brings culturally competent experiences to the faculty and to the program. 

    For example, just today she interviewed someone who is interested in offering a Spanish immersion class in Mexico. She am part of the Dean's advisory committee, so we discuss budget and many related issues.

Sense of Comfort Feeling As a Teacher

    She has been teaching since 1984, and would say after about 5 or 6 years that she fell into a niche about what she really love to talk about and teach.

Teaching As a Challenge

    The challenges that she face relate to being competent in fulfilling the many activities faculty have to do at the same time. Not only are they expected to be expert teachers, but also to be prosperous with a program of research. 

    Faculty have to write grants, and write manuscripts. The challenge becomes how to juggle all these activities at the same time while grading papers and being available for students any time of the night or day.

Embarrassing Teaching Moments

    One time she was teaching about the cardiovascular system and was talking about ejection fraction and used the term ejaculation by mistake. Her husband who is a cardiac surgeon always reminds her of that one.

Rewarding Side of Teaching

    The most rewarding outcomes of teaching are seeing students grow. To engage them when they are so unsure of themselves and lacking in self-esteem, then to watch them progress, and see how well they do with a little bit of advice and recommendation is marvelous. 

    Watching how students just take off is the most rewarding experience for the faculty. We have also been able to get the students involved in our research and use this involvement as a teaching opportunity.

Less Rewarding Aspects of Teaching

    She has not experienced any unrewarding aspects. However, she is sure that there are faculty who do experience times that are not rewarding. 

    One situation that she knows of is about a very brave faculty member who is really pushing hard to get the students to have excellent writing skills. The students come in with diverse writing skills and for her to push the students to rewrite their papers is a challenge. 

    Students can become hostiles about these kinds of things. It is frustrating for me to hear how the students really blasted her in her evaluation. However, several students reported that the course had made them become better writers.

Gaining Excellence as A Teacher

    She maintains excellence by continuing to do all the activities that she does. By this 1 mean continuing to engage in research, getting the experiential background to constantly be involved in teaching, and always striving to be an excellent teacher. She am still growing and continuing to learn from people that she admire as teachers.

Advice For New Educators

    First of all, faculty have to be aware of all the available resources in the school and on the campus. For example, there is instructional support. for faculty where they can learn how to do PowerPoint and how to deal with large classes, hostile students, and disruptive students. 

    They have a mentored approach with young faculty when they first join the faculty. They are paired with a more senior and experienced faculty member. The new faculty member can sit in on classes of the more experienced faculty member, ask questions, and be guided in terms of teaching. 

    More importantly, they are guided in terms of moving along the tenure process. because that is where the faculty oftentimes get hung up or do not progress very well. This mentorship really functions on all levels in teaching and also research. 

    They also have an Associate Dean for Research who helps faculty in terms of reviewing their grants and making sure their grants are ready to be submitted to NIH. 

    They have modeling parties where faculty function similarly to an NIH review study session, giving sound advice to the faculty member before the grant goes out. 

    Because she is an endowed chair, along with two other faculties, we are going to be offering this Faculty Research Oriented Groups (FROG), where we engage the faculty who are writing manuscripts. 

    There are all different kinds of resources that faculty need to seek. Thus, my advice is to go out and seek the resources that they need to help them become the best they can be.