College of Nursing Dean, Students Travel to Capitol Hill to Advocate for Nursing Workforce
College of Nursing Dean Janie Heath, PhD, APRN-BC, FAAN, undergraduate student Alysha Kennedy and PhD student Shannon Parsley, RN, CEN, traveled to Washington D.C. for the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) Student Policy Summit, March 19-21.
The AACN Student Policy Summit is an opportunity for students to be immersed in didactic program sessions focused on the federal policy process and nursing’s role in professional advocacy. While there, Dean Heath, Kennedy and Parsley advocated to protect federal funding that supports advancing the nursing workforce and research.
“At the summit, I was exposed to the political side of health care – an area with which I previously didn’t have a lot of experience,” says Kennedy. “This once in a lifetime opportunity was both rewarding and empowering, and will shape my future as a nurse leader.”
Kennedy, class president for the December 2017 nursing class, wishes to be a pediatric nurse and pursue her DNP at UK either in the primary care or pediatric track.
Parsley, on her way to complete her PhD, plans to apply for a post-doctoral fellowship in the field of bioethics. She currently works for Bridging Research Efforts and Advocacy Toward Health Environments (BREATHE) as a research assistant.
“My overarching research interest is health policy, and this experience provided me with the rare opportunity to visit Capitol Hill to meet with Kentucky legislators as a nurse and patient advocate,” says Parsley. “I was surrounded by and able to meet other like-minded nurses and nursing students who were equally passionate about utilizing the credibility, perspective and power of nurses’ voices to shape health policy.”
The AACN is the national voice for baccalaureate and graduate nursing education. It works to establish quality standards for nursing education; assists schools in implementing those standards; influences the nursing profession to improve health care; and promotes public support for professional nursing education, research, and practice.
Pictured with Dean Heath, Kennedy and Parsley are their colleagues from Frontier Nursing University and Northern Kentucky University.
