Our 2010 Annual Report, “A Day in the Life of an Academic Geriatric Nurse,” features photographic profiles of 18 nurses who have received BAGNC awards or who play key roles in the program. An essential component of the BAGNC Initiative is a series of grants that have established nine Centers of Geriatric Nursing Excellence at schools of nursing to advance geriatric nursing research, education, and practice. Jean Wyman, PhD, RN, is the Director of the Hartford Center of Geriatric Nursing Excellence at the University of Minnesota, School of Nursing.

JAHF: In your leadership role at the Hartford Center of Geriatric Nursing Excellence you are focused on providing new and existing faculty with geriatric expertise. Can you talk about the specific programs your center has developed?

Dr. Wyman: Something that is unique about our Hartford Center is that we developed the Faculty Learning About Geriatrics (FLAG) Program. This is a week-long institute followed by a year of mentorship around a geriatric nursing education project. It’s designed for faculty in schools of nursing (associate and higher degree nursing programs), doctoral nursing students, and advanced practice nurses who want to develop their expertise in teaching geriatric nursing. It’s becoming a national model for how to strengthen the teaching of geriatric nursing.

We’ve offered the FLAG program for three years now and the feedback from participants has been outstanding. People say it has revolutionized the way they teach, not just how they teach geriatric nursing but all of their teaching. Our FLAG faculty are nationally renowned and the participants come from widely varying backgrounds. With all this richness to draw on, along with the networking, new strategies, and geriatric nursing resources, participants go home with new ways of thinking about how to teach. Specifically, they learn how to infuse geriatrics within their current courses. So it’s not on top of what they teach; it’s really integrated. They also learn leadership strategies for working with faculty in their home institutions in order to incorporate geriatric competencies into the curriculum.

The next FLAG program is scheduled for August 8 to 12, 2011. We’ll be taking applications until all 50 slots are filled. Initially, we accepted participants only from Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and the tribal nursing colleges. Now we accept nurse faculty from any state in the country.

JAHF: Your center also created the Upper Midwest Geriatric Nursing Education Alliance. What is that and how is it different from the FLAG program?

Dr. Wyman: That is a coalition of nursing programs from the associate degree and higher nursing programs in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin, and in tribal college nursing programs nationwide. More than 50 percent of nursing programs in these states, which is 52 nursing programs, participate. Each member school designates a Faculty Champion committed to promoting excellence in geriatric nursing education to participate in Alliance activities.

We just had the annual meeting last week. We’ve been in existence for four years and we asked the Faculty Champions to tell us what they’ve done for geriatric nursing in the past year. It was so rewarding to hear how this work has helped to shape faculty development in many, many schools across the upper Midwest. When we started many of the nurses did not see themselves as geriatric focused. They joined because they had an interest in geriatrics or because they had to teach this content. By the end of the meeting this year they started talking about themselves as truly having an identity as being geriatric nursing faculty. They coined a new term—“Gero Buddies.”

These faculty members have gone through a transformative process. Not only are they going back to their home institutions to change their teaching and help lead curriculum change, they are also getting involved in their own scholarship related to gerontological nursing. For faculty in the smaller schools this is totally new, and mentorship through the FLAG Program and the Alliance is a key element.

JAHF: You mention the participation of the tribal college nursing programs in your faculty development efforts. How are you helping them to strengthen geriatric nursing?

Dr. Wyman: They are a unique group of schools. We’re the first organization to reach out and try to bring them together. They appreciate the opportunity to connect around the topic of geriatric nursing. Several of their faculty members have gone through the FLAG program and brought resources back to their colleges. We continue to work with them to identify needs and strengthen geriatric nursing.

JAHF: Your leadership in geriatric nursing extends beyond your role as director of the Hartford Center of Excellence. Can you tell us about that?

Dr. Wyman: I’m the recent past president of the Midwest Nursing Research Society, which is the largest regional nursing society in the country. The mission of MNRS is to advance the scientific basis of nursing practice and promote the development of nurse scientists. For me, it’s been an honor and a privilege to promote nursing science in this capacity, which ultimately improves health for all individuals, including older adults.

This is the third in a series of blogs celebrating the release of our 2010 Annual Report, “A Day in the Life of an Academic Geriatric Nurse.” Links to the series are below: