Objective: The Edmond J. Safra Visiting Nurse Faculty Program at the Parkinson’s DIsease Foundation provides a 40 contact hour accredited course for nursing faculty by linking them with experts at large, multidisciplinary Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Centers (PDMDCs) .  The program, recognized by the National League of Nursing (2015), prepares faculty to return to their respective schools and deliver evidenced based information on Parkinson’s disease care. This abstract describes the program, methods and results to date of the program.

Background: PD is the 2nd most common neurodegenerative disorder, yet an unpublished study by Bunting-Perry and Vernon (2008), found that over 50% of schools did not include PD in the curriculum, and of those that did, there was a lack of evidenced based information.  

Methods: Nursing faculty are recruited to participate in the program emphasizing direct work with people with PD.  Through a standard curriculum, scholars attend didactics, participate in mentored clinical time with patients, attend a PD support group and develop an independent project.  

Results: 210 nursing faculty representing over 120 nursing schools have participated to date, bringing evidenced based teaching back to their classrooms and clinical areas.  Additionally, faculty take their knowledge with them, using it in scholarly ways such as publishing in peer reviewed journals, developing new support and exercise groups, embarking on research projects, and speaking at local, national, and international nursing symposia, thereby educating the current nursing workforce.  Collectively, these scholars educate an estimated 18,000 nursing students and hundreds of working nurses per year on PD.

Conclusions: Nurse scholars of the Edmond J. Safra Visiting Nurse Faculty Program at the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation are infusing evidenced based information at the local, national and international level and preparing the next generation of nursing students to care for those with PD.  The development of new host sites to address geographical areas who have unmet needs for the information and the development of programs to keep current scholars active and engaged are ongoing. While there is a lot of work yet to be done, the needs of those with Parkinson’s disease for good nursing care cannot be underemphasized. 

References: Caputi, L.  (2015).  Innovations in Nursing Education: Building the Future of Nursing, Volume 3.  National League of Nursing in conjunction with Wolters Kluwer, Philadelphia, PA.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/improving-nursing-education-on-the-care-of-those-with-parkinsons-disease/