This emphasis on healthcare teamwork began as a result of the publication of the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) report, To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System (IOM, 1999). A principal finding of the report was that systematic failures in the delivery of healthcare account for more errors than does poor performance by individuals and that success and failures depend on a great extent on the performance of teams. John M. Eisenberg, a leading groundbreaker in patient safety and former administrator for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) observed that “patient safety is a team sport” (Clancy, 2005). It is nearly unthinkable to imagine a winning team composed of individuals with essential and complementary abilities who have not practiced together, yet healthcare professional training has historically been isolated in silos (Clancy & Tornberg, 2007).
The Institute of Medicine, the World Health Organization, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing and the Association of American Medical Colleges all boost the promotion of teamwork and collaboration as one of the core competencies for all healthcare educational programs (Finkelman & Kenner, 2012). It is the intent that all new graduate nurses will utilize evidence-based practice, quality improvement, informatics and teamwork and collaboration to assure safe, patient centered care. Yet embedding these core competencies throughout the nursing curricula has been a difficult movement for nurse educators (Bryer & Peterson-Graziose, 2014; Barnsteiner, Disch, Hall, Mayer, & Moore, 2007). If healthcare institutions expect new graduate nurses to have the tools necessary to communicate, collaborate and work in interprofessional teams, then academic institutions and nurse faculty must seek innovative resources within their institution or community to enhance teamwork opportunities with students of all disciplines.
Collegiate athletics have long been a part of university life. Physical educators, sport experts and researchers have touted the conflicting benefits and disadvantages of playing a collegiate sport while prioritizing academic performance. The general benefits frequently agreed upon include enhanced leadership qualities, competition, character building, student engagement, confidence, motivation, improved health, a persistence to stay in school, and the ability to learn how to deal with failure and difficult situations. It is no doubt that many of these characteristics would be of great benefit to the nursing profession, yet no studies have been done citing nursing student’s collegiate sport participation and the attributes and characteristics gained from playing a college sport. It is interesting to note that at the time of this research in 2016, there were only a few research studies done identifying student nurses’ activity in any collegiate activity, never mind sports.
This research used a phenomenological design to illuminate and bring light to the experiences of having dual collegiate roles; that of the student nurse and the student athlete. Thirteen practicing nurses were interviewed about their collegiate experience. Each role, that of student nurse and that of student athlete, had various challenges and coordinating both roles was not easy, yet the participating nurses shared very poignant stories of how and why both roles enhanced the other. This study proved that student nurses can and should have the opportunity to participate in collegiate activities as do other college students. Nursing courses should not limit a student’s drive to succeed in more than one role and that athletics may not be the only way nursing students can build a sense of belonging in their college community as they build their confidence in nursing.
Although this study's goal was not to identify whether playing a sport in college increased the nurses ability to communicate and collaborate, it did identify that despite the rigors of nursing school and the physical and time demads of playing a college sport, nursing students were able to be successful in both endeavors. Most explained that each role enhanced the other; taking one away would be a conflict of their persona. The repeated themes that were shared throughout the interviews destinquishing the dual role phenomena were: 1) Athletic Identity, 2) Perseverance, 3) Support, 4) Acceptance and Belonging and 5) Transitioning the Sports Mentality into Nursing. The presentation will expand on these themes and will share some of the stories of these student nurse athletes; their determination to succeed at both roles and how their experience affects them as nurses today.