Kristi
Plunk
April 2023
Kristi
Plunk
,
MSN, RN
Middle Tennessee State University School of Nursing
Murfreesboro
,
TN
United States
She challenges students to be the best they can be, pushing us to achieve even beyond our own expectations and building confidence in students of their abilities; simultaneously, she meets every student where they are with their knowledge of OB nursing.
Mrs. Plunk has been a nurse educator and faculty member at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) for 13 years. She teaches in the BSN program as a clinical instructor teaching first semester nursing students in their clinical skills and health assessment lab. Mrs. Plunk also teaches during the third semester of the program in the Childbearing Family clinical experience.
Her nominator wrote, "Mrs. Plunk always carries herself in a professional way, and provides care to patients in clinical by drawing on her years of nursing experience, thus providing an example for future nurses to model their care. Her enthusiasm for OB is infectious; rarely in other clinicals do students come out and say, ‘I want to do that!’ but that is what I saw happen many times over. . . . She challenges students to be the best they can be, pushing us to achieve even beyond our own expectations and building confidence in students of their abilities; simultaneously, she meets every student where they are with their knowledge of OB nursing. While students are learning basic nursing skills, Mrs. Plunk provides gentle constructive feedback that helps to build confidence, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, she taught cohorts of students how to be flexible and adapt to the changes each week brought.
She does not play favorites; she meets every student with the same level of enthusiasm and support in their learning to help them be successful in her clinical courses and in all other aspects of their nursing career.
Mrs. Plunk has a way of interacting with other faculty and hospital staff that facilitates open and honest communication that ultimately leads to win-win situations, and not everyone is blessed in that skill. . . . I feel so lucky that I was able to learn from Mrs. Plunk, not once, but twice, and her guidance and leadership helped me from early in my schooling determine what kind of nurse I wanted to grow into- one with strength, intelligence, kindness and leadership."
Mrs. Plunk was also a recipient of the 2022 MTSU EXL Faculty Award for excellence in experiential learning.
Her nominator wrote, "Mrs. Plunk always carries herself in a professional way, and provides care to patients in clinical by drawing on her years of nursing experience, thus providing an example for future nurses to model their care. Her enthusiasm for OB is infectious; rarely in other clinicals do students come out and say, ‘I want to do that!’ but that is what I saw happen many times over. . . . She challenges students to be the best they can be, pushing us to achieve even beyond our own expectations and building confidence in students of their abilities; simultaneously, she meets every student where they are with their knowledge of OB nursing. While students are learning basic nursing skills, Mrs. Plunk provides gentle constructive feedback that helps to build confidence, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, she taught cohorts of students how to be flexible and adapt to the changes each week brought.
She does not play favorites; she meets every student with the same level of enthusiasm and support in their learning to help them be successful in her clinical courses and in all other aspects of their nursing career.
Mrs. Plunk has a way of interacting with other faculty and hospital staff that facilitates open and honest communication that ultimately leads to win-win situations, and not everyone is blessed in that skill. . . . I feel so lucky that I was able to learn from Mrs. Plunk, not once, but twice, and her guidance and leadership helped me from early in my schooling determine what kind of nurse I wanted to grow into- one with strength, intelligence, kindness and leadership."
Mrs. Plunk was also a recipient of the 2022 MTSU EXL Faculty Award for excellence in experiential learning.