As we approach the third anniversary to the start of the global COVID-19 pandemic the pervasive obstacles bedside nurses have faced over these past few years regarding staffing turnover and adequate new hire education remain obvious obstacles. Due to the social distancing policies in place for most of 2020-2021 compounded by the lack of a virtual education system, many of our newly hired nurses have struggled to muddle through onboarding to a specialized pediatric ICU with limited formal education. This deficiency in their training left and still leaves these new nurses feeling inadequately prepared to care for such critical pediatric patients and has caused many of them to eventually leave the field, seeking employment elsewhere.

This does not even begin to address the potential for patient-related care events due to ill-prepared nurses being stretched even thinner during a national staffing crisis. Enter PICU Clinical Supervisor Kristin Bowen, MSN, RN, CCRN. In 2021, Kristin noticed the absence of formal education and subsequent frustrations amongst the bedside nurses and took it upon herself- without being asked or without any additional compensation- to develop a forum that discusses topics directly related to the care of our patient populations here on LCH 6. This education is known as Teach Me Tuesday and occurs in the afternoon twice a day on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays.

These classes are led by staff members for staff members with topics ranging from organ transplantation considerations, to operating specialty devices, to navigating patient deaths. As you can see the scope of education since initiation has been vast and all-encompassing for our combined CV and PI Unit. She has personally coordinated every single one of these classes by taking input from her staff as to which topics they would like covered and finding experts from all disciplines within the children’s hospital to teach these brief lectures via Microsoft Teams. By utilizing Teams, she has made these educational opportunities much more accessible than previous traditional classroom instruction and to say her impact has been anything less than substantial would be minimizing her achievements.

Teammates are becoming involved and collaborating together in new ways for the betterment of not only our team but also four patients, to the point that her coordinated discussions will now be offered house-wide throughout LCH. Atrium Health’s vision statement is “to be the national leader for health, learning, and community.” I believe that by creating Teach Me Tuesday Kristin Bowen, MSN, RN, CCRN embodies the vision this hospital has set out to fulfill. She has utilized her position as a leader on LCH 6 to advance education and form a unique collaborative community that strives to optimize the health and healing of our patients.