Bringing Back the Basics of Nursing Care
|
Karsh Visiting Professor in Nursing Courtney Lyder speaks with Estrellita Karsh before the lecture. |
Courtney H. Lyder, ND, ScD (Hon), FAAN, this year's Estrellita and Yousuf Karsh Visiting Professor in Nursing, had a clear message for all nurses attending the May 12 Karsh lecture: Bring back the basics of nursing care.
"For me, the art and science of nursing are the basics," said Lyder, dean and assistant director of the UCLA School of Nursing and professor of nursing, geriatric medicine and public health. "The art and science are being there for the patient, not the machines and the bells and whistles."
Lyder, an international expert on wound care, focused his lecture on preventing pressure ulcers, a topic he has been studying his entire career. "One of the basics of care we can strive for is preventing skin breakdown," said Lyder, who also serves as executive director of the UCLA Health System Patient Safety Institute.
He said that nurses lost an important opportunity to cover the basics of skin care when the bed bath was delegated to other members of the care team, such as the patient care assistant. Bathing was a time when nurses could examine the patient, notice marks and learn if they signified abuse, cancer or skin breakdown, for example.
"I tell my nursing students and nurses-do the bed bath," he said. "It's not about the mechanics; it's about the assessment we do during that time and the opportunity to connect with the patient."
Although the treatments for pressure ulcers have changed, they continue to be a chronic issue in hospitals across the country. Lyder urged clinical nurses in attendance to provide basic nursing care for pressure ulcers. "When you look at the literature, it points to basic nursing care. The key is not to reinvent the wheel," he said.
Lyder, who has received nearly $7 million in research and training grants in the past decade related to gerontology and wound care, became interested in these subjects during his first week in nursing school. A guest lecturer taught a class on bathing and hired Lyder as a research assistant for a research project for which she had recently been funded. The professor was Barbara Braden, PhD, RN, and the project was validating her Braden Scale for Predicting Pressure Ulcer Risk, which is now one of the most widely used tools in the U.S. and around the world to identify a patient's risk of developing pressure ulcers.
"She became my mentor overnight," Lyder recalled.
The very next week, Lyder experienced another moment that would cement his career's direction. An African-American woman living in a nursing home was suffering from a massive stage four ulcer, but Lyder learned from her nurses that there was no understanding of how such skin breakdown occurred in African-American people. "No one should die because of the color of their skin," Lyder said. "These two experiences have led me to a 27-year journey studying wound care."
Lyder said he was humbled and honored to serve as the Karsh Visiting Professor during the fifth anniversary of the professorship this year.
Before introducing Lyder, Chief Nursing Officer and Senior Vice President of Patient Care Services Jackie Somerville, PhD, RN, opened the lecture by thanking Estrellita Karsh for her longtime support of nurses and for establishing the professorship. Somerville also showed a slideshow of famous portraits photographed by Karsh's late husband, Yousuf, noting "his extraordinary ability to capture the humanity and uniqueness of his subjects."