Shannon Perry, on the Service-Learning Project

By Bree LeMaire, MS, RN
May 23, 2003

How did you get into nursing?

Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to be a nurse. After graduation, I worked as a staff nurse for seven years and made my way up the ladder. Then I went into academics. I knew I could teach nurses better ways than what I was seeing. Always, always we want things to be better.

One person who had an early influence was Ingeborg Mauksch, Ph.D., RN. She was a smart nurse and a superb influence at a time when there were few nurses with doctorates.

Do you have any favorite teaching memories?

The only time I ever got an accidental needlestick was by a student, practicing how to give injections. There was another student who had been in 4-H and was experienced at delivering sheep. She wanted to find out if babies were born the same way. Another student came to me as she started her OB training and said she had a phobia about looking at female genitalia. Yes, I guess there are a number of favorite teaching memories.

What is the Service-Learning Project and how did you get started in it?

Service learning is a way that people can learn while providing service to those who need it. For example, some of our students at State worked with teenage mothers. These young women often have few parenting skills and our students model such things as reading to the children. Some worked on crisis telephone lines. Others worked with children with disabilities in a riding academy.

For a long time, I had wanted to take students into an international venue of some kind to examine nursing and midwifery. The Service-Learning Project presented an opportunity to do that with university funding. We went to London and Edinburgh, Scotland. Part of the experience was observational, such as going to the Florence Nightingale Museum, but a big part was experiential.

The first year we went, the United States had 95 percent physician-assisted deliveries and 5 percent were by midwives. In the United Kingdom, it was the opposite-5 percent of deliveries were physician-assisted and 95 percent were midwife-assisted. The birth procedure looked seamless in that the midwife works with the mother throughout labor, then delivers the baby and continues with 10 days of postpartum care and home visits.

One of the places we visited was Queen Charlotte's [& Chelsea] Hospital, where there was a birthing center as well as a more traditional labor and delivery area. In the birthing center, physicians were not allowed, and the rule was strictly followed. If there were complications, patients were taken to the labor and delivery area where the physician participated in the care. In Edinburgh, the students were with midwives. They went into the homes and the clinics. Their views of maternity nursing changed and many said it was a life-transforming experience.

What are some of the challenges you've run into in this program?

One of the challenges is to get the word out and encourage people to participate. Students pay their own way, so that is a bit of a detriment. Some students plan to go to Ghana in August. On our last Ghana visit, we spent eight days in a primary care clinic and saw 800 patients.

One of the students at State is from Thailand and we're going back to her hometown. We plan on doing some health assessments and seeing where health education would be most beneficial. We already know from the literature and speaking to some Thai nurses that handwashing, safer cord care and safer sex are good places to start.

What does it take to be an expert witness?

Lawyers sometimes think that a nurse is a nurse is a nurse, and that nurses are experts in all fields of nursing. An expert witness is someone who has knowledge that a layperson does not have. It's important to be clear about the expected area of practice. Expert witnesses read medical records, give depositions and appear in court. The nurse must be sure of her facts and able to stick with what she says as well as speak in front of a group.

Anything you'd like to add?

Yes, I have loved being a nurse. If I get tired of one thing, I can go into something different and still be a nurse. I can teach, I can write, I can practice and do a whole lot of things. Nursing is a versatile and phenomenal career. I highly recommend it.