The nursing program at Siena Heights University received the Innovations in Professional Education Award from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. The SHU nursing program earned this national award in the Small Schools category.

The award recognizes SHU’s outstanding work to re-envision tradition models for nursing education and lead programmatic change. The innovation award includes a monetary prize of $1,000, which will be given annually.

SHU’s nursing, theater, and social work programs conducted a series of unique live training simulations. With the help and guidance of faculty members, specific scenarios involving the care of older individuals were recreated.

SHU Assistant Professor of Nursing Kelli Kusisto, was the brain behind the project. It was her idea to bring this project to Siena Heights.

“I had to come up with a project that would advance the whole concept.” I’ve always wanted to work with other disciplines around campus. I thought, ‘what if we used theater students to be our patients, and social work student could collaborate with our nursing students,” said Kelli Kusisto in a press release.

Each program played an equal role in the simulations. The Social work students were responsible for serving as the medical social workers in the role-plays. The Social Work students worked together with the Nursing students in order to provide care for the theater students who were the patients.

Assistant Professor of Social Work and Director of the Baccalaureate Social Work Program at SHU, Dalila John, worked side by side with Kusisto to make this project possible. John spoke about all the great benefits this project brought to the students of Siena Heights University.

“This was an incredible opportunity for our students to further develop their interviewing, assessment, and case planning skills, which are fundamental to social work practice. In addition, this learning tool allowed the students to learn more about medical social work and the significance of working with a multidisciplinary team. Finally, it was also a beneficial project that allowed our students to further develop their empathy and compassion for those that are experiencing medical challenges. The Siena Nursing and Theatre students were able to role-play case scenarios that allowed our students to put theory into practice. “

SHU beings a liberal arts school, aims to impact all students with a broad general knowledge and develop general intellectual capacities. Dr. Sue Idczak, SHU’s director of nursing touched on this topic in a press release. She said, “Kelli’s creativity in nursing has stimulated other faculty,” Idczak said. “This is part of what liberal arts and critical thinking is all about.”

Kelli Kusisto will be attending the AACN’s fall meeting in Washington D.C. on October 29 to receive the national honor for SHU.