Meet Theresa: Nurse, Supermom, and Educator
Theresa Heaton is a clinical instructor and community coordinator here at Unitek College. Through community programs like ElderlyCare, Theresa ensures that students gain valuable experience in the field while they are training. She also maintains Unitek College's simulation labs. But before she decided to transition to Unitek College, Theresa spent seven years in the field and took full advantage of her fully transferrable skill set.
After achieving her BSN Degree from the Univerty of San Francisco, Theresa first went to work in Southern California where she was amazed by the rapid pace of this career. All of her nursing studies paid off, as she continued applying her critical thinking skills and techniques at an ever-escalating pace.
New nurses should always first inspect the policies and procedures of their new place of employment, because they may discover that the protocols are not always evidence-based, and what you learned in school may not exactly be what you apply in the field. Theresa comments, "If you work at a hospital long enough, you learn that it's only once you've earned some respect that you can work towards improving protocols."
It was not long before she decided to transplant her roots from Southern California to North Carolina. "I was able to find a job pretty much anywhere," she comments, "so why not?" It was in North Carolina that Theresa married. Soon, the newlyweds were headed to Colorado, where she found a position as a cardiovascular post-op nurse.
Three years ago, Theresa began considering employment with Unitek College. As she considered how much she loved being a preceptor, she made the decision to join the Unitek College faculty. It also complimented her schedule, since Theresa moonlights as a supermom with four children: a seven year old, a 6 year old, a 5 year old, and a 17 month old.
What aspect of her job did she find the most challenging? Well, keeping her supermom status in mind, difficult patients were never an obstacle for Theresa. "If patients become belligerent… like a child, well, that won't bother me," she says. The most challenging aspect of her career came in the form of a patient; manipulated by her husband into accepting only homeopathic remedies, despite her diagnosis for Stage 4 Cancer.
"It was difficult to reach her. The most important thing you can do with a patient is build a rapport of trust. This way you can find out what their wishes are, and present their options. It's important to let a patient know they have choices." Theresa now refocuses her experiences as a floor and post-op nurse to the education of the next nursing generation. When she is not teaching, you can find Theresa playing with her kids, praying, or talking with friends and loved ones.
Theresa's Advice: If at all possible, don't work while going to school.. You want to be able to focus all of your attention on learning the material and absorbing the information. Working will only become an added frustration.
