Featured Nurse Leader
Cynthia Hornberger, RN, MBA, PhD
Arming nurses with knowledge and skill
Joining the Tobacco Free Nurses leadership initiative was a natural fit
for the Dean of Washburn University School of Nursing, Cynthia Hornberger,
RN, MBA, PhD. If Dr. Hornberger could have things her way, every single
nurse would be trained in smoking cessation counseling. She has worked
with other faculty members at Washburn School of Nursing, particularly
Lori Edwards, RN, MSN, to make sure that the curricula for both undergraduate
and graduate nursing students include smoking cessation education. Now,
she is working to ensure that other schools follow suit. To meet this
challenge, Washburn University in 2004 hosted three train-the-trainer
workshops for faculty members from schools of nursing in Kansas to become
familiar with smoking cessation curricula and useful teaching strategies.
Dr. Hornberger has made important contributions to improving education
about tobacco cessation in Kansas, and is a model for others to follow.
Dr. Hornberger’s deep commitment to smoking cessation originates
from her clinical nursing experience caring for patients with heart failure.
During ten years as an emergency room nurse, she was a first-hand witness
to the devastating effects of smoking. Time after time, she was confronted
with patients with heart failure whose smoking complicated management
of their disease. These experiences led to her to “seek solutions
that are at the other end of the continuum” where she believed she
could make greater impact. Therefore, she went back to graduate school
to pursue degrees in health promotion. She was inspired by Dr. Kathy Rowe’s
work in Irish nursing schools on knowledge of and attitudes towards smoking
among nursing students. She decided to do similar work in the United States
with the aim of getting nursing schools to address tobacco addiction as
a primary cause of disease. She and Ms. Edwards started by assessing knowledge
of, attitude towards, and prevalence of smoking at her own school. Then,
she got faculty members at her school involved in upgrading the Nursing
School’s curriculum to ensure that all nurses educated at the school
had the skill necessary to implement smoking cessation.
Dr. Hornberger contends that most nurses are aware of the harmful effects
of cigarette smoking and the importance of smoking cessation but, “knowing
the importance of smoking cessation is not equivalent to knowing what
to do about the smoking cessation.” She sees nurses as the natural
group of professionals to implement smoking cessation because patients
trust them. She goes on to add that, “smoking cessation is difficult,
therefore the trust factor that nurses bring is crucial in getting patients
to quit smoking. Resources are needed to help nurses achieve their potential
in smoking cessation.” She and Ms. Edwards have used the Rx for
Change, a well-established curriculum developed at the University of California
San Francisco. Her goal is to use this excellent curricular resource to
“arm nurses with knowledge and skill.”
View Previous Featured Nurse Leaders
- Gregory Howard, LPN
- Mila C. Velasquez, MN, RN, CS, APRN, BC
- Terri Roberts, J.D., R.N.
- Cynthia Hornberger, RN, MBA, PhD
- Josie Howard-Ruben, RN, MS, AOCN, CHPN
- Janie Heath PhD, APRN-BC, ANP, ACNP
- Mary Ellen Wewers, RN, PhD, MPH, FAAN
- Linda Sarna, RN, DNSc, FAAN
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