Nursing School Beyond Classes: Making the most of EVERY opportunity

James Sherpa: Coming up on BroncoTales. 

Katherine Sheets: What a great opportunity, then, to kind of learn from them, but also because you went to the conference as well. What was it like being with other nursing researchers outside of Boise State? 

Archer Ward: Thinking about advanced practice nursing? Look no further than Boise State. Prepare for your career as a nurse practitioner and earn your doctor of nursing practice degree in as few as three years. In our flexible BS to DNP program you can specialize as a family nurse practitioner or an acute care adult gerontology nurse practitioner.

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Katherine Sheets: Well, hi, and welcome to BroncoTales with the College of Health Sciences. I’m Katherine Sheets, I’m with the School of Nursing, and I’m here with Nicolette Missbrenner. She’s a nursing student in her last semester, and she’s also an EMT. So, Nicolette, welcome.

Nicolette Missbrenner: Thank you for having me. 

Katherine Sheets: So, I would love to talk about some of the expectations of nursing school because a lot of students think that it’s a super stressful thing. They think about all the textbooks that they have to read, all the memorization, and then the clinical rotations where they’re actually getting to be with students. So, when you started as a student, kind of what were your expectations? 

Nicolette Missbrenner: Absolutely. It’s a lot to take in, especially when you’re brand new to nursing or brand new to healthcare in general. All of those prerequisite classes like anatomy, physiology, pathophysiology, microbiology–it’s all a lot, but I feel like that’s what really sets you up for success. Once you get into the program–not that it’s a breeze, but as long as you stick to those foundations and you know what you were talking about and you can understand why things are happening in the body, everything starts to click once you reach nursing school.

I know for me, I heard nursing school is very cut throat, nurses eat their young and faculty are really scary. They won’t work with you. They don’t curve and other programs just made it sound like it was awful and that was definitely not my experience here.

I think Boise State has been amazing. The faculty are incredible. It is a little bit like drinking through a water fountain or a water hose, I should say when you first start, but once you ease into that first semester, then everything kind of falls into place. And it’s not as overwhelming as you think it should be. 

Katherine Sheets: That’s fantastic to know because I know a lot of students–yeah, they stress out about all of the early stages and then, yeah for it to–I know as a staff member myself it’s exciting to see students as they progress through the program and to see the light bulb moments as they’re not stressing about homework as much and like everything really seems to click for them. So, that’s exciting to hear, that’s actually your experience as a student. Going through the program now, looking back, were there any, maybe, pleasant surprises that you weren’t expecting to experience?

Nicolette Missbrenner: Looking back, I had a lot of experience in long-term care, which is something I never imagined I would get to experience. I think it was extremely beneficial. You got a chance to work with people of all ages with all kinds of disabilities and get really good at talking to people.

 I feel like the skills come with time. You can understand the pathophysiology of why things happen to people. But, if you have a hard time talking to people and have a terrible bedside manner, you’re never going to make it. And since you’re going to be with patients in hospital at least 12 hours of the day, you want to get to know people on a personal level instead of just treating them as a checklist. And that was such a pleasant surprise. I just felt so welcomed everywhere that I went, and I got that really good experience. 

Katherine Sheets: Is that something that they teach in school? Do you have the opportunity to practice building those kinds of communication skills, or is that more of just like you kind of cover how to do basic stuff, but then it’s more of the practice and building it in clinical rotations? How do you learn that? 

Nicolette Missbrenner: Learning how to communicate is really something that you kind of pick up as you go along. As you’re following around nurses, you kind of see how they do things, and you’ll mimic or you’ll see, oh, I don’t really want to do that. So I won’t do that in my practice.

But as for learning how to talk to people, there are things that you read in theory about this is therapeutic communication. This is how you talk to people. But it’s really learning as you go, and the more you do it, the more comfortable you get with talking to people, especially when they’re sad or they’re angry. And they take it out on you, know that it’s not against you. It’s just this is what they’re feeling. So how can I make it more bearable when this could be the worst moment of their life? 

Katherine Sheets: So, really coming alongside them and kind of walking with them through that instead of just, I don’t know, being on the sidelines, watching it happen, I guess, I don’t know. 

Nicolette Missbrenner: Definitely. I think nursing is great because you’re really getting a chance to be their advocate. There are so many other avenues that you could take in healthcare, whether that’s going to medical school, being a PA, or being a social worker. But you really get to be their advocate on the medical side of things as well as advocating for what other things they need–where they come alongside with a chaplain or a social worker. Being in the long-term care facilities, you get to see it all. And it was really cool to make that connection where it felt more bearable as compared to being up on a floor where everybody’s acutely sick, and it’s like, I need to do all these things. And I’m not worried about actually talking to people. 

Katherine Sheets: Yeah. Well, that sounded like it was a really good opportunity for you then. 

Nicolette Missbrenner: Absolutely.

Katherine Sheets: Clinical practice. Well, that’s awesome. So, thinking about other opportunities that you might have had besides the clinicals or class things. So, outside of class, I know we have the Student Nurses Association. You’re on the board of that, right? 

Nicolette Missbrenner: Yes, I am currently president of the Student Nurses Association. I was the treasurer last semester. So, the Student Nurses Association is an amazing student-run organization that comes alongside the School of Nursing. And we provide students with all kinds of opportunities. Nationally, your membership gives you scholarship opportunities. Both at Boise State, we do resume and interview workshops that are specific to SNA members. We do a meet the employers every semester alongside the School of Nursing, so that students have a chance to meet all these types of employers that they could be working for. At least get their name out there, practice talking to people, learning what they’re looking for, seeing what they’re paying, and really advocating for themselves and making the most out of their experience. 

Katherine Sheets: And so how do students get involved in that? Is that something they have to wait until they’re actually taking classes in the halls of the Norco building? Or is there social media? 

Nicolette Missbrenner: Yeah, we do have social media. We have a Boise State Instagram at BSUSNA, and then we have websites on the School of Nursing webpage as well. To get involved, you just have to be accepted into the nursing program, so you can be a member as soon as your first day of fourth semester, which is amazing. It’s definitely an opportunity that I think you should definitely take advantage of as a student.

And there’s a one-time fee for Boise State and then a fee for the national membership. And I know it is a lot of money up front, but if it pays for itself, there’s so many opportunities. BSU has one of the only SNAs in all of Idaho, so it’s great on their resume. It’s a great leadership opportunity. There’s no time commitment. It’s really whatever you want to make out of it. 

Katherine Sheets: Yeah, I was going to ask why you got involved in the first place. Was it for leadership opportunities, or did you know other people who are already in SNA? Like what drew you to it? 

Nicolette Missbrenner: I had a friend on the board when I was first starting. I had no idea what SNA was, and once I learned about it, I was like, oh my goodness. This is great. We should take advantage of this. Let’s build this up, and then I started getting more involved. You can be on committees, so you can be as involved as you want to be, whether that’s like making homecoming floats or thinking about ideas that you’d like to see changed around the Norco building, in nursing in general, or on the Boise State campus. 

I loved it for the leadership opportunities. I feel like I would define myself as a leader. And I know all nurses are technically leaders because we’re all about working as a team and being a great team member and team leader. But I loved being able to help lead my entire nursing group as well as myself, and give myself a little bit more direction.

Katherine Sheets: That’s really neat. So, you’ve been able to like work with students in other cohorts then as well, right? 

Nicolette Missbrenner: Yes. And SNA gets really involved with our faculty, so our faculty tries to work alongside us. We’ve got a mentorship program, which is amazing, so four semesters coming in can peer–can be a mentor with upperclassmen. So, that way they can kind of see the ropes of things, get insights as to what professors…grade, how they test, what books you actually need, all the things that you don’t get unless somebody tells you the inside scoop. 

Katherine Sheets: Yeah, yeah, that sounds like a great opportunity, especially for the younger students kind of coming in. Yeah, what a great chance to like walk alongside them. That’s so cool. You are also an undergraduate research assistant, right? 

Nicolette Missbrenner: Yes, I was. I’ve been a research assistant since my fifth semester, and I’ve worked with two faculty members on their full projects and several other faculty members on smaller projects. I had the privilege of going to the Western Institute of Nursing Conference last year, and I’ll be attending this year. And I spoke at an international conference virtually with one of our professors. Currently, I have three publications with my name as a co-author, and I’m expected to have another two. Not to say that I’m bragging, but I love research, and it’s an amazing opportunity.

You really get to see how evidence-based practice plays into changing healthcare. And it’s not just nursing, it’s all of medicine. And it’s amazing to see what difference that we can make even by just doing literature reviews and pulling together what has been done, what hasn’t been done, making connections to locate the big ideas and seeing how we can change our practice to make things safer, more effective, and frankly cost less. 

Katherine Sheets: Well, congrats on the publications, yeah, I was going to say that’s awesome. Did you know that was why–like when you were first a research assistant, you’re like, oh, it’s because of it in space practice and like, this is what I want to do? Or like, how did you get involved in that in the first place? 

Nicolette Missbrenner: I love to read, and so I was one of those book nerds who would memorize the entire textbook for fun. And I thought, you know, maybe this is something I could pick up. If I don’t like it, I don’t like it, but you never know if you don’t try. So I applied kind of with that mentality of if it happens, it happens.

And then I immediately started working with two professors, and I was kind of overwhelmed because I’m also a student, and I’m also doing all these things. But then I realized, this is really cool. And the professors gave you as much or as little as you wanted, and they helped to guide you and asked what you wanted to get out of it. So I ended up helping create my own manuscript just to try it and see what I could pull together, which ended up being the basis for one of our publications. 

Katherine Sheets: Oh, cool!

Nicolette Missbrenner: You help with data research and data organizing, so you get to make all the tables or help pick apart data and put it into all these systems. So, you get to learn new systems. And I think it’s really beneficial, especially if you want to go into upper management and nursing or if you want to be a researcher outside of nursing. 

Boise State’s program is really good at teaching you how to be a nurse in the hospital because you’re getting all those amazing skills. And our preceptorship gives you so many opportunities to be elsewhere, whether that’s outpatient in a school or in an urgent care. But being able to see research was a different side of nursing that I’ve never seen before, and I think it was an amazing opportunity, and more people should take advantage of it. 

Katherine Sheets: Yeah, it sounds like a really good opportunity to kind of get to know your professors in a different way as well. So, how was that being able to work one-on-one with them? 

Nicolette Missbrenner: I think the professors here–I am so blessed because they’re all incredible. They all treated me as an equal and as a peer. Nobody talked down to me, and they actually valued my thoughts. And if I had anything to add, they asked for my feedback, which was huge because it’s almost something that you don’t really see people do in other fields. And they never acted like they were more than me just because they had more letters behind their name. Like every single professor I worked with had a PhD at the end of their name. And for me, that was intimidating because they’re so smart and they’ve got all this knowledge, but used that as an opportunity to learn from them because they really enjoy teaching and they want to teach you everything they can as long as you want to know. 

Katherine Sheets: Yeah, yeah. Well, what a great opportunity then to kind of learn from them. But then also, because–you went to the conference as well–when–so you presented at the conference, or was it just like poster presentations? Like, what was that like being with other nursing researchers outside of Boise State? 

Nicolette Missbrenner: Absolutely. I got to present three different posters, which was really cool, with two different faculty members. There aren’t very many undergraduate students who get to present. So, having Boise State be able to do that is huge. More reason to take advantage of Boise State’s program, because it’s not offered pretty much anywhere else.

I think there were a handful of students from other schools that were able to do so. But at least at the conference, I was able to connect with professors from different graduate schools, graduate students, professors who were there because they have an interest in research or they were presenting things. So, it was really cool to see insight from all over different fields, whether that was OB, critical care, long-term care, or specialties looking at transgender rights. It was really interesting to see everything kind of come together and you got so much more insight to different things that you were learning in your textbook, even weeks prior. So it was amazing.

As soon as I came back, there were so many things I wanted to share with all my peers. 

Katherine Sheets: That sounds so cool. Yeah, to be able to kind of get that insight from–you’re getting a deeper level of insight than students who are just sitting in class or doing homework. I had a follow-up question, and it’s completely gone out of my brain listening to you talk about that.

I love that you had such positive experiences with that though, that’s awesome. So thinking about other experiences, I know you’ve had multiple opportunities to kind of represent the School of Nursing, whether that’s for prospective students at Bronco Day or before legislators. We had a Capitol Day earlier this semester, I think you’ve gone before the State Board of Education. So can you kind of talk about that? Like what is it like to represent the School of Nursing to different audiences? 

Nicolette Missbrenner: I think it’s very humbling. You get to bring a different perspective. A lot of people see nurses, and they just think of us as trustworthy, which is amazing because we are the number one trustworthy occupation as of right now. But I think they–a lot of times when people think of nurses, they may not think of you as intelligent. They may think you’re just really caring, you’re understanding, or the opposite could be said, where you’re very understanding, you’re intelligent, but maybe you don’t have the best interest in mind, or whatever their ideas are in their head based off of their own experiences. 

So being able to show them what’s actually going on within our program and what nurses do, who we are, and how we contribute to healthcare has been amazing. At the State Board of Education, I was able to advocate for our program itself and for the school, which was huge to bring a different aspect of advocating for our mental health, different resources here on campus, and telling them what’s been going on. 

Katherine Sheets: That does sound really neat. Do you–I don’t know, what’s the number one thing that prospective students ask about or that you get asked? 

Nicolette Missbrenner: Honestly, I think the number one thing is, do you think I’ll get in with my grades? But I think the way that we are now accepting students is so much more holistic. It’s so much more than grades because you are more than your grades.

It’s about your experience and about what you bring to the table. Is this right for you? And if it’s not, that’s okay. There are other avenues that you can go down. And knowing that Boise State is extremely competitive and for good reason. So if you don’t get in the first time, it’s okay. It doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with you or that you weren’t a strong applicant, but just get back on the horse and try again. 

Katherine Sheets: Yeah, yeah. I think it’s really important for students to remember it’s about that best fit kind of thing. I know in academia–just in general we can have this idea of like oh because there’s this name attached to this school that school is automatically–like it has the hierarchy you know like above other options when in reality it might not be the best fit for everybody even if it’s more of just like…a perception I guess on paper of what people have of different schools. When reality–like I don’t know if Boise State is actually the best fit for everybody, but yeah, getting that chance to interview is huge. I’m glad you have that insight to be able to share with people. 

So thinking about some of those other opportunities that you’ve volunteered for, why did you take those opportunities outside–if it is like balancing work, class, and all of these other things when you were presented with these opportunities to kind of represent the school of nursing. Why did you jump at the chance?

Nicolette Missbrenner: I think one of my biggest things is never saying no. Not because I want to overstretch myself or I have an issue with saying no, but it’s more so because you never know what’s going to come out of it. And if a door opens, you’re not going to purposefully shut that door without a good reason.

I also have nothing but good things to say about Boise State. I loved my experience within the nursing program; it’s extremely strong, extremely competitive. They push out some great nurses and great quality people who are just loving. They’re kind, and they’re extremely intelligent. And they’re great team members, which I think is very important because you don’t want to come out just being a leader and then not being able to work with people. 

So, I think I’ve taken every opportunity to make it known that more people should be applying to this program because you never know if you don’t try. And it’s an amazing way to get yourself in the door of health care right off the bat. Almost 100 percent, if not 100 percent of students are immediately getting a job. Like nursing is one of the one fields where you’re never going to have to worry about not having a job. It’s just going to be where.

Katherine Sheets: Yeah, I love that never saying no to open door opportunities or not shutting the door without good reason. Do you have any, I don’t know, anecdotes of walking through the door and finding a new opportunity that you weren’t expecting? 

Nicolette Missbrenner: Oh, absolutely. I think even coming into nursing, nursing wasn’t originally my path that I thought I was going to be taking. So I feel like that was an opportunity all in itself because if one door opens–if something closes, then you’re going to find plan B and you’re going to move on to the next thing.

So one of my biggest mottos is to be the duck on the top of the water. You look like you’re cool, calm, and collected, but underneath you might be flailing. But as long as you can maintain your composure, that’s all that matters and put yourself out there and…try things.

Katherine Sheets: So, how did you end up in nursing then if it wasn’t your original path? 

Nicolette Missbrenner: Originally, I thought I wanted to go to medical school, and then I realized, as a nurse, you’re getting a lot more patient contact. You’re spending half your day with those people and making the biggest impact.

I loved the side of medicine, being able to see how I could actually help people and make a difference, but I loved that communication aspect and being able to advocate for their needs, whether that’s a change in medications or different things that they may need when they go home. Because they are living by themselves and maybe they have stairs, and now they’re immobilized.

So just thinking about the bigger picture, I love that nursing has so many different avenues. If I decided one day I want to do aesthetics and then the next day I want to do medsurg, I can. I feel like with some of the other avenues, such as medical school, you’re kind of locked into one thing for the rest of your life. Nursing, there’s so much that you can do, and there’s more than just the hospital, so it’s just finding what works best for you and what you enjoy. I think that if you find something that you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. 

Katherine Sheets: Yeah, yeah. So, as you’re in your last semester, have you kind of found that area of interest for you that you want to launch into after graduation? 

Nicolette Missbrenner: Absolutely. I found that I love teaching, and I love critical care. I’ve been an EMT for the past two years locally, and I’ve taught ACLS, BLS, PALS, and EMT skills classes. So I accepted a job locally in the ICU, and I’m hoping to do CRNA in the future.

Katherine Sheets: Congrats!

Nicolette Missbrenner: Thank you. Hopefully, do a bridge program to get my PhD, and ideally, I’d love to come back to Boise State and take a faculty position. 

Katherine Sheets: Well, that would be awesome. I’m sure you’d always be welcome. So, as we’re kind of wrapping up here, just wondering about your journey and nursing here that you’ve experienced. What’s been the most challenging part? 

Nicolette Missbrenner: I think the most challenging part for me personally has been trying to realize that you’re not going to have everything perfect the first time. It’s okay to make mistakes and this is why we’re here. This is why we’re learning. Um, and the sooner that you can figure that out and use your mistakes as opportunities to grow…there’s nothing that can hold you back.

One of the biggest things that I learned is don’t treat them as mistakes. Treat them as mis-takes. Like when you’re filming the movie, it’s a mis-take. There’s multiple ways to see it. And the more you fail, it’s more opportunities to find the way that’s right. So if you can flip the perspective of looking at things, then you’re not going to see yourself as a failure because it’s not like anything against who you are, it’s just, you’ve never done it before you’re going to, you have to start from somewhere.

Yeah. So giving yourself grace and being able to grow with that is the biggest challenge. I think is hard. 

Katherine Sheets: Yeah, so thinking then, kind of the flip side of that, what’s been most rewarding about the experience 

Nicolette Missbrenner: I think the most rewarding thing is the way that people see you when you start to talk to them. And you feel comfortable, you can give them the list of their medications, why they’re taking it, and then have that deep conversation about what’s going on in their personal life. 

In one of my very first clinical experiences, I was in oncology. And I was terrified of touching my patient, let alone talking to them about medicine. After having one of those deep conversations because he was just diagnosed with cancer, I said, is it okay for me to give you one of your meds? And he goes, yes, I trust you with my life. And for me, that was my why moment that really brought me back to realizing why I want to do medicine, why I want to work with people, and why nursing is so important. I think there’s obviously going to be hard days where people are yelling at you, but there are beautiful days when you realize this is why I want to do it, and this is what speaks to me. 

Katherine Sheets: Yeah. What an honor to hear that from a patient of–like that, complete trust. Yeah. That’s awesome. Well, thank you so much for chatting with me today. And thank you all for tuning in to this episode of BroncoTales. 

James Sherpa: Thanks for listening to BroncoTales. Next episode, all have already graduated, but you’ll get to hear a conversation between me and a few of our graduating student workers about just what it’s like to communicate in the world of health sciences.

We’ll see you there.