Program for North American Mobility in Higher Education
Collaborative Learning Across Borders: Partnering Nursing Students, Faculty and Communities

Education Grant to Prepare Future Nurses for Growing Diversity in Patient Populations

September 23, 2002
The US Department of Education has awarded a four-year, $230,000 grant to Dr. Alice F. Kuehn, Associate Professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia (MU) Sinclair School of Nursing and Director of the Office of Missouri Nursing Workforce Analysis (OMNWA).

Funded under the North American Mobility in Higher Education program, the project is an international collaboration among six schools of nursing located in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Schools will provide participating students with two semesters of classroom instruction and clinical experiences that will teach cultural awareness, role and scope of nursing practice for that country, health care systems, and health care beliefs and values held by peoples from each country. Students who complete this "cultural immersion experience" will share their experiences with nurses and physicians in their home countries to assist them in adapting health care services to meet culturally unique needs. Students, educators and health care professionals will gain a better understanding of the role of the nurse within each country's health care system and their specific health care beliefs and values. Each school will provide approximately 30 students over a three-year period for this experience.

In mid-Missouri, El Puente is a ministry providing medical, dental, prenatal and pediatric care to the Hispanic communities in Cole and Moniteau counties. The City of Columbia/Boone County Health Department has developed outreach programs specifically targeting the rapidly growing Latino immigrant community. Both will provide clinical experiences for Canadian students. The MU Sinclair School of Nursing will provide Mexican students with clinical experiences from its partners. Judith A. Elliott, former coordinator of Mexico programs for MU's International Center, retired foreign language specialist for the College of Education and instructor for the department of Romance Languages, will provide translation services and cultural guidance for grant staff and faculty.

In the US, Canada and Mexico, partnering schools are: from the U.S ., the University of Missouri-Columbia Sinclair School of Nursing and the University of Iowa School of Nursing; from Canada, Dalhousie University School of Nursing and Prince Edward Island University School of Nursing; and from Mexico, Universidad Autonoma de San Luis Potosi School of Nursing, Benemerita Universidad Autonoma de Puebla School of Nursing and Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon School of Nursing.

Kuehn, a family and gerontological nurse practitioner, is widely known for her research of the nursing workforce and nursing roles. She has extensive experience in promoting and testifying for the expanding role of Missouri's advanced practice nurses as well as reasons driving the current nursing shortage. As Director of OMNWA, Kuehn's mission is to study the current status of nursing practice roles, clarify distinctions among nurse roles based on education, experience and work setting, and study how this dynamic affects the supply and demand of nurses.

Rose Porter, dean of the MU Sinclair School of Nursing, said "Dr. Kuehn's continued leadership in research on the role of the nurse reflects not only her commitment to improving nursing here in the US, but internationally as well. This innovative grant will expand nursing students' opportunities to increase multi-cultural awareness and competency, all the while gaining clinical experience in diverse cultures. This initiative fits very nicely into the mission of the MU Sinclair School of Nursing as well as the University of Missouri."

Kuehn has been with the school since 1987. She served as coordinator for the FNP/GNP Nurse Practitioner areas of study in the graduate nursing program at MU for six years. As lead faculty for the GNP area of study, she has maintained a primary care clinical practice for many years. Kuehn holds a PhD from the University of Missouri-Columbia and obtained her master's in nursing from the University of California-San-Francisco, and her BSN from the Catholic University of America.