Sarah Cartwright – Nursing Faculty Profile, University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences
Sarah Cartwright, Nursing Faculty at the University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences (USAHS), brings a broad nursing background to her work in education, with experience in bedside care, informatics, administration and program development.
She shares an experience from her clinical career when she recognized gaps in a patient’s post-surgical support and brought together colleagues in speech-language pathology, dental care and surgery to create a more complete approach to recovery.
That same collaborative, whole-person perspective shapes the way she supports future nurses.
Cartwright also values the flexibility of USAHS’s distance education model, which allows working nurses to continue their careers and stay connected to their families and communities while earning their degree. She says in-person intensive experiences give students the opportunity to build skills and confidence before putting their learning into clinical practice.
Transcript
Sarah Cartwright – Nursing Faculty Profile, University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences
[00:00:00] Sarah Cartwright (Nursing Programs): I entered nursing as a direct care practitioner. I worked at the bedside. I’ve done things with informatics, I’ve done things with administration, and I’ve actually helped create programs and now I’m in education. So that’s the beauty of nursing. It combines both science and art, and it always keeps the patient and their family centered in everything that we do. [00:00:24] Sarah Cartwright (Nursing Programs): Sometimes we have opportunities to help our patients and their families make the connections within the health system to different areas that they’re not even aware of that exist. When patients come in for surgery, they’re so focused on the moment and they might not be aware of everything that is around to help support them in their recovery. [00:00:44] Sarah Cartwright (Nursing Programs): Knowing those connections, I was able to make the correct introductions to other members of the healthcare team for that patient and their family, pull in speech language pathology, our dental colleagues, as well as our surgical colleagues, to create a plan of care for that patient to where instead of having a life-changing event, they had an opportunity to continue to have their normal and expected experience after surgery. [00:01:14] Sarah Cartwright (Nursing Programs): We bring the classroom to you at your home. You’re not required to move around and be outside of your area, so you are still connected with your normal life, your work, your family, all of the things that are important to you. So the distance education model allows you to be where you’re at in the moment where you need us, but also then, um, having this one-time residency or intensive experience before you go into your clinical practice allows you to make sure that you are confident in the skills that you have before you start interacting with patients at that level.
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