Project Defense
Today was a big day.
A day that can be called surreal and something I was always hoping would happen
but not something I could accurately envision.
I successfully defending my Master’s project.
Uh, ok, huh-what?
For those of you that have not fallen victim to my stream of
consciousness regarding this project, here is the Reader’s Digest version.
When you start the Nurse Practitioner Master’s program you
are told that you need to complete a scholarly project or thesis. They tell you that it will consume your life
and will prevent you from graduating on time. They tell you that you will
work harder on this than any other assignment in the program. They say you should start thinking about your
“question” or “topic” NOW. You have to
understand this is our first meeting with any of our future faculty members and
we are inundated with information, advice and caution.
Life consuming. Check.
Most important assignment.
Check.
Prevent you from timely graduation. Check.
Figure out ‘question’ ASAP. Check.
…
Then it is put on the back burner because you have things
like “Learn how to look in the ear of a screaming 3 year old while his mother
is screaming at you” and “paint the brush on the cervix” on your radar. You don’t have time to come up with an earth-shattering
‘question’ that is worth answering. Your faculty don't really mention it either. If there is ever a time when self-motivated learning and doing is at an all time low- it's when you are in a master's level nursing program.
All the while I am determined- come hell or high water- to
graduate on time. By this time in my
life I was dating this guy named Ben and we have grand plans for our lives and
one of those grand plans include moving out of Alaska as soon as I graduate to
find our next adventure. I do not have
the time or money to enroll in another semester of school. On top of that, I had already been taking
classes since 2011- before I ever even moved to Alaska. I started taking 1-2 classes per semester to
help bolster myself and my resume to get into the program. I took the GRE twice. I got A’s in all of those first few classes.
I was still wait-listed the first year I applied.
Once I finally was accepted, a now-retired faculty member
who was filling out my “course study plan” (which is basically a table stating
at which semester I would take the required classes, providing an ETA of
graduation), said-
“Wow, I’ve never had to include so many years and semesters
into a plan before…can you hold while I edit the template?”
Now you may be thinking “You are probably kind of stupid if
it took you that long to get in”, but I don’t care. I look at it as perseverance. Every manager and BFF I’ve ever had has
described me as type B, laid back, chill, etc.
But one thing I also am is stubborn.
If I want something, I don’t really care what I have to do to get it, I
will make sure it happens. Granted,
these notions are not common due to my Type B-ness- I tend to not give a shit
more than most- to the potential chagrin of most- but when I do find something
that lights that fire in me, I cannot help but hold tightly until I’m bleeding
at the palm. If you need more
illustrations of this trait, just ask my husband (that Ben guy from earlier),
he would be more than happy to offload some of the stressors that come from my
stubbornness.
Back to this project.
A faculty member just so happen to voice a potential topic at that same
meeting. She said she wanted someone to
do a project evaluating the states Prescription Drug Monitoring Program
(PDMP). For those that do not know what
this is (and I did not at the time), the PDMP is a database which houses any
controlled substance prescription written for any given state. The pharmacies have to report to this
database monthly, so as a provider if a patient comes into your clinic asking
for Percocet for their back pain- you can log into this database and see if
this patient has received pain meds for any other provider or clinic. Pretty awesome right? I thought so.
So I said, sign me up! This project sounds legit.
Unfortunately another student wanted to do to the same thing,
so we were forced into a ‘group project’ scenario, which no one likes.
Ever. But we were willing to try, we
felt it would be a hook-line and sinker project so we were willing to work with
each other. But after a while, this
other student said “I don’t really have much interest in this topic after all,
so I’m going to switch to pediatric nutrition.”
Sure, fine. Good luck. So around Christmas 2013 I start doing my literature
reviews (finding past research regarding this topic) and making decent headway.
January 2014, my mom finds out she has cancer again and I
head to North Carolina, taking a year leave of absence off from my NP program
to care for her. I thought about this
project maybe twice in 8 months.
Fall 2014, I return to Alaska to start where I left off
after my mom dies and I get married (it was an eventful year). Well, come to find out, said student said
they wanted that topic after all and started working on it. Their response to me when I said “this was
what I was planning on doing…so, uh..what’s up with that?”
“I didn’t think you were actually going to come back.”
…
Fair enough. You don’t
really ‘know’ me, as gangster as that sounds (I mean that in a more tortoise
and the hare way than Debo and Craig way)
Somehow we are able to split hares/hairs and do two
different projects on similar topics.
I spend the majority of summer 2015 (in between camping and
adventuring in Alaska) geeking out over the information I’m discovering about
opioid prescribing, use and abuse in the last 20-30 years. It’s really incredible the story of opium in
the modern era- I would love to bore you with data, stats and earth-shattering fallacies,
but I recognize it may not be as riveting to most as it is to me. But I’m here
for you whenever you’re ready.
Keep in mind, I have just buried my mom who suffered from
chronic pain for the last 12 months of her life and I witnessed great discrepancies
in her care-so this topic was even more acutely visceral to me.
My project consisted of sending a survey to 615 Nurse
Practitioners in Alaska asking them about their practices when managing chronic
pain with opioids to determine if they were adhering to recommended guidelines-
as well as identifying perceived barriers to guideline use. Did I lose you yet?
If you’re still here, I collected data in October and
November and spent a majority of my Christmas break (after my dad left)
analyzing this data using this hella fancy and complex program from IMB called
SPSS.
I then started writing my results and synthesized my data to
try and extrapolate some useful information from it. I sent my findings to my chair member as well
as my committee member who both (after a few edits) said I was ready to defend
my project.
Defending consists of standing in front of other faculty
members and presenting your findings via power point and discussion. It is quite unnerving because you have no
idea what the audience may throw at you by way of questions and
clarifications. Once you do this, it is
mostly just clerical edits and bureaucratic paperwork to get your project
approved by the university’s graduate school.
This is what I did today.
I successfully defended my final
paper. I got the go-ahead from my
faculty and dean of nursing that I completed what was required of me. I did
the thing that has kept the majority of previous cohorts from finishing once
they are finished with their clinical and class requirements. It had become a culture of finishing your project
after clinical was over.
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| This was my pre-defense fuel |
I’m not saying all this to brag. I am just really happy and proud of myself
right now. I’m not saying I am better
than other classmates who did not finish at time of graduation because that
would make no sense at all. I feel like I am finally finishing a piece of a
goal that I started 5 years ago. I
started slow and steady and I feel like a burst of energy (exhausted, tattered,
emotionally spent energy) plummeting to the finish line.
I am happy to know that there is tangible finish to all of
this hard work and sacrifice. I was
going to move back to NC if I did not get into the program, but I did. If I had not, I would have seen my mom tons
more before she died because I wouldn’t have been in Alaska. But I was.
She would not have had it any other way.
Ben has watched me claw my eyes out over reading articles,
making 15th and 16th edits to papers and computing the
data from the surveys. He has helped
keep things in perspective and also kept driving me to be the best I can be.
I am thankful for all the people that have listened to be
bitch, moan, preach and educate about this topic. I am thankful for all the well wishes and
votes of confidence.
YAY!
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| Lexi approves |
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| Rachel successfully confused the shit out the flower delivery lady- love you Bru! |
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| Mom made a cameo |
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| DURM for life |
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| Post Defense bathroom selfie |