Poster Child

by Bobby Anderson, Staff Writer

The light went on for Christine Fisher, RN, MSN a while back.
She loved nursing, so much so that she wanted to further her nursing knowledge. And not only that, she wanted to spread that knowledge to others.
Now, Fisher teaches full time in the traditional BSN program at Oklahoma City University’s Kramer School of Nursing and in her spare time she’s in her second year of her PhD in nursing.
“I’ve always wanted to teach,” Fisher said. “Most nurses, that’s not their thing.”
Fisher says it was actually OCU Dean Lois Salmeron, EdD, RN, MS, CNE, ANEF, who inspired her to continue learning.
While Fisher was finishing her ADN at Oklahoma State University Oklahoma City, Fisher had a visitor.
“She came into one of our senior classes and said ‘Some of you are going to have to come back and teach because we’re getting older,’” Fisher recalled. “It was my calling. So my entire nursing career has been based on the fact I’m going back to teach.”
Fisher has worked in six different nursing fields since then. She found a passion for management along the way.
She started in cardiac critical care. Three years in, one of the heart surgeons asked if she would work for him. She worked for a cardiovascular surgeon and partnered with his vascular surgeon doing rounds while they were in the operating room.
It was a case management-type role that allowed Fisher to coordinate care for clients from pre-op through discharge to home.
Six years into that role one of her girlfriends asked her to come to Moore to work in recovery. She also branched out there as a house supervisor.
She was again plucked away, but this time by an anesthesiologist to work cases and round on patients.
She assisted on procedures as well as serving as the clinic manager.
Finding herself wearing a lot of hats she toyed with going back to get her nurse practitioner. But there was no time with her 16-hour days.
As luck would have it, she paired back her time and became a health assistant for Norman Public Schools which eventually turned into a position as the RN at Norman North High School.
Oklahoma City University Community Health nursing students would visit.
“I was so impressed with them – just the caliber of person that was coming out of there for nursing,” Fisher said. “I fell in love with the students and in love with the professors.”
After 20 years in nursing she decided to get her master’s through Grand Canyon University.
“When I found out my Dean was the Dean of Kramer I knew that was exactly where I was supposed to be,” Fisher said.
“I’m passionate about nursing and nursing is 90 percent education. We do it every day with every client. I have a passion for transferring that passion on to other nurses. I love to teach because I want them to be as excited about it as I am an be so proud to be a nurse.”
“If you’re that proud you’re going to do a good job. When I see that passion awaken in them, I can’t even explain the feeling, it’s so awesome.”
LEARNING MORE
Fisher, along with Jane Lowrey, RN presented research recently at the Oklahoma Nurses Association Annual Convention tackling the topic of touch in nursing.
“It’s just like our stethoscope – we use it every day,” Fisher said. “We have male counterparts in nursing and they have to use the same skill. None of us talk about how do you go about using touch.”
Therapeutic touch, empathetic touch, touching for assessment – so many different forms. For her it was second nature, but what about for male nurses?
“How do men go about doing that because it’s not a traditional role,” Fisher said. “Men have not traditionally been in nursing since Florence Nightingale. How do they do that? Is it an issue?”
“When we did our study and we talked with these men it’s a conscious thought they have as a new nurse. They have to think about it.”
Fisher realized that she had never been asked for an assignment change, while her male counterparts reported that they had.
“That happens regularly for my male nursing students especially in OB or in med/surg when they have to have a catheter we regularly hear ‘can we get a female nurse,’” Fisher said. “They do deal with it but no one ever talks to them about it. It’s not in any of the textbooks.”
But it’s something that can be learned.
And for Fisher, something she’s happy to teach.