When a 16-year-old Nancy Burns applied to TCU’s nursing school in the early 1950s, she was told she wasn’t old enough. That initial denial didn’t stop her, as Burns, who had already graduated from high school, had known since she was a little girl her future lay in nursing.
“When I was 5, God called me to be a nurse. It was not anything that I had to decide,” Burns said.
After some prodding, persuading and testing, the university allowed Burns into the program and never said another word about her abilities, she said.
While Burns was a student at TCU, the rustle of the stiffly starched skirts of her instructors would alert her that a teacher was coming down the halls during clinicals. When Burns became engaged to her husband, Jerry Burns, she had to get permission from the dean of the school to continue her schooling after marriage. The social convention at the time dictated that female professionals, such as nursing students, be unmarried.
Now, after more than 50 years of becoming a nurse, Burns is being recognized for her career by the University of Texas at Arlington, where she became an instructor in 1974. Burns was named Professor Emeritus of the university this fall, in recognition of her contributions to the School of Nursing.
On top of earning her master’s and doctorate in nursing fields and teaching future nurses, Burns has also treated patients in a clinical setting, researched nursing care, written several books, set up a hospice and support groups and worked on developing electronic medical records technology.
“I never do one thing at a time,” said Burns, who is now 71.
Burns retired from teaching at UTA in 2006, but since then she has been working as a faith community nurse at her church, St. Matthew’s Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Burleson, which has a congregation of about 4,000. She also continues to rewrite and update her books for new editions.
Elizabeth Poster, dean of UTA’s School of Nursing, said students regularly commented on Burns’ ability to broaden their perspectives about their field. This is part of what prompted Poster to nominate Burns for the position of Professor Emeritus, which requires a professor be retired for one year and is only bestowed upon outstanding professors.
Not only did Burns teach students well, Poster said, but she showed them how to ask pertinent questions about patient care, work to find answers and then apply those answers to better care.
It’s not just students at UTA who have benefitted from Burns’ teaching; Poster said one of Burns’ textbooks has an international impact.
Poster was referring to “The Practice of Nursing Research: Conduct, Critique and Utilization,” written by Burns and Suzan K. Grove. The first edition came out in 1984, and it has been translated into several languages.
“I would say probably the majority of students going through schools of nursing today use that research textbook,” Poster said.
Burns said she has always spent a good deal of time reading journals and magazines to keep up to date with medical research. “I love knowledge,” she said.
After graduating from TCU, Burns worked at hospitals, spent time as a public health nurse and taught at a licensed vocational nursing school. She was busy in other ways as well, raising two children.
Burns went on to get her master’s degree in oncology nursing from Texas Woman’s University. She said that at the time, no one knew what to do with such a highly-educated nurse — she could go back to a normal nursing position or into administration. So, after graduation, she turned to teaching at UTA.
“It broke my heart. I would rather have stayed in clinical practice,” she said.
At that time, UTA’s School of Nursing was located in Fort Worth and offered a three-year diploma program instead of a four-year baccalaureate. A year after earning her master’s and starting to teach at UTA, Burns began work on her doctorate degree, also at Texas Woman’s.
Burns also continued pushing for changes and to increase education and training for nursing students.
For example, she pushed for UTA to offer a four-year degree. She said many faculty members were opposed to changing the curriculum, but — having graduated from a four-year program — Burns continued to push for the change.
“I’d heard all that before. It was like déjà vu,” she said.
The school did change to a four-year program, and Burns continued voicing her opinion about the classes offered, she said. She wanted students to take a nutrition class and a pharmacology class.
In 1981, Burns finished her doctoral dissertation, wrote a textbook called “Nursing and Cancer,” and started the Community Hospice of St. Joseph’s, regarded as one of the first hospices in the area, she said. She and a colleague spent lots of time going through the medical records of patients and collecting data about the impact of hospice care, and that data was later requested by Congress when the government was trying to decide whether to fund hospice through Medicare, she said.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Burns collaborated with UTA’s engineering program to look at ways to sustain electronic medical records. Today, this is a tool that health care professionals are beginning to use in everyday clinical settings.
Now that Burns has retired, she is still involved in health care through her books and her church.
“She will always be very busy,” Poster said.
Burns said that she feels the slower pace of life right now is perfectly acceptable after running against some tight deadlines with a recent book update.
“That doesn’t mean I won’t find something else to stick my fingers into,” she said.( source) |
