As we reflect on the different stages of our professional development, we can often identify people who had strong influences on who we are, our approach to our work, or how we present ourselves. The mechanism for facilitating this type of learning in the health professions is often called mentoring. Mentoring systems in medicine are well established and a very important component of professionalism. Over the years, mentoring has also been part of the “hidden curriculum” in medical education.
 
Much like other areas of medicine, mentoring is evolving within the profession. Previously, mentoring occurred spontaneously between people with shared interests, but now includes an organizational role as well as dedicated time and resources. The mentoring model at Nova Southeastern University College of Osteopathic Medicine (NSU-COM) reflects the new paradigm of mentoring within the profession. Therefore, while encouraging spontaneous mentoring relationships, the college provides more formal modes of mentoring as students mentor students, faculty members mentor students, and faculty members mentor other faculty members.
 
Students Mentoring Students
The framework of academical societies is the organizational structure used at NSU-COM to provide mentoring within the student body. Since their inception five years ago, the academical societies have continued to evolve. Each year, first-year students apply to become peer mentors for the incoming class members who replace them as they matriculate into their second year. Three to four students in each society commit to become peer mentors and dedicate time to transition new students into the college.
 
Peer mentors also provide lecture reviews, course notes, smiles, support, food, and fun. The class of 2014 mentors enhanced the academic support of new students with the formation of organized Sunday Study Tables for biochemistry, physiology, and anatomy. In addition, peer tutors were on hand to answer questions, monitor study groups, or just provide a quiet structure for daily study. The peer mentors also recruit and serve as tutors for the first-year class and provide a critical component to our course evaluation process.
 
Faculty Mentoring Students
Each academical society has an identified academic leader, in addition to other faculty members who provide academic guidance to students within their society. Academic leaders receive training in areas such as learning styles and academic resources available through the college, the Health Professions Division, and the university. They learn techniques to assist with study skills and time management and help students cope with the stress of being medical students.
 
Academic leaders dedicate time each semester to reach out to students that may be experiencing challenges and offer guidance to them. Since the inception of this venue, students have shared their appreciation for the confidential hand of guidance from faculty members, who enjoy connecting with students early and watching them blossom into confident medical students.
 
Faculty Mentoring Faculty
Perhaps the ideal type of a mentoring program is one which happens by chance. However, we cannot always count on stumbling into one of those relationships. Therefore, while encouraging spontaneous mentoring relationships, the college provides more formal modes of faculty mentoring. Each new faculty member is assigned a department mentor by the department’s chair, but also has the opportunity to be matched with a college mentor, whose intention is to help new faculty members adjust to their new environment.
 
The college’s mentor program, which began in 2010, has become a bridge between the senior and junior faculty. Three times each year, mentors and mentees fellowship together as they learn about the history of the college, academic medicine, the peer review process, governance and structure of osteopathic medicine, and networking skills.
 
From the traditional model of mentoring, NSU-COM continues to evolve as we meet the needs of students, alumni, faculty members, and the community. The academical society structure has become a home for expanding mentoring and connections among students. With input and guidance from everyone involved, we will continue to evolve and serve for many generations to come as we value the past and build the future.


The Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine announced its commitment to a new White House Joining Forces initiative to meet the urgent health care needs of military service members, veterans and their families.
 
LECOM is among 130 medical schools and research facilities that have committed to improve care for post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.
 
First Lady Michelle Obama announced the coordinated effort to improve PTSD and TBI care for veterans.
 
The plan involves training medical students and current physicians to better diagnose and treat veterans, new research and clinical trials on PTSD and TBI, and to share best practices with each other.
 
"I’m inspired to see our nation’s medical schools step up to address this pressing need for our veterans and military families," Obama said.


Nova Southeastern University’s College of Pharmacy recently launched America’s first Center for Consumer Health Informatics Research to deliver health care solutions through social media and cell phones.
 
The center’s mission is to make new health discoveries using consumer health informatics (integration of patient preferences, behaviors, and technology) to improve health. It will use the participatory medicine model to gain insight about patient habits and other trends in health care. These discoveries can then be used to help the public make better informed personal health care decisions.
 
The center plans to deliver health and wellness information such as tips to manage diabetes through social media and mobile phones. It will also analyze whether health interventions delivered on those platforms can help patients better manage chronic health conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity, etc.
 
Research efforts at the center are already underway with a trio of mobile/cell phone health projects known as mHealth. These include a study to measure the impact of text messaging and health literacy on medication adherence in patients with type 2 diabetes.


ICD-10 training and education represents approximately 30% to 40% of your entire ICD-10 transition. It is truly the most significant portion of being ready for ICD-10.
 
When selecting a vendor to provide your ICD-10 training, consider the following important qualifying factors:
 
Seek training from those who you know are skilled and effective at being educators and presenters. Lots of people know how to code, but how many can actually teach what they know to others? Use an organization which not only has an expertise in coding but also understands the education arena and understands how to accomplish learning objectives.
 
Make sure the entity providing the training is capable of preparing your coders for certification and your clinicians in clinical documentation. They should also offer continuing education beyond the ICD-10 transition to help keep your coders certified.
 
Don’t hesitate to view a demonstration of the course and to ask for the review of their curriculum.
Ensure that the course is taught at the appropriate level for you. Because ICD-10 is new to everyone, I recommend starting with something very fundamental. This includes even those who may have many years of ICD-9-CM experience; it will be somewhat like learning a different system. Expand to more complex and comprehensive training in the 16-18 months prior to the implementation date. Remember; take baby steps so that the transition isn’t so overwhelming! A few on-line training programs give the student the ability to test out of certain topics if they can show mastery, thus not having to take a class they already have an expertise in. With ICD-10, most people will need to take all classes, but it is good to have this option.
 
Focus training based on your needs. If you are a professional services coder (e.g., CPC) you only need to learn ICD-10-CM unless you plan on also being an inpatient facility coder.
 
Explore training mediums and options that best fit your organizational needs. In most cases, online training should be the majority of your strategy for training coders as there are so many to train and it is the most cost effective way to reach everyone. Some may learn best in a live class, while others may fare better via a webinar, specifically physicians, may prefer more of a hybrid approach with a combination of the above.
 
There are some very good on-line training programs. When choosing one, you should make sure that is very interactive. There are only handfuls that offer actual interaction with professors and give the student an ability to ask questions and have lectures different than what they are reading on-line. Also, make sure the training is performance based and there is testing along the way. Finally, make sure that the program selected for ICD-10 training can provide regular reports on the progress of those being trained. It is critical to be able to track the progress of coders, physicians and others as they go through their ICD-10 training.
 
There are many things to consider as we move closer to October 1, 2013 and continue to tackle the items on your ICD-10-CM/PCS training checklist. The key points I highlighted above is certainly not an all-inclusive-list but is a good guide. A fair number of people have asked me lately whether there is only one place to learn ICD-10-CM/PCS, and I wanted everyone to know you have alternatives just like you do now for education on CPT/HCPCS II and ICD-9-CM.


The Ed.D. in Nursing Education at Nova Southeastern University’s Fischler School of Education gives nursing professionals multiple vocational options. Career nurses with a doctor in education may enter the teaching field, but they may also find careers in health administration, clinical research, or advanced clinical practice. They may secure lucrative opportunities as consultants; they may become managers of nursing infrastructure at large hospitals; or they may become researchers, helping to formulate solutions to the larger questions of health-care policy at national and international levels.
 
To be sure, the utility and versatility of the degree is not in question, nor is its value underestimated. Salaries for most nurses possessing this advanced level of education begin at around $50,000 for faculty at the Assistant Professor level, and rise as high as $200,000 for nursing executives at the larger medical center complexes of universities and city hospitals.
 
All of the above may be incentive enough for those in the profession to pursue a doctoral degree in nursing education, yet here’s another: the country is in dire need. According to Wanted Analytics, in May of 2011, new job ads for registered nurses exceeded 121,000, an increase of 46% from the same period in 2010; in April of 2011, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that—in spite of the recent recession—the healthcare sector of the economy continued to grow, adding 37,000 jobs in March of 2011, many of which were for RNs; in October of 2010, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Institute of Medicine announced that—in order to keep pace with the health demands of an aging population—the number of nurses with baccalaureate degrees would need to rise by 80%, and the population of nurses with doctoral degrees would need to double.
 
No one disputes that the incipient nursing shortage is a looming health care crisis, though there is widespread disagreement on a viable solution. Certainly, increasing the numbers of nursing educators is an integral component to any approach, especially since a leading factor in the rejection of qualified applicants to nursing programs is insufficient university faculty. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing confirms: “U.S. nursing schools turned away 67,563 qualified applicants from baccalaureate and graduate nursing programs in 2010 due to an insufficient number of faculty, clinical sites, classroom space, clinical preceptors, and budget constraints.”
 
The Fischler School of Education’s Ed.D. in Nursing Education offsets some of this deficiency.
Like all of Fischler’s programs, the Ed.D. in Nursing Education offers a flexible and versatile path to obtaining a doctoral degree. The 18 hours of coursework for the concentration in Nursing Education can be taken online or in a blended format —“online courses allow students to interact in a virtual classroom, while blended programs combine on-site and online instruction … on-site courses are offered periodically over weekends and supplemented with online study.”
 
This kind of flexibility has broad appeal for nursing professionals who desire to enhance their education – whether they intend to explore new avenues in research, consultancy, or teaching, or whether they simply wish to expand their clinical repertoire as they continue to work as an R.N.
 
Irrespective of the career objectives of prospective applicants, the Doctor of Education in Nursing at the Fischler School will provide students with an enhanced skill set in a crucial profession whose ranks are diminishing just when their services are needed most. By increasing the numbers of qualified faculty to instruct the next generation of Registered Nurses, the Ed.D. in Nursing Education at the Fischler School helps to solve this growing crisis.