Lee Memorial shares clinical skills with students

They encourage moms-to-be through labor, teach stroke patients to walk, x-ray broken bones and tend to patients coming through the emergency room doors. By day they are the medical professionals at Lee Memorial Health System. At night, or on their days off, they are professors, instructors and guest lecturers at colleges and universities in Southwest Florida.

Thirty-five nurses, therapists, technicians and analysts share their healthcare expertise with students at Florida Gulf Coast University, Edison College, Nova Southeastern University and Hodges University. Working in a hospital setting offers these teachers a unique perspective, one that they share with the health students. Referencing actual clinical situations allows students to better understand concepts, standard practices and unique situations.

Jackie Speas, is Gulf Coast Hospital's Rehabilitation Center Supervisor. For the past three years she has lectured at FGCU, teaching physical therapy graduate students about lymphedema, a condition common in post radiation and cancer surgery patients that causes a painful swelling of the extremities. "There are precautions the therapist needs to be aware of when exercising a lymphedema patient. They can't do repetitive heavy lifting or anything that will increase the edema," Speas said.

Jackie said she loves working with the students. "They are very intelligent. When they come into the clinic, they remember what we did in the classroom. They remember the problems and the solution to the problems," she said.

As passionate advocates for their professions, these employees bring the challenges and rewards of their hospital life with them, which in turn helps prepare the students to enter the healthcare workforce upon graduation. ¦