Lewis and Clark instructor named to panel

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Lewis and Clark's own Vickie Rodgers became the first community college faculty member to be named to the American Nurses Credentialing Center Gerontological Nurse Content Expert Panel this past fall.

As a panel member, the board-certified gerontology nurse will work to provide expertise and insight as the panel develops certification examinations for nurses who care for geriatric patients, to make sure they're pertinent to today's medical care, in addition to her duties at LCCC.

She'll be required to meet with the panel three times per year near Washington, D.C.

Rodgers started her education in 1989 as a nontraditional student at Lewis and Clark Community College. She was a stay-at-home mother of three at the time, with a dream of becoming a nurse.

Three years later, her husband would graduate from the same nursing program.

In 2001, she graduated from McKendree College with a bachelor's degree and went on to earn a master's in health care nursing administration from SIUE in 2006.

"I started out at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Granite City in the ICU, where I developed multiple teaching brochures and pamphlets that were utilized for patient education," Rodgers said.

For her work, she was named Patient Educator of the Year. From there, she was asked to do more and more, and it evolved into teaching. Later, as a staff development coordinator at a geriatric facility in St. Louis, Rodgers educated staff members on how to care for the geriatric population.

In St. Louis, Rodgers taught high school level health science at a vocational school in St. Louis for 10 years - everything from medical terminology to certified nursing assistant classes, always based in long-term care.

She started at Lewis and Clark as an assistant professor of nursing in 2007.

"My clinical rotations are presently in long-term care and I continue to keep abreast of the gerontology literature and issues. I developed an intense love for that population," Rodgers said. "It's one of those fields that we intensely need people to go into."

In the past two years, Rodgers has worked long-term care facilities like Meridian Village in Edwardsville into nursing students' clinical rotations. She also plans to develop gerontology courses for students and for outside long-term care and acute care nurses at the college.

"The geriatric population is so unbelievably appreciative of everything you do for them (as a nurse).
Many of them have lived their lives in service to others, and what better way to thank them than to serve them," she said. "Besides, even if you're not working in long-term care, nurses need to be very knowledgeable of geriatric care issues, as that is a large percentage of the patient population we serve."

Rodgers shares a spirit of camaraderie with her students, having been in their shoes.

"I like the fact that I can actually say to students that I graduated from this program. To nontraditional students, I did it. I've been there. I can be a role model to others," Rodgers said.

"Many times the students need nurturing, and that's my personality type. I like to be creative with lesson plans, plus it helps to work with a really good faculty and the administration at Lewis and Clark is phenomenal."