Bloomsburg’s Sigma Theta Zeta chapter Journal Club held its inaugural meeting on Monday, September 16th, 2024, with a round-table discussion on nursing burnout. The club aims to prepare undergraduate nursing students for the continuous research and self-education they must seek once practicing postgraduation.

Students select a topic once a month to research academically, and then practicing nurses and undergraduate students come together to discuss their findings and opinions on how issues should be addressed within the field.

“I always say to my student, ‘Do you want to be the fifty-five-year-old nurse who does things the way they were taught, or do you want to be the nurse who is up to date with the newest evidence?” Dr. Allison Maloney, Assistant Professor of Nursing, explains. Maloney was in the inaugural class that formed the Sigma Theta Zeta chapter in 1986 and a founding faculty member of the Journal Club along with Dr. Meghan Pontz, Assistant Chair of the Breiner School of Nursing.

“[Nurses are] going to encounter topics they have never seen before… they’re going to need to dive into research to be able to give the best possible care, and that’s what we’re cultivating here with our undergraduate nursing students,” Pontz emphasizes.

“Transitioning from the student phase to the clinical phase and bridging that gap, I think that’s really what the importance of this club is about… empowering student nurses to be really strong clinical nurses,” explains Wilson Sheker, one of the first four students to lead a Journal club discussion.

Practicing nurses and undergraduate students came together to discuss their concerns with potential burnout, and how it can be prevented within the field. The next meeting will be held on October 21st on nursing interventions and best practices in the ICU care settings.