Rehab Rounds
The Podcast for Rehab Nurses Who Set the Standard
Rehab Rounds is a quarterly podcast from the Association of Rehabilitation Nurses, delivering insights shaping the future of rehabilitation nursing. Expert conversations on clinical practice, certification, and career development, four times a year.
Rehab Rounds
Research Is Already in Your Practice: Why Rehab Nurses Belong in the Research Conversation
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Welcome to the third episode of Rehab Rounds, the official podcast from the Association of Rehabilitation Nurses.
This special episode is a collaboration between ARN and the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine — bringing together two organizations united by a shared belief that rehabilitation nursing belongs at the forefront of
research, not on the sidelines of it.
Key topics covered:
• Why research and rehabilitation nursing belong in the same conversation — and always have
• The spirit of inquiry: how curiosity, not a credential, is the entry point
• The three biggest myths nurses believe about research — and what's actually true
• Ciera's firsthand perspective: what research participation looked like from the bedside
• What ARN offers: RNF grants, publishing pathways, and mentorship through the Advancing Science and
Practice Committee
• What ACRM offers: Special Interest Groups, annual conference, and leadership mentorship
• The bigger vision: more nurse-driven research, more grant awardees, more questions being asked
• Call to action: get curious, connect, and consider Part 2
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SPEAKER_06This conversation today is a collaboration between ARN and the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine, or ACRM. These two organizations have always shared a belief that rehabilitation nursing has a seat at the research table, and today we're going to make that case out loud for you. I have three wonderful guests with me today. Nicole Miller is a doctor of nursing practice and a pediatric clinical nurse specialist at Brooks Rehabilitation, and she co-chairs ACRM's Rehabilitation Nursing Task Force. Sierra Peacock is a charge nurse in an inpatient rehab hospital, and she's going to give us the honest bedside perspective. And Rosina Badmani, a PhD and DNP, who's both a researcher at the University of Minnesota and a practicing advanced practice nurse, and one of the sharpest voices in rehabilitation nursing science today. If you've quietly been wondering whether research has anything at all to do with you, stay with us. Ready? Let's go. Hi everybody. I'm so glad you're all here. Let's start here. When you talk to a bedside nurse about research, what do you actually hear back? And anyone, please feel free to jump on in.
SPEAKER_05Well, Grace, I think when you talk to bedside nurses about research, uh the most common response is usually like, that sounds interesting, but I don't know where to start, or I just don't have time for that, or I'm not a researcher. Um, many nurses would assume that means, you know, research is like a complex academic trial. Um, but to be honest, it doesn't usually start out looking like that. That's not the way it would work. Um, it usually looks more like a quality improvement project at the bedside, um, just testing like a practical change in care and measuring how our patients um are impacted by that, what the outcomes look like for our patients.
SPEAKER_03I hear things like, well, research is very complicated, is very laborious, takes long time, and I don't have PhD. So I can't do research. And that's not true at all. You can participate and be part of a research team, even as an undergraduate student. And in my team, when I am conducting a research, I always have an undergraduate student who are part of my team.
SPEAKER_04Agree. I've heard those same things. The the research is too hard, is kind of the most common thing I heard. A lot of people tell me it feels like it's going back to school. I've already been to nursing school. I don't want to go back. Um, I don't want to write any papers. They're just kind of overwhelmed at the process and don't understand that it just really starts with just asking a question.
SPEAKER_06Thank you all for that. I you all are sort of saying the things that I hear too from my days working at the bedside, but also um from my days in in teaching nursing. And um I had the onerous chore of teaching evidence-based practice and research to the undergrads, and they all were sure they would hate it. And um, you know, it's really a challenge to make it seem relevant. And so I think you've all um sort of planted a few seeds that are going to sprout into some great conversation here. Um, so you know, Sierra, you talked about people not knowing where to start. And so you or anybody, can you sort of talk with us about where research actually does start? You know, how do how do you get that process kicked off? Um, because I'm sure many in our audience don't have a clue about where to start.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I mean, I think it's just realizing like what research really is. Um, and I mean, bedside nurses, we do it every day. You know, you're looking at what works for my patient, what doesn't work for them, uh, what can we change, or even just saying, like, oh, you know, I found with this patient, this works better. Like that is the beginning of research. Um, it's the curiosity, like that's the first step that you would take. Um, in my experience with like the interdisciplinary huddle project I'm working on with my manager, um, we noticed opportunities to start like improving communication across disciplines. And we wondered whether like a more structured approach could improve our discharge outcomes with our patients. So we started implementing a huddle uh on the unit and measuring that impact. And we found that we were able to improve discharge scores and staff perceptions around communication in regards to discharge planning.
SPEAKER_06Wow, that sounds like a really neat project. Thank you so much for that example. And Nicole, I see that you are also you've you're brimming with excitement about answering this.
SPEAKER_04Or to kind of tie into Sierra's um starting with curiosity, you know, nurses are already data collectors every day, whether it's vitals or patient assessments or just kind of looking at workflows, they're already doing the basis of research, then they don't even realize it. Um, it's when something doesn't add up in their mind, maybe it doesn't feel right, or there's a better way to do this. Do we have a basis for a research question? And it's really kind of sparking that in the nurses to kind of get them more involved in the research part.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, that's so true. And Rosina, you you come at this from a little bit of a different perspective, but I know that you you're hearing everything that Sierra and Nicole have said. And so can you share what you take from this?
SPEAKER_03Well, I think the research um in any setting, but particularly in rehab, starts often starts with a nurse comes across something uh with a dilemma. There's a problem sometimes, and you have to figure to figure out. I remember um way back when um the question was whether we should strip the chest tubes or not. That was one. The other was somebody who just came out of the uh cardiac surgery, would you give them cold water versus warm water? Does that make any difference? And now those questions it requires inquiry. So these are nursing problems that actually impacts the entire healthcare arena and it becomes interdisciplinary, right? Um, so so far what our understanding is that it doesn't make any difference if you give them a warm or cold water. They so far the evidence supports that. And for trust you, that's the same uh evidence that it doesn't matter if you do or not. So it it these are good inquiry to have. I my entire career in nursing uh research and rehab started with a clinical question. So and I'm still on that path today to improve that knowledge. And um, you know, my passion is spasticity. Uh, this is something that I have really focused on. And understanding what our patients are telling us and listening to them, and then bringing it into the real practice through this inquiry, it can change practice. So that has been my lens, and that has been uh, I think it starts at a question, curiosity, dilemma, a problem in practice that you come across that requires solutions.
SPEAKER_06You know, you've all talked about asking asking questions, and nurses are great at asking questions, but I'm sort of sensing from what's behind all of your comments that maybe we're asking questions, but maybe not bringing them to the right people. We ask them amongst ourselves in the break room or in the nurses' station. Um, but you know, help me make it real for someone who might have a question. What do you do with that? Where do you take it from there?
SPEAKER_03This is how my inquiry started as an advanced practice nurse in a rehab setting. I was managing patients with spasticity and whole heart intrathecal baclefin pump. And they would come in and would often um say to me that, you know, their spasticity is up, but when we would assess them with modified Ashworth scale, um, I could not discern the difference. So there was a discrepancy between the clinician exam and patient reports. So my first when I started to notice this, I thought maybe it's I need to ask other disciplines as to what they are encountering. So my inquiry started with speaking with other disciplines like physical therapy and also my medical director and physician colleagues. And it turned out that this is an issue that they are also encountering and don't know how to move forward with it. Um, that got me very curious. And the next thing I did was I looked into the literature uh to see what was out there about this. And to my surprise, there was maybe one article on patient voices about spasticity. There was nothing else in the literature, and that told me that we needed to give voice to the patient through research and this clinical inquiry to understand. And after that, we talked about it an interdisciplinary team. First, the conversation continued there, and um, I decided to formulate a question um at that point as to what answer do I want. And um then we plugged in with the research. Uh we had a research group that so we we took, we went interdisciplinary, went to nursing council, then went to research uh group, and then they um helped us get things together and we submitted our proposal to IRB and was funded by foundation. And and we have a lot more understanding since then. So it it required checking in with interdisciplinary and nursing counsel and to hear from other people. And looking at the literature is important because if you have the answers in the literature, then you don't have to reinvent the wheel. You can use that evidence in your practice. But if you don't, that's where you need to do research.
SPEAKER_06That's very, very true. And thank you so much for that wonderful example of sort of your path. Um, now, Sierra, on your unit, when you have, when you started doing your project about interdisciplinary rounds and how they impacted and improved discharge scores, how did that question first get started? And who sort of took the bull by the horns and said, we need to do something about this? We need to really investigate that.
SPEAKER_05It started with our discharge scores. They were lacking. And so we saw that there was definitely a need for more communication and education around discharge, because in the comments for our discharge, um, the patients would say, like, they felt like there wasn't a lot of good communication between nursing and therapy. So it was a joint effort, really, between like the bedside nurse and our therapy team, our therapy leaders, in saying, how can we better educate our patients and make sure that they're prepared and ready for discharge? We put a structured process where we moved the units from a hideaway little closet off the unit to actually being on the unit so the nurses were more available to attend them. Um, and then we started measuring that impact and we began to see some improvements in our discharge scores and especially in like our staff perceptions uh in regards to communication.
SPEAKER_06That's great. You know, I'm hearing um in both of your stories about um patient story and how how important that is to bring that to the to the team. Um, and then I'm also hearing about the importance of bringing our own story to the team. And so um I really love that. And, you know, nurses are great at story. And so uh I think that this is a that that's a great tip for people is just bring your stories because so often your stories really reflect questions and issues and problems and workarounds, et cetera.
SPEAKER_04And I think one thing that nurses kind of maybe when they get caught up in the idea of moving into research, they may have a question, but it's also what do you do with that question? And we kind of talked about that earlier, but it's finding that mentor that maybe can help kind of hone in on the question. Sometimes the questions are too big. I've worked and mentored a couple of students in their um graduate level projects that started out with this huge grand thing. And it's like that's where you could start to feel overwhelmed and you start to maybe shy away from the process. So finding someone and having that mentor that can kind of help hone in on what exactly you're looking for, and maybe start with one piece of the puzzle instead of trying to do the whole puzzle at one time.
SPEAKER_06That's great advice. I uh I have always accused myself of wanting to solve world peace in one single study, and that just is not practical. Um and it's it is easy to get overwhelmed. So thank you so much for that, uh Nicole.
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SPEAKER_06So I think we've structured a really good foundation here for why research is really important to nursing and that it's not uh this big thing that only a PhD-trained person can do. Um, so let's talk specifically about a few myths that we all, I'm sure, hear from nurses all the time about research. And again, this is this is open to anybody to chime in. Um, so let's go here. Uh the first one is, and some of you have mentioned it already, the first one is I don't have time. So who wants to take that one? How do we answer that myth? How do we bust that?
SPEAKER_05I can take that one because that's probably what I hear the most is that I don't have time for research. And honestly, I get it. They're right. Bedside nurses are already strapped for time. They really don't have a lot of extra hours to be doing this big formal study. But what I found is that research doesn't mean that you're adding something huge to your workload. Um, it often is just something that you're already doing. Um, and I know any nurse that's ever said, I'm started doing it this way because that's what works better for me, or that's what works better for my patients, they're already identifying a potential practice improvement. And the next step is just kind of getting them to start measuring that or take it to someone like Nicole, like a nurse educator, who can kind of help us, like she said, hone in on what exactly our next step would be.
SPEAKER_04I think participation can be seen at lots of different levels. Um, and it really just depends on where you kind of want to enter as far as how much time it's gonna take. It can start with just being the one with the question, like Sierra said, and then bring it to somebody. Um, it could be working with leadership, it could be if you have unit counselors or a quality team going to that team. Um, so um also identifying practice issues, collecting data, um, just doing the bedside observations. Uh, Rosine and I were chatting before about a project that I'm working on. And we've it's really um dependent on the night shift nurses and some charting that we're doing because we're woking at sleep. And so those nurses are gonna be part of the research, whether they kind of realize it or not, because it's their data that they're putting in that we're gonna kind of draw from.
SPEAKER_06I gather that you're using clinically um clinically relevant data that they're already gathering and documenting in the medical record.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, exactly. So it's not necessarily extra time for them. There may be a couple extra clicks, but we're not asking for hours and hours of work or then to say later or anything like that.
SPEAKER_06That is critical, Nicole.
SPEAKER_03And please go ahead, Rosina. I wanted to say that the biggest issue that I see when nurses are saying that I don't have time, I think some underlying assumption is that research is a solo enterprise, and it's never the solo enterprise. It is a team effort. And a team could be interdisciplinary or within nursing, like Nicole just said, that you know, you're going to be collecting data anyway for your vital signs or other things, that can give a lot of information uh towards solving a problem. So in research teams, there are different roles. So one could be that you are the collecting the data, the other could be that you are the one who are identifying the participants, the people who really could answer you. Someone could be a liaison between the interdisciplinary work. But where I found the most, in my experience, help was the nursing council. Because if you come together, like we were trying to figure out nurse injury rate and how to decrease that nursing injury rate. And um we all nurses took one article to read, and the next month we all got together and shared what we learned through the literature and formulated a plan as to how we can move forward this inquiry. The time that it took to read one article, probably no more than 30 minutes to an hour at most, and then collective wisdom can move the inquiry forward.
SPEAKER_06That is really very important. And I think that's a great segue to the next myth that um I wanted to have you all react to, which is I don't have the support, I don't have the resources, I don't have the access to start doing research. So, what advice do we have for nurses who think they're completely on their own? And what can you direct them to that that is available? And, you know, the team is is critically important. But yeah, I'd love to hear you all expand on that a little.
SPEAKER_04Most nurses don't realize that there is support available to them at lots of different levels. So starting with their leadership, their educators, councils, we talked about whether it's a research council or a nursing council, quality council, your quality teams. Um, but also support doesn't have to be in their um exact location. Um, there are organizations, ACRM, ARN, that have structures available to help support someone who may not be able to, maybe they're in a smaller system and they can't navigate or they don't have that same structure like some of us others do. Um so getting involved in organizations to bring those questions and inquiries too.
SPEAKER_05I just want to add too, like I've had people approach me and say they are interested in, you know, learning more about research or interested in getting started, but they don't necessarily have like an idea at the time. Um, I would just encourage that nurse to reach out because there is somebody who is working on something and they need help with their research. And so that's a perfect way to kind of get started and just kind of, you know, dip your toe in the water and see if you like research, how you feel about it. It and you know, just learn it's not as intimidating as you think that it is.
SPEAKER_03ARN, we have a lot of uh committees that can help, like uh uh editorial uh journal, journal of rehab nursing. So if you want to publish your findings, you have mentor there. If you want to do research, we have advancing science and practice committee, and you have mentors there. So other places could be like an ARN circle where people do put up the question of the practical questions. Those are all great venues to uh get help. I think you you can get mentorship help um very formally or informally, uh, because I think there are many different venues that are available for that.
SPEAKER_06That's a really important point, Rosina, because I think that the idea of trying to seek mentorship from someone is can be very intimidating for nurses. Um, and and it really doesn't have to be a formal thing. Um, we've all had those people that we've worked with that we look up to, and that's a great place to start. And those people tend to be connected to other people who can open more doors for us. So those are really, really important points that you've all made, and I so appreciate it. I have also been a researcher for many years, but I started off as a bedside nurse and swore that I would never, ever, ever go back to school. And, you know, in a in a perfect example of clinical questions driving research, I started having to answer for why our patients on our stroke unit had so many falls. And, you know, you start digging into the literature, and there weren't great answers to the questions that we were asking. And so we thought, well, we have to go make our own evidence then. And that is how I started. And, you know, all these years later, I finished a degree, went into academia, and have done a number of research studies, but it really all started, even though I said I was never going back, it really all started from that clinical need that there's a problem here and we got to figure out how to fix it. And we all can do that, any of us. All right, I would like to talk now a little bit about what things actually look like, sort of from a ground level, um, from several different vantage points. We have people who can speak uh to how research participation looks from the bedside. We have a guest, Nicole, who can talk about it from nursing leadership and engagement, and certainly Rosina from research practice and mentorship, because I think it probably looks a little different from each of those perspectives. Um, so how did you each first get pulled into this?
SPEAKER_04So I got pulled into research before I kind of even realized I was doing it. Um as a lot of people do. Um, when I worked in public health, I was I was managing clinics and I was constantly looking at processes and how to improve those processes, whether it was clinic flow, patient access, how we delivered care, and then just trying to make things work better. So, in my mindset at the time, and I hadn't really started my graduate programs, I was just fixing problems. Um, and then but later when I kind of started to get into academia and my graduate programs, I realized, oh, wait, I was doing quality projects the entire time and didn't realize it. Um, I was just asking questions and then fixing them. So, and then in my current role, um, I began precepting graduate nursing students. So I started to get more into that academia side as well. Um, and became more involved with research structures that I have at my organization and then outside and kind of helping nursing students guide through their projects. And it kind of that's when it kind of clicked for me that research isn't something that's separate from practice, it's just a more organized um version of what you already do.
SPEAKER_05I did not set out to do research at all. Um, I was just doing my thing as a bedside nurse, um, and someone asked for input on a project about improving our blood transfusion policy. My role at that point was just to give feedback and kind of explain what the process looked like in real life, what was confusing, what slowed us down, and what kind of things would work better for us. Um, so I joined the task force for that, shared my feedback, and Sarah and the team did all the heavy lifting behind the scenes to revise that policy. So that was kind of my first little taste of research. Um, and then later with the interdisciplinary Huddle project, it kind of started the same way. It just started noticing like the communication gaps and how that affected discharge planning and patient outcomes. Then that's how we kind of got that project started. Um, and then Nicole uh has very kindly volunteered me that I'm gonna be in research. Um, and so she opened that door for me with the sleep study project as well. And honestly, I have to tell you, I do really like it. Um, so I would just say that, you know, it's not that intimidating. I think anybody can do it at any stage. It doesn't have to start off as this big thing. Um, it can just be giving feedback it starts as small as that.
SPEAKER_06That is so important to hear, and thank you for bringing that up. And I I want to sort of dig a little deeper, Sierra, with some of what you have talked about. Um, so be honest about the amount of time this has actually taken you. You know, not the ideal, but uh what on a busy day, a busy shift, what has this, what does this cost you to get involved? You know, did you give up hours in your personal time? Did you give up energy for caring for patients? Talk me through that a little.
SPEAKER_05Honestly, it it didn't feel like I was giving up a lot of time. Uh I was just kind of stepping into something that I had already been doing, something that kind of already fit my schedule. So it wasn't like long dedicated blocks, it's more small moments, uh, being asked for feedback during a shift, or even with the sleep study, we meet maybe once a month for an hour to talk through things. Um, and maybe a few small things scattered throughout the month, but it's it's not a lot of time. Um few minutes after huddles, it really kind of fits around my clinical work rather than taking away from it. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_06Now, Rosina, you also started off working clinically, you were a nurse practitioner, you were you spent all your time caring for patients. Um, so what did you give up? How much did it cost you to start asking those questions and pursuing those answers?
SPEAKER_03Frankly speaking, I saw that as part of my clinical work. In clinical work, you come across many situations that you know you need some answer to, or you discuss with people uh questions. So I saw that as a part of my clinical work that I needed the answers. Uh so reading the literature perhaps did take some time, but also um something I was very interested in, wanting to know what was out there. Um if if I really had to go back and think about it, probably at that time an hour a week that I spent outside my work, and it's because I wanted to uh read about it. But during the clinical, it's it did not make me late to punch out my time card. It did not felt like I was exhausted. Uh, it really was the driven by the patient voices. I wanted them to have the best care possible. And in order to deliver that care, I needed to know and talk to other disciplines and understand what their issues were. I have to say that just starting that process, one of our issues was that our particularly the pump patient were intraetal backlog and pump patients were seeking care through emergency room. That was a really no-no for me. This was not something uh that I wanted it to continue. And that did require that. Why are they coming through emergency room? Why, what is missing here? And what I learned was that our policies and procedures were not in place properly, and we weren't preventing it, we were reacting to things. So that needed to change. So that was part of the, so I see that as a clinical work, not a research extra time per se.
SPEAKER_06Well, now, so I'm hearing what I exactly what I hoped that I would hear from both you and Sierra, and that that that this is really just all part and parcel of what we do as nurses. Really, it's not that big of a deal. So I want to um kind of draw Nicole into this particular thread here and ask you from a leadership perspective, um, how how do leaders support their nurses to do this kind of inquiry?
SPEAKER_04It's about creating that culture of curiosity, allowing your staff to ask questions. Um, you mentioned that cost of energy, and it's really about investing in people to kind of shift how they think about their work and putting in the energy to think about not just doing the work and taking care of the patients, but also thinking bigger. How can we make this better? Um, you know, in the beginning, getting involved in research, there's there's energy put in giving up a little bit of people's comfort zone, saying it's okay to ask questions out loud, admit that you may not know something, um, and then carve out a little pockets of time, like Rosina said, to kind of read articles or follow up on those ideas. And as a leader, it's supporting that and it's supporting and giving a safe space for the nurses to be able to feel safe to ask those questions and pursue them.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, that's so important, having that leadership support. And uh so boy, I um I wish that uh you were my manager when I was first starting things out. Um, but yeah, so thank you so much for providing that support. So for nurses who are listening right now who think this is great, but that's for them. This is not my world.
SPEAKER_03What do you say to them? I want to say something here, and that is nursing, nursing profession and practice and research has been intertwined from the time of Florence Nightingale. And when you look back to our nursing history, Florence Nightingale is the first person and known first statistician to create a pie chart to display the results of how they were caring for the patient. She was the one that who kept meticulous data on her patients to see the effect of fresh air and a bright light, and and reported this data in pie chart. So we have been, research has been intertwined with practice from the inception of nursing profession. So that's we it's it's interlinked. So it's not something that research is sitting over there and it's a high ivory tower. Rather, research it informs practice, and practice informs research. It's the it's the circular uh conversation that you know you go back and forth. I don't think without uh evidence we can engage in a good practice because we need evidence to improve our practice and keep it going. Um, but at the same time, those clinical practice issues and concerns that are that drives the research as well. So that's why the clinical inquiry and those bedside questions are so important.
SPEAKER_04Tie into what Rosina said, like research doesn't have to feel like a separate world that belongs to a certain academic title or a special research title. You don't have to have researcher behind your name to be a researcher. Um, because the truth is, if you're a nurse, you're already doing the beginning of research. Every time you notice something wrong, you ask why something is happening or you try a better way. Maybe you make a workaround and stuff like that. We nurses love workarounds. Um, you don't have to change who you are to be a part of the research conversation. It's just about recognizing that your perspective may be a missing piece in care.
SPEAKER_06It's really great advice. Thank you so much for that. All right. I want to sort of shift gears a little bit and talk briefly about the support that both of the organizations we're representing can offer to people who want to get started or who want to continue uh some work that they've been doing. So um let's talk about ARN first. Rosina, you certainly have spent a lot of time with the resources that ARN has available. You have led the Advancing Science and Practice Committee and have been deeply involved in that sort of thing. Can you just give us a quick overview of what ARN can offer?
SPEAKER_03ARN has many resources that it can offer to nurses. First, become the member of ARN and then the world opens up to you. Um then you can come to conferences. And in our conferences, you whether it's virtual or in person, you will come across senior nurses or nurses who are doing inquiry in your area that you are interested in, connect with them, make those connections. You also have in our committee, reach out to our committee if you need a mentorship, if you have a research question and you want to uh include that and move forward. We also have grants, and we have quite a few grants to support the expenses that are sometimes related to research work. So apply for those fundings. You also have uh, as I said, Journal of Uh Rehab Nursing, their editorial board members are when I was on the board member, and I know it's true now, is that they're available if you want to disseminate your findings. If you want to create a poster, if you want to start the research project, come see us, ARN circle. Um, if you are interested in policy, we now have that uh piece as well. So it really depends on what your interest is. But I think the beginning pieces would be becoming an ARN member, and then you will see all these different opportunities that are available. Uh, there are seasoned researchers, practitioners, advanced practice nurses that are investigating and improving their rehab science. So please don't hesitate to reach out to us. You can start with one person and then it will trickle down in many different directions wherever you want to go. So we have a lot of resources, I would say.
SPEAKER_06Thank you, Rosina. And I you mentioned about the grants, and I want to just call out a little bit here and make sure that our listeners know that we have research grants for actual research, what we call research, but we also have grants that are specifically geared towards quality improvement projects, evidence-based practice projects. And so don't think that, oh, I'm not have I don't have a study that I'm gonna actually have a hypothesis and do fancy statistics. Don't think that we don't have something for you. We have many grants that that you can take advantage of for QI and EBP projects as well. Um, and now, Nicole, I want to uh pose the same question for ACRM. If a nurse wants to take a step, what can ACRM offer them?
SPEAKER_04So ACRM has a lot of entry points for nursings, nurses who want to step into research. Um, one of the main focuses is just getting rehabilitation research out to as many people as possible without barriers. Um, we have special interest groups and networking groups. That's a great place to start. Um they can they focus on either certain conditions like stroke, brain injuries, spinal cord. Some focus on methods and processes of research, or others are just shared interest groups. Um, we also have an annual conference which brings together all disciplines, um, and it'll give you access to new emerging research, networking, um, leadership opportunities. I think networking is a real big important thing for somebody who wants to get into research, is just finding somebody to talk to. Maybe that becomes your mentor in the future. Um, we also have mentorship built into the organization for new and emerging leaders. And then for nurses specifically, we now have the rehabilitation nursing task force that was started last year, um, which gives nurses a spaces, a space to connect through ACRM and talk about nursing focused topics.
SPEAKER_06That's great. That's great. Thank you so much. And yeah, I know ACRM's uh task forces and special interest groups are really very active. So, yeah, thank you for highlighting those as well as all of that other um great information. So, what's the bigger vision here? What what do what vision do both organizations share about what you actually want to see happen? Do we want more nurse-driven presentations, more grant awardees, more questions being asked? And I'm gonna throw this open to anyone.
SPEAKER_03I'm gonna say all of the above. We have more we want nurses to be curious they are curious, but we want them to speak up, pose those questions that will improve their practice, their care for their patient, or things like reduce the nursing burnout, because that's another important avenue to uh pursue. And then just um, you know, disseminate your finding. It's very important that you share your findings with the larger world, because if you if something is working in your world and you don't share, then unfortunately it other people don't get the benefit of what you have learned. So it's important to put it out there, whether it's in posters, podcasts, uh uh you know, in any avenue that you can um find that or is that appeals to you because that would be very important dissemination. Um, but I I want to stress here again that research and practice are intimately linked, they're not separate, and they're part of everyday nurses' life. So just speak up, ask the question, and keep up your curiosity, and then everything else will follow.
SPEAKER_04I would love to see more nurses take their questions and their inquiry to another level, whether it's being a part of research or running a project or presenting at a conference, whether it's a poster or a presentation. Um, as a mentor, I love seeing like a bedside nurse like Sierra kind of go from, oh, I'm not sure, to that interest now being sparked. And after just kind of working with her for a short period of time, now she kind of likes the research world. So that's always a big thing, is when you can actually see people grow in their curiosity and their thought processes, and then they grow in their career as well. And I love that from somebody who kind of focuses on engagement and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_06That's great. That's really great. And you know, our organizations are really so closely aligned. We're both rehabilitation organizations. Um, and it's so great to see that we're sort of working together now to talk about nursing-related issues in rehabilitation. So I'm just thrilled that we were able to come together today and and have this conversation. I just really thank all of you for being willing to bring this forward. And as I said, this is the conversation that I've really wanted to have here because you know, as a former bedside nurse and as a mentor to others, I think that we really need to help these nurses coming up to really know how to ask those questions. I've really wanted to have this conversation and you've really delivered. So if any of our listeners have been sitting on a question about practice, things like a process change that you would like to try or that you have tried and you want to tell the world about it, a pattern you noticed about care models or techniques and strategies that we're using, or something that doesn't maybe match the current protocols, but you have personally found seems to have great results. That's your starting point. That's it. And we all have those questions. So here's what I'd like you all to do with this. I would like you to visit rehabnurse.org and explore the Rehabilitation Nursing Foundation grants and the Advancing Science and Practice Committee. There is a pathway here for you. I'd also like you to visit acrm.org and look at the special interest groups. Find the one that matches your patient population and show up. And there are so many of them. So there's something there for everyone. Reach out to one of today's guests. We'll have their contact information in the show notes. Talk to them, ask your questions, ask for advice on where you can get started, and just get that little oomph you need to get your feet wet. And then subscribe to Rehab Browns wherever you get your podcasts, and stay tuned because this conversation is not over. We're already talking about a part two, and I can't wait for that. Research does not start in a lab, it starts with a nurse who noticed something, and that nurse is you. Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other, and thank you.
SPEAKER_00New Orleans in 2027. That's where Rehab Nursing's best and brightest will be. The ARN Annual Rehabilitation Nursing Conference brings together the sessions, the speakers, and the community that move this specialty forward. Come for the education. Leave with the kind of connections and career momentum that follow you back to your unit. Registration details are coming soon. Visit rehabnurse.org to stay up to date on the 2027 annual conference.