by Rod Jones
Oklahoma City University’s Kramer School of Nursing and the Oklahoma Nurses Association will host its 12th annual Caring across Cultures conference Sept. 11 at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. This year’s conference is titled “A Culture of Addiction” and will feature a presentation by Paula Davies Scimeca, a registered nurse who wrote the book “Unbecoming a Nurse.”
Scimeca’s book is about chemical dependency in the nursing profession. According to her book summary, “the most conservative estimate is that one in 10 nurses will develop a problem with drugs and/or alcohol within their lifetime. Some studies suggest the prevalence is double that.”
Scimeca wrote the book with two primary goals — to outline possible safeguards to help nurses avoid substance addictions, and to provide support to nurses and nursing students. Scimeca's second book, "From Unbecoming A Nurse To Overcoming Addiction," includes testimonies from 29 nurses on how they became addicted to drugs and how they recovered.
Scimeca’s career has spanned over three decades with the first 10 years spent in medical, surgical and critical care nursing. She has more than 20 years experience in addiction and psychiatric nursing, as well as a background in occupational health, case management and legal nurse consulting. Since 2003, her professional endeavors have been devoted to chemical dependency in nurses.
Other sessions in the day-long conference include “Cultural Aspects of Addictions: Gambling and Substances,” “Understanding Clinical Dependency,” “Decreasing Drug Abuse in the Clinical Setting” and “Pain Management in the Addicted Population.” A panel discussion amongst the participating experts will conclude the conference.
The National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum is located at 1700 N.E. 63rd St.
A conference schedule is available on the nursing school’s continuing education web page at okcu.edu/nursing/continuing-education. Oklahoma Nurses Association provides 5.5 contact hours for successful completion of this educational activity.
Oklahoma Nurses Association is an approved provider of continuing nursing education by the Texas Nurses Association, an accredited approver by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.
For more information, contact Christopher Black at [email protected] or call at 405-208-5832.
