  | Denise Coppa, director of URI's Primary Health Care Nurse Practitioner Program, shows her students how much they have to offer. | |||
Taking Nursing to the Next LevelBy Chris Poon As Denise Coppa's parents saw it, a college education really wasn't necessary. But if their daughter insisted on leaving their Warwick, R.I., home for the Kingston Campus, they would insist she study for one of two professions: teaching or nursing. The year was 1968. "As an undergrad the nursing ideal was very important to me," Coppa remarked. "I did not always agree, however, with learning nursing in isolation from what was happening in the real world. I was very focused on protesting the Vietnam war, lobbying for women's rights, and learning more about the environment's health in general." Today, as the director of URI's Primary Health Care Nurse Practitioner Program, Coppa regards her counter-cultural days as good preparation for her practice and leadership role in nursing. "I was always questioning systems and authority, questioning the status quo. That's how I started on that journey," she said. Such a mindset may seem at odds for nurses, who are generally expected to follow doctors' orders and strict protocols. Coppa, however, is out to prove that the stereotype of nurses as second-class health care professionals is patently false. "I promote and support individualism," said Coppa, who earned her B.S. in nursing from URI in 1972 and is now a Ph.D. nursing candidate. "Nursing education really pushes people to be critical thinkers. You get into situations and assess and think of ways to solve the problem." After earning her undergraduate degree, Coppa moved to New Jersey, where she first worked as a hospital staff nurse, then later as a high school nurse and athletic trainer for the school's football team. She quickly learned that while the job of a registered nurse was challenging, it was also frustrating because medical colleagues stuffed "professional, independent thinkers into a box." "The jobs are terrible; there's no respect, and they work inordinately long hours," Coppa said. "The nursing profession doesn't get the acknowledgement and respect that others get." So what did the young nurse do? She quit, moved to Colorado, and taught skiing. She couldn't, however, shake off her love of nursing. Instead, she enrolled in the University of Colorado's nurse practitioner program to pursue the higher level of nursing training--and independence--she longed for. So equipped, Coppa returned to Rhode Island. In 1985 she began work as a nurse practitioner and clinical instructor in Brown University's School of Medicine. Her job, which she continues to work once a week, is to staff a clinic for teenage mothers and their children at Hasbro Children's Hospital. The same year, she returned to her alma mater as an assistant professor of nursing, and in 1991 she became director of the Nurse Practitioner Program. Coppa, her husband and two sons live in North Kingstown, where she serves on the town's school committee. She enjoys running and skiing in her free time. Joselin Leasca, a 1999 graduate of the Nurse Practitioner Program, was one of Coppa's students. Before enrolling in the program, the South Kingstown mother of two young children had worked 18 years as a hospital nurse. "Nurses were burning out left and right, and I was ready to go sell real estate. I had had it," Leasca recalled. She wanted a break, and Coppa had persuaded her to return to school for additional training. "Denise is salvaging burned-out nurses. She's bringing them back into the classroom. She's saying, 'You have so much more to offer,'" commented Leasca. |
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