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Regional Campus Spotlight
Vicky Parker, assistant professor of nursing, Chillicothe
May 2009
Vicky Parker was recognized as the 2009 Ross County Nurse of the Year by the Ross District Nurses Association. Criteria for the honor include expertise in the profession, community service and participation in the organization.
“This means a lot. It is always a special honor to be recognized by your peers,” Parker said.
Parker is a veteran educator who has been impacting students’ lives for more than 24 years.
Before joining the OU-C faculty in 1993, she previously taught at Rio Grande Community College and the Southern State Community College campus in Hillsboro.
As a practitioner, she has worked in several areas, such as surgery, pediatrics, mental health, women’s health and adult health. She has worked at Adena Regional Health Care, Scioto Paint Valley Mental Health Center, Ross County Health Department, Fayette County Urgent Care and Campbell Wall After-Hours Family Practice, the latter three as a family nurse practitioner.
“An advantage of the nursing profession is the ability to become involved in various aspects and do many different things,” she said.
A good nurse needs to combine both professional and personal attributes, Parker said.
“To be an effective nurse, you must be a caring person, and able to work with all types of people,” she said.
She was saluted for her contributions to students’ educational experiences in the Ohio Magazine 2006 Excellence in Education program, which recognizes outstanding college educators statewide.
For Parker, much of the key to her success as an educator is making the instruction practical for her nursing students.
“It is important for me to serve as a role model, especially in terms of modeling professional behavior,” she said. ‘Every day, nurses engage in activities with others that necessitate professional behavior. During their careers, they will encounter difficult patients and challenging situations. It is important that, in all instances, they act appropriately. To help prepare the students for these challenges, I have to model the proper professional disposition in the classroom and student clinical situations.”
Communication is fundamental to her teaching style.
“To be an effective educator, you must be able to communicate with the students,” Parker said. “Once I know the students, I can anticipate their needs and help to ease their anxieties so they can relax and do their best work.”
Parker earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing from Ohio University and master’s degrees in nursing and in family nurse practition from Wright State University. She recently completed work for her Ph.D. in health care administration from Capella University.
