Dr. Sharon Goldfarb: Raise the Line faculty award winner

Osmosis would like to congratulate our five raise the line faculty award winners for 2020. We sat down with each of them to learn their teaching philosophies and hear their thoughts on the future of health care.

Enjoy their stories and listen to the full podcast at osmosis.org/faculty dash awards. Doctor Goldfarb.

Thank you so much for joining us today. Would you like to introduce yourself?

My name is Sharon Goldfarb. I'm Dean of Health Sciences at College of Marin.

I also am President of the California Organization of Associate Degree Nursing. So I support many nursing schools and I'm the Western board rep for the organization of Associate degree Nursing nationwide and very proud to do that work and also do some stuff on social mission for health education.

So II wear a lot of hats in order to win the osmosis. Raise the line faculty award.

You had to receive many nominations and testimonials from students and colleagues that you know, so I'm going to read one and get your reaction after the pandemic struck, we lost all of our clinical placements in a matter of one week with the fear of losing eight weeks of previous class progress and being delayed.

Up to a year. Sharon stepped in and captained the ship.

She facilitated an entirely new curriculum including telenursing with our community so that patients in Marin County could be at peace knowing that we were not alone while continuing the nursing education for 80 future nurses, she has inspired me to lead care for others and collaborate so that the next generation of nurses can make the world a better place.

That is very moving. I mean, I'm a little welling up but you know, I II believe in transformational he health care and I believe in transformational education.

So I'm really aware of my community's healthcare needs and I'm really aware of my students individual journeys and many of them were in sort of gig economy jobs, they were massage therapists and dog walkers and bartenders and waitresses and um they all stopped working and though many of them had Children and bills to pay and nursing was gonna be their way out.

And there seems something obscene about we're hitting a pandemic, we know it's gonna affect the healthcare workforce and my students need to work.

And uh but because we don't have clinicals and the regulations of the California Board of Registered Nursing, we're just gonna have to stop.

So honestly, it's not something I did singlehandedly. My students were very involved in the process.

I believe in shared governance. They came up with some of the ideas, my faculty all had to rise to the occasion, not just developing the new curriculum and the new tele nursing, you know, models, but also learning how to be online instructors.

So it was a heavy lift for everybody. And um I, I'm glad that I had some vision and some ideas, but it was a, it was a group effort.

So you have a good portion of listeners here that are going to be entering the healthcare field for the very first time during the pandemic.

What advice do you have for them? Well, first, I would say thank you for choosing this as a career and congratulations on, you know, starting this journey.

It's not an easy journey. So, you know, you're brave and, and wonderful for choosing it.

Um But I think what I sometimes see is that people going into the healthcare field, they really are not sure sure what they're getting into.

I can tell you that a lot of people I hear wanna go into the healthcare field because they've watched Grey's Anatomy and as a clinician, what's portrayed on TV is very far from the reality.

So if your dream is based on something you've seen in the movies or TVI would do a reality check and try to talk with people in the healthcare field, try to arrange, um, you know, a shadow day.

So you really know what you're going into. Um I think uh it's a hard field now and it requires a lot of bravery and, and change makers.

But uh I would say really try to get a good sense of what you're going into. Thank you so much for watching the raise the line interviews.

Again, we'd like to congratulate our award recipients. If you would like to see the other faculty award winners from 2020.

Please check out osmosis.org/faculty dash awards.