Kent D. Blad
Dr. Blad has over 35 years of clinical and academia experience in various nursing settings. He received his Doctorate of Nursing Practice at University of Utah in 2009, and is dual certified as an Acute Care NP and Family NP. He currently serves as Teaching Professor at BYU’s College of Nursing, teaching Critical Care Nursing and Care of the Veteran Patient. He also practices in a pediatric clinical setting, and has 25 years of experience in the SICU at the Salt Lake City VA Medical Center.
Dr. Blad earned the Fellow of the American College of Critical Care Medicine (FCCM) and the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners (FAANP). He is a Veteran of Operation Desert Storm (Gulf War) and served 10 years in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. Because of his passion and dedication for Veterans, he created and implemented a nursing course on Caring for the Veteran Patient. He is a proud husband and father of 7 children.
We start by sharing our experiential class motto, concerning caring for the Veteran patient; which is, “To Know Them is to Care for Them Better.” We impress on their minds the importance of getting to know the Veteran patient with the intention of compassionately caring for them in both physical and spiritual ways. We also impress on them the crucial mindset of loving and not judging this population of patients; which could also translate to life in general.
We take the time to discuss and understand each student’s intention or desire to learn the material at hand. In caring for Veterans, most students have no idea how to accomplish that ,without having been exposed to Veterans to this point in their lives. However, after immersing the student in the culture of the Veteran and experiencing the stories and background of Veterans in person, they quickly come to realize the impact of Veterans on their own lives and freedoms.
I employ reflection by reminding students often in this course that with every Veteran that dies, a library closes. When they take advantage of the words and stories of these Veterans, all students reflect on their freedoms and impact of various Veterans on those freedoms. They come away with a lifelong appreciation for sacrifices made by our nation’s true heroes.
The main factor that we employ on our nursing students is that, in addition to becoming competent at caring for the patients’ physical needs, is the critical importance of employing any method possible to care for the patients’ spiritual needs. A simple smile, touch, or kind word goes a long way in achieving holistic care for the Veteran or any patient. We emphasize practicing the “Healer’s Art”, and serving our fellowmen as Christ would have served the sick and afflicted.
My mentoring environment involves many locations and venues where Veterans live and are. The course I teach is based on caring for the Veteran patient in any setting. As a class, we meet with many individuals and panels of U.S. military Veterans in various settings, such as homes, classrooms, workplaces, American Legion halls, Washington DC memorials, U.S. Capitol in DC, Gettysburg, Fort McHenry in Baltimore, etc. Our culminating student experiential learning activity is students serving as ‘guardian’ to an individual WW2, Korea, or Vietnam Veteran on a Utah Honor Flight for 2 days to Washington D.C. The goal is for students to familiarize with military and Veteran culture and history.