MSU bozeman graduates its first master's prepared clinical nurse specialist student in Community/Public Health Nursing.

Christy Buttler Nelson of Conrad, Montana, is the first master's student to complete the requirements of the Community Health/ Public Health Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS) option at Montana State University College of Nursing. Christy was the first student to embark upon the Community Health/Public Health CNS option. This CNS option prepares advanced practice nurses to perform all of the functions of the community health nurse generalist including practice that combines nursing with public health practice to promote and preserve the health of populations. In addition, the CNS provides health care management of individuals, families, and groups in a community and contributes to the health of the total population.

Courses were delivered primarily via distance technology using WebCT, a software program used by MSU for online learning, with minimal synchronous class meetings over teleconference or interactive video conferencing. Graduates of the program are eligible to take the American Nurses' Credentialing Center (ANCC) Clinical Nurse Specialist national certification examination for Community/Public Health Nursing (C/PHN). They are then eligible to be licensed as Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs) in the CNS category in Montana.

Christy completed the program while continuing to work on the family farm, raise a family and serve as the Pondera County Tobacco Prevention Specialist. Additionally, Christy works as a public health nurse with high-risk maternal child health clients, and in the Pondera County immunization and breast/cervical cancer programs. One of her references for graduate school referred to Christy as "a quiet leader." Her thesis chairperson commented that Christy "exemplifies the best of a present-day frontier public health nurse interested in lifelong learning and advancing public health nursing in Montana." She was the recipient of Advanced Education Nurse Traineeship Award for the 3 years she was enrolled in the CNS option. Christy also received the Hudson Trust Scholarship, the Gladys Nye-Stevenson Graduate Scholarship, the Yvonne Jurkovich Willson Graduate Scholarship, and the CNS Thesis Award for her study Descriptive Analysis of the Implementation of the Quad Council Public Health Nursing Competencies in a Rural State.

While in the graduate program, Christy worked directly with MSU faculty to arrange public health-related clinical experiences that included spending time with infectious disease, environmental health, and maternal child health leaders at Missoula City County Health Department, with officials at the Department of Public Health and Human Services in epidemiology and the tumor registry, and Dan Strausbaugh, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry Region 8 representative. Christy completed a community assessment focused on smoking and tobacco use in Pondera County and used the Logic Model to explore the evaluation of two statewide public health programs, emergency preparedness and tobacco prevention.

Christy will present her thesis project and discuss the new ANA Public Health Nursing: Scope and Standards of Practice (2007) at the Montana Public Health Association Annual conference to be held September 11-13, 2007 in Helena (http://www. mtpha.com/).

You can learn more about graduate education at MSU by contacting Ms. Lynn Taylor, Graduate Program Administrative Assistant, at 406-994-3500 or [e-mail].

Sandra Kuntz, PhD, APRN, BC Charlene A. Winters, PhD, APRN, BC