The Future of Nursing displayed at Innovation Expo: Senior Nursing Students hold ‘Shark Tank’ Simulation

Photo provided by Amy Jo Perry depicting last semester’s Innovation Expo

The graduating nursing class is hosting their very own ‘Shark Tank’ simulation in hopes of presenting new and creative ideas that could benefit the nursing field.

The Innovation Expo allows students to display their group product or idea in a way the show “Shark Tank” would, while students present and persuade the ‘sharks’ to invest in their product, or in this case, win first place in the Expo. 

The ‘sharks' judging this event will be CEO’s, chief nursing officers, and other faculty of local hospitals who upon hearing a revolutionary idea, could implement new ideas they hear from students into their own facilities.

“We put them in teams and we say we want you to think about a problem that you've noticed in the healthcare system and develop either a product, a process, or a policy that would address this problem and make the situation better,” said Amy Joe Perry.

The Innovation Expo has taken place at Lee for several years now and is seen as a professional way for students' creativity to be noticed and to provide them with an opportunity to display skills of leadership and innovation. 

“I think that the Expo will make us more aware of stepping into our career on the business side of it all and make us aware how difficult it is to actually implement a policy change or an innovation like this. In our future careers, I think we will be more open and willing to adapt to change things because we have really seen the research and the work that goes on behind the scenes,” said Grayson Sain, senior nursing major and Innovation Expo participant. 

“I'm looking most forward to presenting the project, just because the new graduating nurses are the future of nursing. And so it's really encouraging and rewarding to hear feedback for things that we were creative enough to come up with. And also just getting to hear what everyone else had come up with. I'm excited to see how we can be the change in the healthcare system today, since there are a lot of errors and things that need to be improved on,” said Shelby Sawyer, senior nursing major and Innovation Expo participant. 

As nursing students near graduation, the expos offers them a chance to display their creativity and show off what they can bring to the nursing field. 

“God has given us the minds and the ability to come up with these ideas and to use them to keep ourselves as healthy as possible and to benefit others. And so we have to learn to steward that to the best of our ability and use that to innovate better things and to be a leader,” Sain said. 

The idea of the Innovation Expo began at the University of Illinois, but professors at Lee University believed in implementing this concept into their own students' classes, giving future nurses the opportunity to create.

The Innovation Expo is a combination of senior nursing majors as well as a class of senior business majors. This combination of students provides each nursing group presenting at the Expo a real perspective at what the expenses might be to truly develop new products or ideas in the real world and what the process of that might look like. 

“We say that we want our nursing students to deliver radically compassionate care and I actually see them doing that. It's every time I go out in the hospital, I'll witness one of our students holding hands of the patient praying with them just brushing their hair or just even sitting down in the chair talking to them because sometimes they, you know, they're just anxious,” said Perry.

The expo is an open to all students, yet the graduating nursing class asks all viewers to be quiet and respectful and stay for the full length of a presentation upon attending. 

The Innovation Expo will be held Friday, Feb. 24 from 9:00 to 11:30 a.m in the School of Nursing lecture hall.