Gertrude DeWaters featured image background

Gertrude DeWaters

Associate Professor of Nursing

Trudy DeWaters chooses to teach at North Park University because she enjoys teaching nursing at the undergraduate and graduate level and connects the school’s mission with the notion that spirituality, faith, and care are important concepts in the practice and education of nurses. “It is important to understand, respect, and support the spiritual needs of patients we work with,” she says. “It is just as important to understand, respect, and support the spiritual needs of students.”

She plans ways for her students to get to know and interact with patients. For example, Dr. DeWaters, whose research emphasis is on gerontology, partnered with a community center for older adults called Little Brothers – Friends of the Elderly. Students can volunteer to go on a week-long trip with a group of older adults, spending time, doing activities, and sharing an experience with those who lack many opportunities to go on vacation. “Students return with a new respect for older adults and often a change in attitude about aging,” she says.

Nursing students, typically a very diverse cultural mix, also take advantage of North Park’s urban location and do their clinical courses all around Chicago in a variety of clinical settings. “They bring their experiences into the classroom and share them with each other,” she says.

Dr. DeWaters is a member of American Geriatrics Society, Gerontological Advanced Practice Nurses Associations, and American Society for Pain Management Nursing.

Recent Publications

DeWaters, T., Faut-Callahan, M., McCann, J. J., Paice, J. A., Fogg, L., Hollinger-Smith, L., Sikorski, K., & Stanaitis, H. (2008). The use of a self-reported pain measure and the PAINAD scale in hospitalized elderly post-surgical hip fracture patients. Orthopaedic Nursing, 27(1), 21-28.