Associate Professor Carol Kostovich, a researcher and educator who studies how nurses can better connect with and support their patients, was inducted into the prestigious American Academy of Nursing (AAN) in October.

Kostovich is assistant dean of innovative educational strategies and simulation at Loyola Nursing, where she studies “nursing presence,” or the ability to forge interpersonal relationships with patients. AAN fellowship is one of the highest honors in nursing, recognizing substantial contributions to nursing science and advancing public health.

Fellows are selected through a competitive peer review process and induction is a significant career milestone.

Much of Kostovich’s work has focused on the nurse-patient relationship and how to integrate nursing presence into simulation education. Her efforts have focused on quantifying nursing presence and developing measurements so both the nurse and patient can share their perceptions of an interaction.

Kostovich developed the Presence of Nursing Scale (PONS) and the Presence of Nursing Scale-RN (PONS-RN) to measure both patient and nurse perspectives. Along with other Loyola Nursing simulation faculty, she led the development of a standardized debriefing model that incorporates the Jesuit focus on reflection and discernment into each simulation session.

“Knowing how to support a patient isn’t always intuitive, especially for undergraduates as they’re first starting to interact with patients,” Kostovich said. “By integrating nursing presence into our curriculum, we’re helping students develop the awareness and socio-emotional skills they need to become better nurses and provide better care to their patients.”