An Interview With Linda Cave
Suzanne Lefever, Associate Professor of Nursing and Assistant Dean, sat down with Linda Cave to discuss her memories from her 32-plus years at Cedarville.
Q: What do you consider as a most outstanding event or year during your time at Cedarville?
Linda: If “outstanding” is defined as “something that stands out,” then 9/11 fits that description. We were in an all-day nursing faculty meeting when word came that the first tower had been struck by a plane. We turned on TV news and kept it on as we continued the meeting, stopping to watch & pray as events unfolded. Now, 20 years later, the coronavirus pandemic has brought unexpected changes in teaching and nursing related to Covid-19. More on a positive note, I went with my first missions team to Scotland in 1996 and went for three consecutive years.
Q: What is the biggest change in teaching in the 32 years you have been teaching at Cedarville?
Linda: The biggest change is with technology and how it has changed how we teach and communicate. Everything that’s available for classroom teaching has been impacted by technology. Another big change is with email. Emailing was not available when I first started teaching; just to have access to each other and students through email is a huge change for communicating and sharing information. Simulation is also very different and new in our teaching.
Q: What have you seen change in students over the past 32 years?
Linda: The thing about students that struck me originally still strikes me now, and that is that they love God and His Word and people. It still touches me when I see it. In my interactions with students, I think they have the same range of personalities and interests and caring.
The most visible change is the dress code! Classroom attire when I first came was only skirts or dresses for women, never jeans in a classroom building. Another change is in the different ways they are able to learn, since they have Internet access and ability to confirm information so quickly.
Q: How has the profession of nursing and healthcare changed from when you first started in nursing to now?
Linda: What was available was not easily accessible and when I started teaching fetal monitoring was just in its infancy and wasn’t really available — now it’s everywhere. The same is true with ultrasound; it was available, but not easily accessible. Another difference we see is with documentation, which has completely changed. When I first started in nursing, all documentation was handwritten. We used a different color of ink for each shift and red was used only to document blood administration or death. Now of course, everything is on computer.
Q: What do you think should never change about nursing?
Linda: That’s an easy one, especially for our school of nursing. I would say skillful Christlike caring for each individual patient. Neither one is enough by itself. The skill without the Christlike care or the care without skill are not what we teach. It’s about knowledge and critical thinking. Using nursing as a ministry for Christ should never change at Cedarville.
Q: Share a favorite memory from your time here.
Linda: My favorite memories are from when I watched students interact with patients. I remember one student; I came to the door and she was talking to a patient who was in intense labor and not coping at all. The staff was getting frustrated with her; the situation was becoming more serious. The student leaned in, looked directly into the patient’s eyes and said, “Your baby needs you to be strong.” Immediately the patient responded, became calm, and was able to deliver without problems.
Then in simulation this year we were taking care of a laboring patient who wasn’t coping, and the student said to her, a perfect quote for this situation: “You were made for this.”
My favorite memories are times with students and faculty. I enjoy mentoring new faculty and mentoring students and new graduates, anyone in their first year of a new role with the new responsibilities. I love being alongside during those times.
Q: What fun things can you share about yourself that most people don’t know?
Linda: I like amazing facts! For example, Mount Rainier in the pacific northwest is an active volcano and it can look like you are viewing a volcanic eruption, a major one, when all it is, is a shadow that’s cast on the sky when the sun is low and the clouds are flat. It’s just the perfect shadow of it, but it looks like a major event. It is like a parallel of God. The things that seem like the worst things are not, they’re probably just a shadow. A reminder that God is always doing something good!
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