Faculty Spotlights >> Richard A. Henker: Clinician and Educator
Expanding the Reach of Pitt Nursing
Nursing
Throughout his 30-year career as a nurse anesthetist and professor in the School of Nursing, Rick Henker has spearheaded efforts to train health care providers around the world.
His contribution to nursing education at Angkor Hospital for Children (AHC) in Siem Reap, a nongovernmental organization hospital that provides free, high-quality compassionate care for children, stands out as an example of his commitment to sustainable health care solutions.
It began in 2006 when he first visited AHC with Health Volunteers Overseas (HVO). Henker was intrigued by the local nurse anesthetists’ ability to provide quality services despite limited resources. He began to formulate a sustainable plan for an exchange of knowledge about how to best develop innovative anesthesia care in low-resource settings.
Working through HVO, Henker began taking nurse anesthetist students from Pitt to AHC to learn, teach and connect with students and staff at the hospital.
“Over the years, we have trained nurse anesthetists at Angkor Hospital who provide cutting-edge anesthesia care in spite of the fact that they don’t have high-tech equipment or supplies,” notes Henker. “These AHC nurse anesthetists take great pride in teaching American students, and, in turn, our Pitt students learn a lot because the nurse anesthetists at AHC are experts at what they can accomplish in a low-resourced setting.”
Today, he oversees three four-week rotations a year, in which Pitt students work with AHC and Lao Friends Hospital for Children (LFHC) nurse anesthetists.
In 2016, Henker and a team from Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University School of Medicine in Bangkok introduced physicians and nurses at AHC to a crisis team management (CTM) simulation course that focused on nontechnical skills such as team performance knowledge, skills and confidence. The goal of the course was to train instructors at AHC who could then teach the CTM course in the Khmer language.
“Over the years, we have trained nurse anesthetists at Angkor Hospital who provide cutting-edge anesthesia care in spite of the fact that they don’t have high-tech equipment or supplies.
These AHC nurse anesthetists take great pride in teaching American students, and, in turn, our Pitt students learn a lot because the nurse anesthetists at AHC are experts at what they can accomplish in a low-resourced setting.”
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According to Henker, “Train-the-trainer courses such as this one have proven to be effective in improving team performance and communication—and that ultimately improves patient outcomes in a clinical setting.”
Henker was invited to bring other Pitt nurse anesthetist students to teach and learn at the LFHC in Luang Prabang, Laos, and recently completed a workshop for nurse anesthetists and physician anesthesiologists.
He currently serves as vice president of the Permanent Council of the G4 Alliance, a coalition of organizations that advocate for access to safe surgical, obstetric, trauma and anesthesia care around the world.
Henker’s far-reaching accomplishments include:
- Establishing nurse anesthetist education and resident programs in Bhutan and Belize
- Serving as a visiting professor at three universities in Japan
- Conducting quality improvement seminars for nurse anesthetists and nurse practitioners in Taiwan
- Helping to write the scope of practice and code of ethics for nurses in Cambodia
- Assisting Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok with the development of a new master’s degree program for nurse anesthetists in Thailand