CU Nursing - Spring/Summer 2020 - 24

TURNING POINT

It took a brush with his own mortality
for Heftka to decide that the call of
nursing was real.

By Dana Brandorff

"Nursing kept calling me and I finally
answered," said Chris Heftka. After 13 years
as a professional ski patroller and a stint as a
firefighter, Heftka made the tough decision to
switch to a nursing career.
The turning point came seven years ago
when his father was diagnosed with stage IV
pancreatic cancer.
Because of the seriousness of the diagnosis,
the family chose to care for him at home and
Heftka and his mother became his primary
caretakers until he died. "The hospital
staff kept telling me that I should consider
medicine because of my bedside manner,"
Heftka recalled. "The idea of pursuing
nursing really got into my head. But I didn't
act on it then."

A climbing accident in 2014 where
he broke his skull and sustained
several bulged disks, as well as
an ulcerative colitis diagnosis in
2016 and a five-day hospital stay,
helped move him closer to nursing.
"The nurses really made a lasting
impression," said Heftka. "I was
still trying to figure out what I really
wanted to do with my life. So, I became
a firefighter. However, the pull of nursing
was strong."
Later that year, he was admitted into
CU's UCAN program where he has made
life-long friends, including Neal Luecking.
The two have exemplified teamwork and
professional partnership. According to

When College of Nursing student Elizabeth
DePalma, (MSN, '18), graduated with her
DNP Dec. 14 she left behind a potentially
life-saving legacy.
For her doctoral project, the psychiatric
nurse practitioner focused on whether
training students in Mental Health First
Aid (MHFA) could make a difference.
It turns out it does - and the U.S. Air
Force (USAF) second lieutenant's work
remains on track for many MHFA trainings to come.

Graduate Leaves
Mental Health
Legacy
By Debra Melani

CU College of Nursing | Spring/Summer 2020

An estimated third of all college students
suffer from a mental illness. "In fact, 75%
of lifetime mental illnesses occur before
the age of 25," DePalma said. Anxiety, depression, stress and sleep difficulties top
the causes cited by students for decreased
academic outcomes, she said.
What DePalma found especially concerning
from her work with students on both the
University of Colorado Anschutz Medical
Campus and the Colorado School of Mines
campus in Golden was that 10% of students
surveyed reported having "seriously considered suicide" in the past year.

faculty member Theresa Nino, "Finding a
real life friend is extremely important to our
students and the future of nursing! These
two were good to each other and those
around them."

STUDIES: MENTAL HEALTH
FIRST AID TRAINING WORKS
Stigma and lack of mental health literacy
prevent students from seeking professional
treatment, DePalma said. But they do tend
to talk to and listen to their peers when it
comes to emotional health issues, which is
why MHFA training makes sense, she said.
The evidence-based program created for the
layperson provides action plans for people
who notice someone struggling with a mental health problem. The eight-hour training
includes certification for three years and
increases mental health literacy while decreasing stigma, studies show.
DePalma's study included training and observing a group of peer mentors from Mines
and students in the Integrated Nursing
Pathway program from CU Nursing. The increased rates of study participants who noticed and helped peers in crisis five months
post training were statistically significant,
she said.
"These are results from just one training done
months ago. Imagine what will happen as we
offer more trainings," DePalma said. "We're
talking about saving human lives here."

CU Nursing - Spring/Summer 2020

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