The GW Nursing Office of Research sat down with Juh Hyun Shin, Ph.D., M.S.N., RN, FAAN, an Associate Professor at the GW School of Nursing, to learn more about her and her work at GW.
Hometown and Educational Background
I was born in Seoul, South Korea. I got my BSN from Ewha Womans University in Seoul, my MSN in Nursing and Healthcare Administration at University of Pennsylvania, and my PhD in Nursing from University of Iowa.
Current Work
I am a researcher in the field of gerontological nursing. My main areas of research involve the analysis of nurse staffing and nursing levels in long-term care homes. Analyzing these factors provides insights into how to make nursing more effective in long-term care to improve the quality of life for patients in these homes. Additionally, these factors can be leveraged to reduce preventable conditions in care homes, including infections and falls. My key research sheds light on the relationship between nurse staffing and quality of care in nursing homes, including the impact of work hours, pay, education levels, and continuing education requirements on care-taking in long-term nursing homes. Currently, I am using the 2023 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses dataset to investigate the racial and ethnic characteristics of nursing staff to determine whether they impact nurse retention, education, wages, hours, and telemedicine use. I am developing a standardized nursing language clinical decision support system in English and Korean using nursing home scenarios. One of my goals is to develop this standardized nursing language clinical decision support system in different languages with external robust funding in the future.
How I Got Interested In Research
Throughout my practicum, I was particularly mindful of nursing home residents, one of the most vulnerable populations in the world. I did my internship in Philadelphia at Living Independently for Elders in 2002. As an intern, I implemented several programs that allowed for healthy interactions and continuous learning experiences for older adults. This was my first clinical experience in the United States, and the internship provided me the opportunity to dig more deeply into the research area. As a doctoral student at the University of Iowa, I stayed in a nursing home for two months during my research practicum and had vivid experiences. In Korea, I worked as a nursing home RN for a year. Through that experience, I realized that nursing home residents should enjoy their lives with improved quality of life and quality of care with professional nurse staffing. Based on these experiences, I have been focused on doing research to improve the quality of care and quality of life for nursing home residents. I hope this research will aid residents in receiving high-quality professional nursing services with the protection of dignity, individuality, autonomy, and respect.
Fun Facts
I have a wonderful family; one son (Matthew) and my husband (DongWan). Matthew just started his freshman at Independence High School. He plays baseball at school and on the Dirtbag travel team, but I am still learning the rules of the game. Our family enjoys exploring and traveling during our baseball trips with Matthew. This year, we will visit North Carolina and Hershey, Pennsylvania. The picture above was taken when we visited the Lincoln Memorial in October 2022 when we had just arrived from Korea.