Cathleen A. Evans, PhD, RN, CEN, CNE, NHDP-BC
- Associate Professor
- Nursing
Affiliated Programs
Education
- PhD, Research and Education (2016)
Widener University (PA) - MSN, Emergency/Critical Care Focus, Nurse Educator Role (2007)
Widener University (PA)
About Me
Every learning circumstance is an opportunity to transfer previous learning in use with new learning that becomes merged. My teaching role is to facilitate opportunities for students to assess their learning experiences and build knowledge, skills, and abilities used by the professional nurse for client management. With each teaching-learning encounter, I deliberately create situations where the student explores what they already know and builds new knowledge used as behaviors that can be measured as competencies. A precursor to appropriate, safety-driven competencies is decision-making.
As an educator, I vividly remember sitting in your seats, so I strive to establish a learning environment that promotes discovery, application, integration, and self-appraisal for each student. My goal for each student is to support their growth of justified thinking, benevolence, citizenship, and responsibility to the community through collaborative teamwork and leadership skills.
My personal and professional expertise is in emergency/disaster care and education. Nurses are critical to the National Preparedness Goal to achieve community resilience for a readied nation. All emergencies and disasters are local, and nurses will be called to provide usual care in unusual circumstances. Are you Ready?!
Research Interests
Disaster Nursing, Emergency Nursing, Transfer of Learning, Learning Transfer
Media Expertise
- Emergency nursing
- Disaster nursing
- Medical-surgical nursing
- Undergraduate nursing education research
- Community disaster education
- Interprofessional healthcare disaster readiness education
Publications
Evans, C.A., Perks, J., & O’Kane, L. (2022) Decision-Making during a disaster-scenario tabletop exercise by prelicensure student nurses: A replication study, Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, 1-5. https://www.doi.org/10.1017/dmp.2022.69
Evans, C.A. (2021) Disaster Readiness for a Pandemic. Nursing Management, 52(7), 20-26. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.NUMA.0000754084.62671.38
Evans C.A. (2019). Tabletop exercises in the nursing classroom: An introduction for nurse educators. Nurse Forum. 54(4), 669-674. https://doi.org/10.1111/nuf.12394
Evans, C. A., Baumberger-Henry, M., Schwartz, R. A., & Veenema, T. (2019). Nursing students’ transfer of learning during a disaster tabletop exercise. Nurse Educator. 44(5), 278-283. https://doi.org/10.1097/NNE.0000000000000602
Evans, C., & Schwartz, R. (2019). Using tabletop exercises as an innovative and practical teaching strategy in response to external disasters. Nursing Education Perspectives, 40(1), 62-64. http://doi.org/10.1097/01.NEP.0000000000000308
Evans, C., Baumberger-Henry, & Martin, S. (2018). Fire! Facilitating long term care emergency preparedness. Journal of Nursing Management. 49(12), 47-50. http://doi.org/10.1097/01.NUMA.0000547840.81621.e2
Evans, C., & Baumberger-Henry, M. (2017). The tabletop matrix: Determining reliability for a criterion-referenced performance measure. Journal of Nursing Education, 56(8), 509-513, http://doi.org/10.3928/01484834-20170712-12
Evans, C. A., & Veenema, T. (2017). The role of the nurse in reverse triage: A review of the literature. Health Emergency and Disaster Nursing, 4(1), 5-11, https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/hedn/4/1/4_2016-0015/_pdf
Evans, C., & Baumberger-Henry, M. (2014). Readiness: How prepared are you? Journal of Emergency Nursing, 40(5), 448-452. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jen.2014.03.00
Professional Affiliations & Memberships
Emergency Nurses Association (ENA), National League of Nursing (NLN), and Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI), Society for the Advancement of Disaster Nursing
Awards
- Dean's Award (2016)
- Williamson's Award Abington Memorial Hospital (2012)
- Nursing Excellence Award, Abington Memorial Hospital (2006, 2008)
News
In the Media
- Delaware County Daily Times
- Nursing Management Podcast
Noteworthy
- Nursing Professor Awarded Service Medal for COVID-19 Response
Cathleen Evans, associate professor of nursing, has been awarded the COVID-19 Pandemic Civilian Service Medal for exemplary service to the nation as part of the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) during the federal medical response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Evans, an expert in emergency and disaster care and education, serves as a member of an NDMS Disaster Medical Assistance Team which deploys emergency medical, logistical, and command and control personnel in response to public health emergencies, such as COVID-19, and natural disasters, such as a hurricanes, tornados, or wildfires. Evans and her NDMS colleagues served as a lifeline to hospitals and long-term care facilities across the country by providing temporary relief to staff, adding bed capacity, and improving outcomes for COVID-19 patients.
Share link: https://www.widener.edu/news/noteworthy/nursing-professor-awarded-service-medal-covid-19-response - Nursing Faculty Publish in Nurse Educator
Assistant Professor Cathleen Evans, Professor Mary Baumberger-Henry, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Associate Professor Rose Schwartz published a study in the journal Nurse Educator that demonstrated the transfer of learning that takes place among nursing students during disaster scenario tabletop exercises.
Share Link: https://www.widener.edu/node/11526/