Brief Bio

Dr. Cooper has extensive clinical experience in intensive care, trauma nursing, and critical care transport (including Life Flight). She has also held positions in nursing management and performance improvement. She earned a BSN from Illinois Wesleyan University in 1987, and she completed a Master of Science in Nursing in the Family Nurse Practitioner specialty in 2002 and a Post Master's Certificate in the Acute Care Nurse Practitioner specialty in 2008, both at Duke. In 2012, she completed the DNP at the University of Colorado-Denver.

Dr. Cooper joined the School of Nursing faculty in 2003. She teaches in core courses in acute/critical care and chronic care of adults in the School of Nursing MSN Program, and serves as co-Lead Faculty for the Adult NP-Acute Care Specialty in the MSN Program. She also engages in clinical practice as a Family Nurse Practitioner. She is a member of the American Association of Critical Care Nurses, the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties, and Sigma Theta Tau.

Academic Program Affiliations

Education

Professional Certifications

Clinical Interests

Between 2003 and 2009, Penny Cooper's clinical practice as a Family Nurse Practitioner included Urgent Care at Lincoln Community Health Center (which serves low-income Durham residents) and at two Duke Medicine Urgent Care clinics. Her current FNP practice focuses on consulting and disease management in an inpatient hospital setting (Inpatient Endocrine/Diabetes, Durham Regional Hospital).

Awards and Honors

• 2001 Sigma Theta Tau, Beta Epsilon Chapter

Areas of Expertise

• Acute / Critical Care
• Cardiovascular
• Family Health

Representative Publications

• 2003 -- Cooper, P. L. A fall from a horse. Duke Life Net. 2003; XI(3);

• 2002 -- Cooper, P. L. Pelvic management. Duke Life Net. 2002; X(1);

Grant Funding (selected)

• Using Multimedia Applications with Longitudinal Case Studies: An On-line Approach to Nurse Practitioner Clinical Development (CATALYST Faculty Innovation Award)  
  Duke University School of Nursing CONCEPT Office
  01/2012-12/2012
  Role: co-PI with Mike Scott
  Project Goal: Determine the effectiveness of multimedia applications with longitudinal case studies in teaching on-line nurse practitioner (NP) students. An example of narrative pedagogical methods in nurse practitioner education is the use of unfolding cases in which students decipher employing evidence based guidelines and their own contextually derived conclusions based upon their immersion into the clinical story. Even more powerful is to limit the cases to one or two unique individuals and have their stories develop over time so that students bond in a creative way with these same individuals. While such methods are not necessarily new, the challenge remains how to adapt such a process to the on-line learning environment in a manner that engages students and invites additional dialog regarding the uniqueness of each case. One possibility is to design each case utilizing multimedia production techniques and loading each segment into content specific on-line modules. Employing sound slide technology and/or videography, each segment places the student into a specific time and space allowing for an additional level of hermeneutical understanding.

• Palliative Care and End-Of-Life Care in Advanced Nursing Practice  
  Health Resources and Service Administration
  01/2009-01/2011
  Role: Program Faculty
  Project Goal: Institutional Training Grant: The purpose of this project is to prepare expert advanced practice nurses in end of life care, particularly in high risk and underserved populations, by integrating end of life concepts into the Adult and Family Nurse Practitioner curriculum.

• Advanced Diabetes Management for Nurse Practitioners  
  Health Resources and Service Administration
  1D09-HP08059-01-00
  07/2007-06/2008
  Role: Program Faculty
  Project Goal: Consistent with the legislation of Title VIII and in concert with the goals of Healthy People 2010 and National Goals I -III, the purpose of this new project is to prepare expert advanced practice nurses in the prevention and management of diabetes, particularly in high risk and underserved populations. We plan to use an innovative educative approach that allows those from rural areas to learn medical content regarding health problems that are highly prevalent in their communities, thus increasing the likelihood of graduated nurse practitioner students remaining in these communities to practice. The graduates of this program will be eligible for the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) exam as Adult or Family Nurse Practitioners. In addition, completion of the proposed Advanced Diabetes Management for Nurse Practitioners will provide students with the necessary didactic content to be eligible for the American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE) exam to certify them as an Advanced Practitioner in Diabetes Management.

• Adult Physical Exam Video Project  
  Duke Center for Instructional Technology Jump Start grant
  04/2006-04/2007
  Role: Project Faculty
  This project created video series that demonstrate a specific adult physical examination taught in N332 Physical Assessment. The various formats of the videos were integrated to online courses posted in Blackboard, to self-paced web tutorials for online learning and to video iPods for mobile learning. http://cit.duke.edu/showcase/2007/pdf/cooper.pdf