Meet your instructor: Tina Leech, RN, MSN

Ms. Leech will discuss the basics of nursing health assessment during a mock lecture for admitted students at 3:30 p.m. EST on Thursday, March 18.

After earning her bachelor’s degree in nursing, Clinical Instructor Tina Leech spent 22 years in the U.S. Army, holding a number of clinical and leadership positions while building an extensive background in emergency and critical care. During her time in the Armed Forces and through experiences in a civilian hospital after retirement, Leech also became a passionate educator. She has more than 26 years of experience teaching patients, colleagues, community members and, most recently, students at the University of Michigan School of Nursing.

“I’ve been teaching for a long time — I became a basic life support instructor six months after becoming a nurse. I’ve always enjoyed every part of the nursing profession, and I never thought I would be in academia, but teaching is particularly rewarding,” she said.

Leech works with U-M nursing students in the classroom, laboratory and clinical settings. In the winter 2021 term, she has been leading sophomores in Michigan Medicine’s 5B Acute Care Medical-Surgical Unit.

“This is their first semester in the acute care setting with patients, where they are now applying what they’ve learned and simulated in their health assessment course. It’s very exciting,” Leech said.

Those health assessment skills will be the focus of Leech’s “mock lecture” for admitted students on March 18.

“I believe that a lot of students coming into the School of Nursing have had an anatomy and physiology class before,” she said. “I'm going to take some sections of what I teach in health assessment to translate what they've already learned about the human body into how a nurse would make an assessment through touching, looking, listening and having a discussion with your patient.”

Leech knows that nurses never stop learning, and she brings her own experiences into her teaching to prepare the next generation of Michigan Nurses.

“Rather than just teaching a lesson out of a book, I like to share the lessons I've learned, because you truly never stop learning,” Leech said. “I also think students can teach one another and learn from one another as well.”