Columbia Nursing Spring 2022

Nursing Columbia

Spring 2022

Country Columbia gives students a chance to experience rural as well as urban clinical settings.

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The Magazine of Columbia University School of Nursing

A NEW CALLING: SECOND-CAREER NURSES SHINE ADVANCING INCLUSION AND EQUITY IN ADMISSIONS

HELP INSPIRE COLUMBIA NURSING’S NEXT GENERATION

LEAVING A LEGACY “It was my good fortune to have received my nursing education at Columbia 60 years ago. Columbia Nursing helped shape a rich and exciting career and fulfilling life.

There can be no more meaningful bequest than to make this possible for those students who follow me in the years to come.”

Catherine Tyburski Nagy, BS ’64

CONTACT US TO DISCUSS YOUR LEGACY:

nursing.columbia.edu/giving/planned-giving For more information, please contact Caitlin White, director of development, at cnw2127@columbia.edu.

From the Dean

Columbia Nursing: A Place to Realize Lifelong and Newfound Dreams

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uring the 130 years since its founding, Columbia Nursing has continuously proven itself as a center of excellence. Our outstanding track record comes in part from our dedication to educational innovation.

We are constantly developing new ways to prepare nurses so they can maximize their professional impact as teachers, scientists, clinicians, administrators, and policy-makers.

One way we do this is by exposing students to a broad range of experiences—moving them beyond the classroom and into a variety of health care settings, especially underresourced ones, where they learn to think on their feet. One such setting is the Bassett Healthcare Network in rural Cooperstown, New York, where MDE and DNP students can fulfill their six-week practice integration requirement by shadowing Bassett nurses.

The feature that starts on page 6 explores how this experience broadens students’ perspectives on health care delivery by allowing them to compare and contrast urban clinical settings with a rural health care system, where resources are scarcer and patients often lack access to specialty services and sometimes even to primary care. Referrals, patients, and ways of life are all different in a rural environment, which is why the Bassett integration program requires students to live in Cooperstown, so they can understand on a personal level the challenges that people there face.

Students consistently praise their practice integration experiences for helping them to realize the kind of nursing they want to do.

Though some students have always dreamed of going into nursing, others come to it as a second career. The latter path is becoming increasingly common two years into the pandemic, as thousands of Americans are inspired to seek more meaning in their work. It’s no surprise that nursing is a common choice for career-changers, seeing as a recent Gallup Poll ranked nursing, for the 20th year in a row, as the top profession on the basis of honesty and ethics.

This trend is the subject of another feature in this issue, starting on page 12. You’ll read about a former lawyer, for example, who decides to apply her talent for critical thinking in the courtroom to caring for patients in the ER, and an actor who discovers that his theatrical training has taught him how to communicate empathically.

Thanks to Columbia’s accelerated MDE program, these careerchangers, as well as recent college graduates, can fast-track into nursing by earning their master’s degree in 15 months.

But even as more and more career-changers are seeking a Columbia Nursing education, there are many hopeful students from lessadvantaged backgrounds for whom admission to nursing school may be difficult or even unattainable. We’re interested in these students specifically because their ability to overcome poverty or discrimination may fuel their passion to care for vulnerable populations.

Such passion can’t be taught, which is why Columbia has adopted a new “holistic admissions” process to more equitably assess applicants whose triumph over personal obstacles could make them especially compassionate healers. This new process is the subject of the third feature in this issue, starting on page 20. It explains that as we continue, of course, to assess applicants’ academic metrics, we’ve also started more rigorously weighing their personal experiences, attributes, and characteristics, to evaluate how they could contribute to the school and the nursing profession overall.

As a precursor to revamping our admissions process, we created the Pathways to Leadership and Advancement in Nursing (PLAN) program, whose inaugural class arrived in June 2021. PLAN provides eligible MDE students with financial, academic, emotional, and professional support services—including a $25,000 scholarship, academic coaching, referrals for counseling, access to mentoring, and invitations to professional workshops and networking events.

All of our students, whether they’re pursuing a lifelong dream or a second career, are here because we believe in their ability and determination to apply all that they have experienced, know, and will learn here to providing exceptional care.

LORRAINE FRAZIER, PhD, RN, FAAN Dean, Columbia University School of Nursing Mary O’Neil Mundinger Professor of Nursing Senior Vice President, Columbia University Irving Medical Center

Columbia Nursing is the magazine of the Columbia University School of Nursing and is published twice a year

Nursing Columbia

Lorraine Frazier, PhD, RN, FAAN Dean, Columbia University School of Nursing Mary O’Neil Mundinger Professor of Nursing Senior Vice President, Columbia University Irving Medical Center

Produced by the Office of Strategic Communications and Marketing

DESIGN AND ART DIRECTION:

Eson Chan

Janine Handfus Associate Director, Annual Fund

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS:

Anne Harding Andrea Kott Kenneth Miller

Sharon Sobel Assistant Director, Alumni Relations

Mary Turner Henderson, BS ’64 San Francisco, CA

Paul Coyne, DNP ’16, MBA President & Co-Founder, Inspiren; Vice President, Clinical Practice & Chief Nursing Informatics Officer, Hospital for Special Surgery New York, NY

Wilhelmina Manzano, MA Group Senior Vice President, Chief Nursing Executive, & Chief Operating Officer for Perioperative Services, New York-Presbyterian New York, NY

Marjorie Harrison Fleming, BS ’69 Chair Seabrook Island, SC Susan Fox, BS ’84, MBA President & CEO, White Plains Hospital White Plains, NY Susan Furlaud, MS ’12 Vero Beach, FL Ellen Gottesman Garber, BS ’76 New York, NY Karen Hein, MD Jacksonville, VT

· Partnership Boosts Grant Writing Success for Nursing Trainees · Columbia Nursing Awarded $7.7 Million in NIA, AHRQ Grants

26 Faculty Publications

Brenda Barrowclough Brodie, BS ’65 Durham, NC

Angela Clarke Duff, BS ’70 Forest Hills, NY

4 Research Roundup

· New Study Uses Machine Learning to Analyze Racial/Ethnic Bias in Birth Outcomes

BOARD OF ADVISORS:

Delphine Mendez de Leon, BS ’78, MBA, MPH Chief Strategy Officer for University Hospital of Brooklyn New York, NY

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Linda Muskat Rim, Editor-in-Chief Associate Dean, Strategic Communications and Marketing

ALUMNI NEWS EDITORS:

Janice Rafferty Grady Assistant Dean, Development and Alumni Relations

Spring 2022 Contents

Janet Ready, BS ’81, MBA, MPH Chief Operating Officer, St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center Syracuse, NY Patricia Riley, BS ’76, MPH Captain (Retired), U.S. Public Health Service Atlanta, GA Susan Salka, MBA President & CEO, AMN Healthcare San Diego, CA

28 Alumni · What Does 130 Years of Columbia Nursing Mean to You? · Take Five with the Alumni Association Board President · Class Notes · In Memoriam

Please address all correspondence to: press.nursing@columbia.edu

Alumni are invited to update their contact information by emailing sonalumni@columbia.edu or calling 212-305-5999

Sara Shipley Stone, BS ’69, MS Brooksville, ME

Subscribe to our monthly e-newsletter: nursing.columbia.edu

Edwidge J. Thomas, DNP ’05 Vice President of Clinical Solutions, Northwell Holdings & Ventures New York, NY

Like us on Facebook: @ColumbiaNursing

Jasmine L. Travers, PhD ’16 Assistant Professor, NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing New York, NY

Follow us on Twitter: @ColumbiaNursing

Follow us on Instagram: @columbianursing

Follow us on LinkedIn: Columbia University School of Nursing Subscribe to us on YouTube: Columbia University School of Nursing

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Country Roads

By Andrea Kott, MPH Bassett practice integration program prepares students to treat rural populations.

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A New Calling

By Anne Harding Second-career nurses and nursing students bring experience, confidence to the clinic.

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Planning for a More Inclusive Future

By Kenneth Miller A new admissions process—built around a program called PLAN—aims to recruit students who will change the face of nursing.

ON THE COVER: Columbia MDE students Natalie Singer (left) and Ilene Kassman briefly called rural Cooperstown, New York, home. Photograph by Jörg Meyer

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Research

Roundup

G E T T Y IM A G E S

Partnership Boosts Grant Writing Success for Nursing Trainees

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re- and postdoctoral trainees who receive one-on-one grant writing support are twice as likely to have their research projects funded, show new findings from Columbia Nursing.

Just over 80% of trainees who received support were awarded funding, compared to just 42% of those who did not, reported Kristine Kulage, MPH, and her colleagues in Nursing Outlook. Kulage is the director of the school’s Office of Scholarship and Research Development.

Producing high-quality scholarship and research that address health disparities and inequities is a central mission of Columbia Nursing, Kulage and her colleagues noted in the study. Mentorship is critical for nurses’ overall success, but trainees may also benefit from support with the administrative aspects of grant writing, which mentors may not be able to provide.

To address this issue, Kulage and her colleagues developed a oneon-one partnership program with four elements: regular meetings, a timeline with milestones, writing and editing support, and attention to administrative documents. The program, intended for predoctoral students and postdoctoral fellows who are either new to research or starting the process of seeking funding for their dissertation or postdissertation research, was implemented in 2011.

In the recent study, the authors reviewed 40 grant applications submitted by pre- and postdoctoral trainees between 2011 and 2020.

Seventeen of the 21 applicants who participated in the partnership program (81%) received funding, versus eight of the 19 applicants who didn’t participate (42%).

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Columbia Nursing Spring 2022

Elaine Larson, PhD, a professor emerita and the study’s senior author, oversaw the genesis and launch of the partnership program.

Other authors were Elizabeth Corwin, PhD, a professor and vice dean for research; Jianfang Liu, PhD, an assistant professor; Rebecca Schnall, PhD ’09, a professor and associate dean; Kodiak Soled, MS, a research scientist and PhD student; and Arlene Smaldone, PhD ’03, a professor, all at Columbia Nursing; and John Usseglio, MPH, an informationist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

In a testimonial included in the report, Soled said the partnership “was essential to successfully writing and securing my first federal grant … on the first submission.... This rigorously systematic yet supportive opportunity was invaluable to unlocking a significant milestone and obtaining hopefully the first of many future grants in my career as an independent research scientist.”

The partnership is not a formal part of the predoctoral curriculum or the postdoctoral training program, and participation in it is voluntary. “We want to increase the diversity of program participants, better advertise its availability, and ensure that any barriers to participation are identified and addressed so all feel free to take advantage of this opportunity,” Kulage says.

Nurses seeking a well-resourced PhD program that is a good match for their needs, she adds, should see the partnership as yet another benefit of choosing Columbia Nursing.

The study was published online April 13, 2022, in Nursing Outlook.

Columbia Nursing Awarded $7.7 Million in NIA, AHRQ Grants

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olumbia Nursing investigators have received three grants totaling $7.7 million from agencies of the National Institutes of Health: two R01 awards to study disparities in the impact of COVID-19 on nursing home and home health patients, plus an R18 award to adapt and test a mobile health app for Latinos living with HIV. Jingjing Shang, PhD, a professor of nursing, and Patricia Stone, PhD, the Centennial Professor of Health Policy, received a $3.8 million R01 grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) for a four-year study of the impact of COVID-19 on care transitions and health outcomes in vulnerable older patients.

Findings from their investigation, titled “ImpAct of COVID-19 on CaRe TransitiOns and health OutcomeS in Vulnerable PopulationS in Nursing Homes and Home HealthCARE Agencies (ACROSS-STUDY),” will inform nursing homes, home health care agencies, and policy makers in planning for infectious disease emergencies and decreasing health disparities.

In addition, Shang received a $2.4 million R01 grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) for the “Disparities in Infection in Home Health and Patients/ Caregivers’ Perceptions (Dis-Infection in HHC)” study. This five-year initiative will involve examining the effect of socioeconomic disparities on COVID-19 cases and other infection events among home health care patients before and during the pandemic, then developing a home-based infection prevention and control (IPC) program.

Previous research by Shang and her colleagues has shown that uncontrolled environments and limited resources can make IPC a continuing challenge in home health care settings.

“With the new award from AHRQ, our team is aiming to better understand the barriers to effective IPC among socioeconomically disadvantaged home care patients,” she says, “and develop an IPC program to address the infection-related health disparity in home health care settings.”

AHRQ also awarded a $1.9 million R18 grant to Rebecca Schnall, PhD ’09, the Mary Dickey Lindsay Professor of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. Her five-year study, titled “Dissemination of the WiseApp for Improving Health Outcomes Across Settings,” involves a mobile app designed to help people living with HIV adhere to their antiretroviral therapy. The grant will support the translation and cultural adaptation of the WiseApp for use by Latinos in the U.S. and the Dominican Republic. In addition, it will underwrite a randomized controlled trial of the adapted app’s efficacy in this patient population.

G E T T Y IM A G E S

New Study Uses Machine Learning to Analyze Racial/Ethnic Bias in Birth Outcomes

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eronica Barcelona, PhD, an assistant professor at Columbia Nursing, recently received a grant to use machine learning to investigate why Black and brown Americans face worse pregnancy outcomes than their white peers.

Along with two co-investigators—Maxim Topaz, PhD, the Elizabeth Standish Gill Associate Professor of Nursing, and Kenrick Cato, PhD ’14, an assistant professor of nursing—Barcelona is developing natural language processing tools to identify patterns of bias in clinicians’ notes and determine how these patterns relate to birth outcomes. The two-year, $150,000 grant from the Columbia University Data Science Institute will support an analysis of the records of all patients admitted from 2017 through 2019 to the labor and birth units of two New York City hospitals, which together report about 7,000 births annually.

The analysis will look in the notes for factors such as stigmatizing language—for example, Barcelona explains, statements questioning the patient’s veracity or wording that expresses negative judgments about the patient, such as racial or ethnic stereotypes.

“There is a growing body of qualitative literature describing obstetric racism,” she says. “Black birthing people have reported experiences of lack of autonomy, poor communication, and feeling unheard. Unfortunately, generating solutions to improve this problem has proven difficult. Racism and discrimination are embedded in our society at large, and solutions must address racism in institutions and structures to improve the health of our most vulnerable.”

Most of the research to date on racism and poor pregnancy outcomes has focused on patient-level and behavioral factors, which often results in blaming the patient, Barcelona points out. But the harmful effects of systemic discrimination on health are increasingly being recognized, including in this study’s emphasis on system-level factors.

“The project addresses institutional bias in an actionable way to improve perinatal health,” Barcelona says. “By examining the association between linguistic bias and pregnancy-related morbidity, we can inform tailored interventions to improve care and patient outcomes, while addressing institutional racism.”

Spring 2022

Columbia Nursing 5

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Columbia Nursing Spring 2022 2021

Bassett practice integration program prepares students to treat rural populations.

By Andrea Kott, MPH

Country

Roads Photographs by Jörg Meyer Spring 2021

Columbia Nursing 7

“T Below, clockwise from the top right, are three MDE students who experienced nursing in a rural setting at Bassett: Natalie Singer, Ilene Kassman, and Alyson Rodriguez (on the left, with Bassett nurse Heather Blanchard).

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Columbia Nursing Spring 2022

here was something about the head-to-toe physical,” muses Columbia Nursing DNP student Michelle Stevenson, MS ’20, who recently completed a two-week rotation at Bassett Healthcare Network, based in rural Cooperstown, New York. The experience at Bassett confirmed many of Stevenson’s assumptions about what nurse practitioners (NPs) can do and gave her a new appreciation for the whole-person care delivered by health care providers in rural areas.

“My preceptor was the provider whom commercially licensed truck drivers saw for their required physicals,” Stevenson explains, “which were more robust than I expected. Besides performing all the routine checks that you learn as an NP, she spent extra time examining drivers’ peripheral vision and neck muscle strength. She needed to make sure that they had enough range of motion to see their sideview mirrors.”

And, Stevenson adds, “if a driver had sleep apnea, she asked if they were using their CPAP machine,” a breathing device that’s a common treatment for

sleep apnea, “because a sleepy driver becomes an unsafe driver. She said her job was to keep the roads safe. That is something I never thought about.”

Until her rotation at Bassett—some of whose funding comes through a federal program that provides primary care services in underserved areas—Stevenson had acquired most of her clinical experience in New York City’s highly urban South Bronx neighborhood. She was eager to work in an underserved setting whose challenges differed substantially from those she’d dealt with in an inner city. “I wanted to see what it would be like to practice in a rural setting, one less fortunate in terms of resources, where practitioners would need to be more hands-on than those who have more resources,” Stevenson explains. The Bassett clinical rotation gave her this opportunity.

Columbia launched the program in 2017 to expand its students’ perspectives on health care delivery and resources, patient-provider relationships, and what it means to be well served, explains Judy Honig, DNP ’05, EdD ’95, vice dean of aca-

demics and dean of students at Columbia Nursing.

The rotation, which is open to students in the Masters Direct Entry (MDE) program and the Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) program, exposes students to situations, such as the inability to access specialty care, that they do not typically encounter in the school’s urban setting. “We try to give our students a wide breadth of clinical experience to broadly prepare them for their career,” Honig says. “Being an urban institution, we don’t have a rural perspective on health care, where resources are sparser and more spread out, patients do not have easily accessible specialty services, and primary care takes on a larger role. In a rural environment, referrals are different, patients are different, and ways of life are different.

It’s a whole other dimension.”

Integration is essential to nursing preparation Practice integration, a required aspect of Columbia’s curriculum, allows students to incorporate everything they’ve learned academically and clinically, explains Heidi Hahn-Schroeder, DNP, an assistant dean, an assistant professor of nursing, and the director of the MDE program. “Integration is the capstone of the prelicensure education that is most representative of a nurse’s full-time, working experience,” HahnSchroeder says. “The Bassett integration program is unique because it provides an opportunity for students to compare and contrast their previous clinical experiences in an urban health care system with those of a rural health care system.”

For Cally Cochran, MS ’21, an Arkansas native who plans to practice in the rural South or Midwest, Bassett provided the intimate experience of a smalltown hospital that she had missed. “The nurses, technicians, doctors, physician assistants, and NPs in the emergency department were all eager to include me in everything that happened,” Cochran says. “I got to see the full spectrum of care, from triaging patients, to performing CPR in a successful code, to watching an emergency heart catheterization.

The best part was the sense of teamwork and family between the various members of the health care team and also with the patients and their visitors.”

As with all of Columbia’s integration programs, whether they’re in the heart of New York City or in far-flung international or U.S. locations, students must apply and be accepted for the Bassett rotation.

The program in Cooperstown—the headquarters for the Bassett Healthcare Network, which includes the 180-bed Bassett Medical Center, four smaller com-

Heidi Hahn-Schroeder

munity hospitals, a number of outpatient clinics, a nursing home, and several other health care facilities— requires students to live in the community for their entire rotation. “Health care starts in the community, and so we immerse the students in Cooperstown for the six weeks that they’re there,” Hahn-Schroeder says. “When you live in the community in which you care for the people, you can understand on a personal level the challenges they face.”

The challenges of rural health care At Bassett, as at other rural health care facilities, challenges abound, explains Tommy Ibrahim, MD, MHA, the president and CEO of the Bassett Network. “Rural health care has challenges in geography, social determinants of health, and socioeconomic considerations,” among other factors, he points out.

One major challenge is access. “Accessing care is much more difficult in a rural setting,” HahnSchroeder notes. “In the city, patients can choose from numerous hospitals, but for most people in Cooperstown, Bassett is the only accessible hospital.” This can make getting routine primary care particularly difficult. “People sometimes have to travel much further to get the most basic care, which may impede their ability to manage their chronic illnesses,” she explains.

“ The Bassett integration program is unique because it provides an opportunity for students to compare and contrast their previous clinical experiences in an urban health care system with those of a rural health care system.”

— Assistant Dean Heidi Hahn-Schroeder

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Clockwise from the upper left, Alyson Rodriguez taking a pulse; Ilene Kassman and Natalie Singer preparing to see their next patient; the distinctive cupola on the historic wing of Bassett Medical Center; and Singer and Kassman leaving the hospital for the day.

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Columbia Nursing Spring 2022

“When you’re dealing with underserved populations, social determinants of health may limit their ability to maintain their health,” says Ellen Fahey, DNP, an assistant professor of nursing, the director of Columbia’s FNP program, and the liaison between FNP students and Bassett. “Working in a rural setting, where resources may not be as accessible as they are in an urban setting, demands a focus of care that is complex and comprehensive.”

Limited resources may also mean nursing students need to learn more skills, and take more initiative.

DNP student Michelle Marchiano, MS ’21, completed her integration as an MDE student at Bassett’s 25-bed Cobleskill Regional Hospital, which has one respiratory therapist, two doctors, and four telemetry monitors—portable devices that monitor patients’ ECG, respiratory rate, and/or oxygen saturation while automatically transmitting the information to a central monitor. “At NewYorkPresbyterian, you have multiple respiratory therapists working in tandem with doctors, an entire floor dedicated to telemetry, and nurses who are specially

trained in it,” Marchiano says. “Normally, doctors give nurses specific orders regarding telemetry, but at Cobleskill they gave the nurses a lot of latitude in terms of changing oxygen settings and monitoring telemetry. Instead of specializing in telemetry, nurses have to know a little bit of everything.”

Broadening perspectives and practice Because care at Bassett is not as compartmentalized as it is in urban areas, students get a much broader scope of experience, Dr. Ibrahim points out. “Due to the unique needs of our patients and the difference in available specialties, nurses experience and provide a much wider variety of care than they would in NYC. Our nurses are expected to have a very broad scope of knowledge and skills that they apply every day,” he adds.

That is exactly what Marchiano wanted. “In an urban setting,” she says, “nurses often don’t go to their full scope of practice because we have specialty individuals who can step in and take some of that load. In a rural setting, where you are juggling

so many patients, you are multitasking, prioritizing who’s most important and what needs to be done first. You are working at your full scope of practice.” This boosted her appreciation for hospitals where resources are plentiful. “Once you work in a rural setting, you don’t take for granted what you have in a high-resource situation.”

Rural settings promote close patient-provider bonds Another plus of the Bassett program for students is they learn that small-town patient-provider relationships run deep. That’s not only because nurses provide the bulk of primary and specialty care, but also because they often live in the same community as their patients, Marchiano points out. “In small towns, where everybody knows everybody else, nurses know patients on a personal level, as neighbors,” she says.

Even the limited health care resources in the Cooperstown region help to strengthen patient-provider relationships, Stevenson notes. “When you

don’t have access to specialists and a greater health care network, then you have to spend a little more time engaging with patients and are more likely to see them on a regular basis and even care for their entire family,” she says. For example, a city-based primary care practice will typically refer women to an obstetrician-gynecologist or an NP who specializes in women’s health. But “in a setting where these specialty services are less available,” she adds, “NPs perform the kind of procedures—like a Pap smear—that we wouldn’t ordinarily do because we can more readily refer to specialty care.”

Stevenson describes another case in point—a mentally ill young woman who was having an especially difficult time coping with the death of a loved one. The woman’s NP performed a routine psychosocial screening and medication management. Then, since she was a certified hypnotherapist, she also conducted a hypnotherapy session for the patient.

“This was not something we would see in a primary care office in the city, where we would refer out to a complementary medicine specialist,” Stevenson says.

“The NP clearly had established a bond with her patient, who trusted her enough to go through the session—even with me, a nursing student, standing there,” she adds. The patient was very grateful and returned for another appointment a couple of weeks later. “Her NP checks in on her regularly to make sure she’s okay,” Stevenson points out. “They have an established and ongoing relationship.”

Thanks to such relationships, NPs in rural settings are able to provide holistic care, addressing patients’ mental health needs and ensuring that they have the resources and ability to fill prescriptions and follow up on treatment instructions. “People know each other, and providers know their patients in depth,” Stevenson says. “Their relationships go back many years. That type of connection affects the quality of care a patient receives.”

Like many of the students who choose the Bassett clinical rotation, Stevenson hopes to practice primary care in an underserved setting. Spending two weeks at Bassett prepared her well, she feels. “You learn to see a patient as a whole person within the context of their family and home setting,” she says, and “recognize what they’re capable of doing medically, based on resources that they can or cannot access, and know where they are in their life picture.”

Hahn-Schroeder agrees, pointing out that “the more understanding we have of people from diverse populations and communities, the better we are able to care for them. It only enriches our practice.” 

“ At NewYorkPresbyterian, you have ... an entire floor devoted to telemetry, and nurses who are specially trained in it.... But at Cobleskill, nurses have to know a little bit of everything.”

Spring 2022

— Michelle Marchiano, MS ’21

Columbia Nursing 11

During the pandemic, people began quitting their jobs at an unprecedented rate. The so-called “Great Resignation” shows no sign of slowing down.

Part of that trend has been that many people with established careers are looking for more satisfying work that will allow them to help others. And many of them are choosing nursing.

Students often come to Columbia Nursing’s Masters Direct Entry (MDE) program directly from college, but a significant number are now embarking on a new career after achieving success in another field. Some plan to combine nursing with their previous career. And many have continued on to the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program.

New advanced practice nurses can expect a very favorable job market; the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that demand for such credentials will rise 45 percent between 2020 and 2030.

These are a few of the paths pursued by Columbia Nursing students and alumni who recently decided to enter nursing as a second career.

A New Calling Second-career nurses and nursing students bring experience, confidence to the clinic.

By Anne Harding Photographs by Jörg Meyer

initiative. She credits the integration for providing her with excellent preparation.

Many people use the emergency room as a clinic, because they have no other place to go for medical care, Silebi notes. Providing

“ In my heart I felt I could do more, and I knew that I could do more in the medical field.”

Liliana Silebi, MS ’21 Liliana Silebi went to college planning to go on to medical school because she loved science. But during her last semester, her biology professor suggested law school. He thought her analytical mind would be well suited to the legal profession, Silebi recalls.

So she earned a law degree and became a sex crimes and child abuse prosecutor in New Jersey, in charge of a unit of detectives.

While she loved her job and the opportunity it gave her to help victims and their families, “in my heart I felt that I could do more, and I knew that I could do more in the medical field.”

Once Silebi learned about Columbia Nursing’s MDE program, she knew it was

for her. “Everything that they stand for is exactly what I was looking for,” she says.

“To make it even better and to put the cherry on top, they have an impressive program of clinicals.”

She applied and was accepted. Before she had finished her six-week integration unit in the emergency room at NewYorkPresbyterian’s Allen Hospital, the hospital leadership let her know they would like her to apply for a job there after she graduated. She did, was hired, and started on December 6, 2021.

There isn’t a lot of hand-holding for new nurses in the emergency department, Silebi notes, so the job often required her to take

them with education on how to manage their health can be life-changing, she adds, and “every shift, there’s one patient who needs that education.”

Many of the skills she brought from her background in the law have been useful in nursing—for example, knowing how to approach and analyze a problem, think critically, and be there for a client or patient. Being under fire in a courtroom and caring for patients in the ER require similar strengths, she adds.

“You don’t go into your courtroom unprepared, you have to be ahead of the game, and with the emergency room job it’s the same thing,” Silebi says.

When she was a prosecutor, she adds, it was important for her to connect on a human level with victims and their families.

Personal connections are essential to nursing as well, she says, noting that compassion can’t be faked.

“Do it from the soul, then you’re going to have the joy,” she says. “That’s the joy that I feel with nursing.”

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Columbia Nursing 13

Hindia Omar-Miller While she’d wanted to be a nurse since childhood, “that dream came and went,” says MDE student Hindia Omar-Miller. “It didn’t feel like there was a really clear path.

I had applied to programs fresh out of high school and didn’t really get anywhere,” she adds. “And then I floated through life with different jobs.”

In her 30s, Omar-Miller landed a position at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, one of the country’s largest public health departments. “My entrance into it was working on cardiovascular health and programs that supported hypertension awareness in community settings. I loved the program so much. I worked with churches all across New York City, predominantly Black and brown churches.”

Omar-Miller saw how hard it was for many people in the communities she served—even those who were medical professionals or who worked in a medical institution—to access health care. “That was a really big thing for me—how challenging it was for people who have very full lives.”

She realized nursing would allow her to do the one-on-one work she found so fulfilling, while directly addressing the problem of health care access.

She applied to nursing school in 2019, but when the pandemic hit in early 2020, she felt pulled to stay on at the health department.

She asked the schools that had accepted her if she could defer her admission for a year, and Columbia Nursing said yes. “That felt great working—knowing that I would be leaving and pursuing nursing at Columbia.”

Since starting the program in 2021, Omar-Miller has found that many of the skills she honed in public health—collaborating, seeking second opinions, asking questions, and conducting outreach, for example—have been helpful in nursing.

Being willing to admit when you don’t know something, and do the legwork to track down the answer, is essential to work-

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Columbia Nursing Spring 2022

ing effectively in public health, she adds, and the same is true of nursing.

As a Black woman who wants to provide health care services in Black and brown communities, Omar-Miller says, she appreciates Columbia Nursing’s stated anti-racist policy, which was one of the things that drew her to the school. “They’re open to doing better and figuring out ways to implement and envision what anti-racism looks like within their program.”

“ That was a really big thing for me—how challenging it was for people who have very full lives” to access health care.

He now plans to get a terminal nursing degree. “I’m still thinking right now, but I really do love kids,” he says. “I can definitely see myself working in either a PICU or med-surg ICU.” Kim feels his career as an actor, plus his many years of working in hotels and restaurants, was good preparation for studying

“ To perform well on stage ... you need to enhance communication skills and empathetically feel the air of the room. I think I can use that in nursing too.”

Tristen Kim MDE student Tristen Kim’s acting career took off once he finished high school. He was cast in many short films, garnered recurring TV roles, and made multiple commercials.

Kim majored in theater, French, and Japanese at Chung-Ang University in Seoul, South Korea, but didn’t finish his degree there, instead making his way to Los Angeles to test the waters in Hollywood.

While there, he enrolled in English as a second language classes and speech clinics to reduce his Korean accent and took acting classes to learn how to do scenes. At the same time, he studied neuroscience at the University of Southern California as a

“super, super nontraditional student,” he explains, graduating in 2021.

Acting is Kim’s passion, and it has also been a healing force, he says, helping him get through some difficult times and cope with past trauma. He realized that nursing could be an ideal complement to his career as an actor and performer, offering stability, flexibility, and the opportunity to serve others.

Kim entered the MDE program in 2021 and soon developed a passion for nursing as well. “Over time, doing clinicals at Columbia, I realized that this is really for me,” he says. “I just fell in love with nursing.”

nursing. Acting and the service professions “are like best friends,” he explains. “You hone your skills and craft to perform well on stage. And in order to optimize that, you need to enhance communication skills and empathetically feel the air of the room. I think I can use that in nursing too.”

While he has put his acting on hold during nursing school, Kim came very close, shortly before he started at Columbia Nursing, to being cast in an Apple TV adaptation of Pachinko, Min Jin Lee’s epic historical novel about a Korean family that emigrates to Japan. A talent manager he’d met at a friend’s birthday gathering, who’d heard Kim spoke Korean, Japanese, and English fluently, told him about the opportunity.

Kim made it to the final callback round but didn’t get the role. However, he’s confident he’ll continue to pursue acting.

And when he does get his big break, he says, smiling in excitement, he’ll give Columbia Nursing a shout-out.

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don’t you do it?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know, why don’t I?’” Upon returning from Maine, Messé registered to take the prerequisite courses.

Columbia Nursing was the only school she applied to, and she was accepted.

“I loved going back to school. I had no idea how much I wanted to learn all this stuff,” Messé says.

“ I’m definitely one of the older new nurses, but people come to me because I’m calm and thoughtful and I don’t panic.”

Avra Messé, MS ’20 DNP student Avra Messé discovered ceramics at age 16 and never looked back, graduating from high school early so she could focus on “making art, showing art, and teaching art.” She was a professor by age 23.

“I make sculpture mostly, and it always was medically based,” Messé says. “It’s abstract, but all referencing organs, medical instruments. I just have always been interested in that.”

So deciding to become a nurse didn’t feel like an abrupt departure to her, even though some people in her life thought it was. “I really feel so connected with both art and medicine still,” says Messé, who is now

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working on the oncology unit at NewYorkPresbyterian’s Brooklyn Methodist Hospital. “I’m definitely one of the older new nurses, but people come to me because I’m calm and thoughtful and I don’t panic.”

Messé was happy in her career as an artist, but she wanted to have a more direct impact. She settled on nursing as her next step during a 10-hour drive to Maine with her wife, who is a therapist.

They were talking about what they would do with their lives if money and age were no object. While Messé’s first choice was becoming a doctor, she felt her age ruled out that option. “But then I said, ‘I really want to be a nurse.’ She’s like, ‘Well, why

She sometimes gives lectures to art students about her transition into nursing. “I always put up these side-by-side comparisons of the connections,” she says. “There are so many.” Whether you’re teaching art, making art, or working as a nurse, she explains, “you don’t sit down. You’re always moving. You’re always using critical thinking. You’re using tools in your hands, and it shifts based on whatever’s going on with the patients, whatever’s happening with the work I’m making. There’s a real connection there that I see so clearly.”

In late 2021, as the Omicron peak swamped New York hospitals, Messé was working multiple shifts in a row and didn’t have the time to work in clay, so she switched to more forgiving art forms for the time being, including knitting and drawing. Even though it’s gotten more challenging to squeeze in her creative work, Messé adds, “I love it. I’ve done it for so long. I don’t think it would ever not be a part of who I am and one of the things that I am. It won’t be lost.”

Robert Tolley, MS ’21 “My life is very circuitous,” says DNP student Robert Tolley, who came to nursing from a career in advertising, marketing, and sales, capped by an executive role at an international health and wellness company. “It has taken a long time to get to a point, but every single point has gotten me somewhere.”

Tolley joined the Navy at 19. His military service taught him to be on time, be respectful, and show up for himself and for others.

He went on to get two undergraduate degrees. In 2005, as his professional career progressed, he began taking science courses to supplement his humanities background.

Discovering that he loved studying science, and already knowing that he loved to work with people, Tolley started to think about going into health care.

He took a summer course to become a certified nursing assistant and began working at a long-term care facility. A friend suggested he look for a job in a hospital, and he found work as a postoperative nursing aide.

“That was my first actual face-to-face introduction with nursing,” Tolley says.

“And I tell you, I had never in my life felt more valued, appreciated. The sense of accomplishment for that job was phenomenal.” Friends urged him to go back to school to become a nurse, but he wasn’t quite ready to commit.

Instead, Tolley cut his professional job back to three-quarter time and became an emergency medical technician. He began volunteering with a hospice and working for the local 911 service on weekends. With five jobs, Tolley was incredibly busy, but he realized he wanted to be able to do more.

He started looking into nursing master’s degrees, and Columbia Nursing’s program was the first one he saw.

In 2019, Tolley applied to the MDE and DNP programs. The day he found out he’d been accepted to both was “one of the happiest days in my life.”

Now working on his DNP, Tolley plans to go into primary care, predominantly with the LGBTQ+ community. “I want to be able to provide for the community that has always cared for me,” he says. “There are people within our community who feel like they don’t have a place within the bigger spectrum,

and I want to make sure that people feel safe, cared for, and heard. So that’s my plan.”

And as a practitioner, “I want to see 30 patients a day, every day. People are like, ‘You will get burned out.’ I’m like, ‘I very well could. That’s what vacations are for.

But that’s what I want.’”

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Maher Benham, DNP ’22 Dancers and nurses “are the best people in the world, but they’re completely different,” says Maher Benham, a dancer who recently became a nurse.

Like many artists, Benham explains, dancers have a child-like sense of wonder about life that fuels their creativity, while “nurses are more like scientists. Their whole perspective on life is a little different.”

Entering the world of nursing after decades in dance was an adjustment, she admits, but Benham soon realized she could be creative as a nurse “by approaching it with an individual eye to the person that I’m caring for at the moment.” At the same time, the self-confidence she built during years of performing and teaching dance, yoga, and music have served her well in the clinic.

“I’m realizing how the holistic nursing perspective is a very valuable tool,” she says.

Benham grew up in a family of dancers and artists and started dancing at age 4. She danced with the Martha Graham Dance Company, joining the faculty at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance in 1987. In 1993, she founded her own company, Coyote Dancers, and in 2003 established the Hummingbirds School—a dance, yoga, and music studio for people with special needs.

A few years ago, seeking new skills, Benham enrolled at Columbia Nursing and graduated from the Family Nurse Practitioner program in 2021. She expects to spend some time considering her options before looking for a job but envisions working as a nurse practitioner providing primary care and teaching people about the value of movement and exercise for calming the mind and being centered in their body. “I think it would be very valuable for the general public to just have that as part of their primary health care,” Benham says.

Dance and yoga can change people’s physiology “in a way that will feel really good,” she adds. “Dance brings you out of yourself.”

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While she’s still figuring out her next steps in nursing, Benham has no plans to give up dance. “I’m not going to stop choreographing, and I will go back with my dance company. I know I haven’t fulfilled my life’s mission yet,” she says. “I’m really excited about the future.”

“ I’m realizing how the holistic nursing perspective is a very valuable tool.”

Jarrett Murphy As a journalist, MDE student Jarrett Murphy covered affordable housing, homelessness, the health effects of climate change, and other social justice issues. He broke stories that led to real change; for example, he was one of the first reporters to expose critical flaws in New York City’s bail system.

“It can be satisfying to write about things at the 15,000-foot level,” he says. “I did a decent job of that for over 20 years as a reporter, but there are frustrations there, and you do feel like you’re waging the same battles” again and again.

“In a lot of my reporting I would see human suffering up close,” Murphy adds.

“I began to feel like a little bit of a voyeur,

that I was profiting out of the misery I was watching without really doing anything about it.”

Murphy started watching the news with his father when he was just 4 years old and was always interested in writing and journalism. His father emphasized the importance of feeling a purpose in life every day, and for many years Murphy found this purpose as a journalist.

After graduating from Fordham University, Murphy was hired at the Hartford Advocate, and moved on to CBS News’s national website and then the Village Voice. His work has been published in the Daily News, Newsday,

and the Nation. In 2007, Murphy joined the nonprofit policy-news website City Limits as investigations editor and became executive editor in 2010.

Along the way, Murphy began considering other careers—including tugboat captain—but nothing clicked until 2019, when a series of life events pointed him toward nursing. His father died from Alzheimer’s, and a dear friend passed away. Then, in December, Murphy found himself in the hospital for the second time in his life, with cellulitis that nearly became septic—and a lot of time to think.

“One night I had this particularly competent and impressive male nurse,” he recalls. The man was “clearly very proud of what he did … deeply caring about his patients but also so very skilled.”

The next morning, when Murphy’s wife came to visit, he told her how much the nurse had impressed him. “She said, ‘Maybe this is what you want to do.’ She sensed that a lightbulb had gone off.”

Murphy was able to finish his prerequisites while continuing to run City Limits and started the MDE program in June 2021. When he left City Limits, his colleagues established a fellowship in climate and health reporting in his honor.

Taking a patient history and summarizing it for his clinical preceptor felt like second nature to Murphy, but meeting with a real patient for the first time, three weeks into the program, was “entirely out of my comfort zone” at first, he recalls.

But, he adds, “to its credit, Columbia throws you so quickly into the clinical setting, you very quickly get comfortable being uncomfortable, and then you’re just kind of there.”

Within four or five weeks, Murphy says, “I did not feel as though I was a journalist pretending to be a nurse, I felt like a nurse who used to do something else.” Now, “it feels like I’ve turned the page completely.” 

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A new admissions process—built around a program called PLAN—aims to recruit students who will change the face of nursing.

By Kenneth Miller

Planning for a

Inclusive

More

Future Illustrations by Allie DiGesse

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e Spring 2022

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O

ver the past two years, a pair of crises has shed a stark light on the connections between social inequities and health disparities in the United States. The first was the COVID-19 pandemic, which struck communities of color with death rates up to twice those of their white counterparts. Then came the protests touched off by the murder of George Floyd, which focused national attention on the larger patterns of inequality of which the COVID statistics are a part.

These events prompted soul-searching at many institutions that had long been committed to advancing social justice in health care—Columbia University School of Nursing among them.

“We’re looking for students who are committed to excellence—and who also have a deep understanding of the varied populations that our profession serves.”

— Dean Lorraine Frazier One area that needed improvement, the school determined, was the admissions process. The school had long done its best to attract students from diverse racial, ethnic, and economic backgrounds but had focused mostly on applicants’ academic records.

However, both academics and personal characteristics “are crucial at Columbia Nursing,” says Dean Lorraine Frazier, PhD, “because our graduates go on to become leaders in health care organizations and nursing education. We’re looking for students who are committed to excellence—and who also have a deep understanding of the varied populations that our profession serves.”

Another area of concern, it became clear, was the need to bolster support for students from disadvan-

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taged backgrounds once they were admitted. For Judy Wolfe, EdD, senior associate dean of student affairs, that issue had personal resonance. “I know what it’s like to be a first-generation student,” says Wolfe, who was raised in Washington Heights by a single mother who had immigrated from the Dominican Republic. “The expectation is that if you’ve made it this far, you can handle the work.

But there can be imposter syndrome: ‘Am I good enough?’ Students often don’t ask for help when they need it, because they’re afraid it will show they don’t deserve to be here.”

To help solve both problems, a group of administrators and faculty developed a revamped admissions process—one centered on a program designed to address the kinds of challenges that Wolfe describes.

A HOLISTIC APPROACH The new process is based on a philosophy known as “holistic admissions.” Although this approach has been widely adopted by medical and dental schools over the past decade, only a handful of graduate schools of nursing have embraced it to date.

The Association of American Medical Colleges defines such an admissions process as having four core principles: 1) Selection criteria are broad, are linked to the school’s mission and goals, and promote diversity as an essential element in achieving institutional excellence. 2) Applicants are assessed on their experiences, attributes, and characteristics, as well as academic metrics. 3) Admissions staff and committee members consider how each applicant might contribute to the school learning environment and mission and to the profession.

4) Race and ethnicity may be considered as factors in admissions decisions, but only as part of the broader mix outlined above.

One key step in the holistic process is for a school to create a scoring rubric based on its institutional vision. Administrators typically decide on a “metric floor”—a minimum standard for grade point average (GPA) and test scores—and then develop a checklist of the kinds of experiences and attributes that will count in an applicant’s favor. Each of these criteria is then given a numerical weight, helping to ensure consistency and fairness.

A recent study funded by the National Institutes of Health found that a holistic approach to admissions has a positive impact on health professions schools. The majority of schools using such a method reported an increase in student diversity— and not only in race, ethnicity, and gender, but

also in socioeconomic status, life experiences, and general perspectives. Ninety percent reported that the average GPA of the incoming class remained unchanged or increased, 89 percent reported the same for standardized test scores, and 96 percent said graduation rates were unchanged or increased.

Furthermore, measures of student engagement, cooperation and teamwork, and openness to ideas different from one’s own rose significantly.

ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS In early 2021, Wolfe convened a Holistic Admissions Committee, which worked with the consulting firm Hanover Research to develop Columbia Nursing’s scoring rubric. The first task was to define the school’s view of itself. “We have a strong focus on social justice and health equity,” says Heidi HahnSchroeder, DNP, assistant dean of academic affairs

and director of the MDE program. “We’re a very globally minded school. In addition, our program is very rigorous.”

An ideal applicant, the group agreed, would show evidence of being able to handle that rigor (including a GPA of at least 3.0) and of sharing the school’s vision of improving health care for underserved communities worldwide. But the goal wasn’t just to select candidates who would be a good fit for Columbia Nursing; it was also to recruit students who had the potential to thrive as nurses— and to help advance the profession.

“We spent a few months focusing on the question of what makes a great nurse,” Wolfe explains.

The qualities the committee arrived at included empathy, compassion, cultural sensitivity, critical thinking, and a strong ethical compass, as well as the ability to multitask, make decisions under pres-

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MAKING THE PLAN WORK:

A MENTOR AND A MENTEE A

P O R T R A I T S BY NI C H E L N H E M

central pillar of Columbia Nursing’s new holistic admissions process is the Pathways to Leadership and Advancement in Nursing (PLAN) program, which provides financial, academic, emotional, and professional support for MDE students from disadvantaged backgrounds. That help comes partly from peer mentors, including a team of three academic coaches. One of them is Najah Boyd, MS ’21, a first-year student in the pediatric DNP program.

Boyd, 23, grew up near Atlanta, in a family where most of the women were educators. TeachNajah Boyd, MS ’21 ing, she says, “is something I’ve always been drawn to.” She began coaching for PLAN during her own second year as an MDE student, offering weekly Zoom study sessions to a group of up to 10. “The subject matter depends on what they need at the time,” she explains.

“During the first semester, for example, they were taking pharmacology, which is pretty difficult. I would make little study guides or share tips that I remembered from my own experience.” She also advises those who approach her individually for help.

Such support, Boyd says, can ensure that students from marginalized groups don’t just get into the school, but make it all the way to graduation. “Coming into this program, it’s so difficult and fast and crazy. It’s never a bad thing to have someone in your corner who understands what you’re going

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through and is rooting for you. And for me, it’s nice to be part of something where we’re not just saying, ‘Okay, we’re getting numbers in diversity.’ We’re making sure that people are learning, sticking with it, and actually enjoying their time here.”

A LIFELINE IN UNFAMILIAR TERRAIN One of Boyd’s mentees, Chelsea Okorafor, agrees with that assessment. “The MDE program can be overwhelming, so it was great to talk to someone who had fun going through it,” she says. “Najah was so generous in sharing her own notes, pointing us toward useful resources, and being there for us to ask questions.”

Okorafor, 26, is from a Minneapolis suburb, the daughter of a Nigerian immigrant father and an American-born mother. She came to nursing in a roundabout way: Interested in pregnancy and early childhood, she earned her bachelor’s degree in developmental psychology, then worked for three years in pediatric mental health. Gradually, though, she found that her real passion lay elsewhere.

“I realized that Black women from all walks of life—from the upper echelons of society on down to everyday people—were getting sick and dying because of not being believed by the medical system. That was unacceptable to me. I wanted to become the provider who goes the extra mile, who’s willing to spend an extra few minutes listening to a concern.”

After deciding to study midwifery, Okorafor chose Columbia Nursing in part because of PLAN. “Learning about the program made me feel like there were people in the school who cared about my success, who were going to keep an eye out for me,” she says. And the program’s academic support hasn’t been the only aspect that’s proved valuable to her.

“Early in the summer term it was like that scene in I Love Lucy where the chocolates are coming down the conveyor belt and she can’t handle it,” Okorafor recalls. “I was away from my parents, my friends, my boyfriend, everybody. And moving to New York from Minnesota was such a culture shock—like moving to another country.” Through PLAN, Okorafor met with licensed social worker Rachael Samuel, assistant director of Student Support, who helped her navigate that difficult emotional terrain. “Rachael has such a warm energy, and she checked in with me regularly to make sure I was okay,” Okorafor says. “It was a lifeline to have her there.”

Okorafor weathered the crisis; in fact, she gained enough confidence to run for the Student Council—and won. She serves on its Interschool Committee, which builds relationships between the clinical programs at Columbia Nursing and those at the other professional schools affiliated with Columbia University Irving Chelsea Okorafor Medical Center, as well as across the University as a whole.

Meanwhile, she’s excelling at her studies, contemplating going on to earn a DNP in nurse-midwifery, and looking forward to making a difference in patients’ lives.

“I knew nurses worked hard, but it wasn’t until I got to my clinical sites that I really understood how essential they are to the running of a hospital,” she says. “I’m proud to be learning to be one of them.”

sure, and advocate for patients. “Another big one was resilience,” she adds. “The pandemic really brought that home. Grit is essential.”

All these attributes (which are revealed largely through the application’s video-essay component) became part of the new admissions rubric. So did an array of life experiences that the committee identified as having the potential to contribute to nursing greatness. “The rubric asks the faculty reviewer to look more closely at parts of the application that, previously, they may only have glanced at, and to measure these elements comparably to the academic record,” says Wolfe. “For instance, does the applicant have work experience? Volunteer experience? Do they help support their family? Have they worked with different cultures? And how might those experiences add to the tool kit they’re going to need as a nurse?”

The first students admitted under the holistic admissions process will arrive on campus in the summer of 2022. “These are young people who’ve been able to overcome obstacles, who care passionately about vulnerable populations, who have a broad view of life,” says Dean Frazier. “We’re excited to welcome them.”

IMPROVING SUPPORT An important feature of the holistic admissions approach is that it doesn’t end when a student is accepted. “Following admission,” explains a 2020 white paper on the topic by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, “programs must be designed to support students, not only with academics, but to give them confidence and a sense of belonging.”

At Columbia Nursing, coaching and mentoring services have long been available to students in need, alongside a variety of financial aid opportunities. “We’ve always had a motto: If we admit, we commit,” Dean Frazier says. “If we admit you as a student, we have to provide you with the resources to be successful.”

Yet when Wolfe examined the existing support services, she found that they were surprisingly underutilized. “I spoke to some of our student leaders who are from disadvantaged backgrounds and asked them what was going on,” she recalls. “They told me the resources were spread out among too many departments. Students didn’t have time to hunt for what they needed. They didn’t know who to go to or what questions to ask. And some felt a sense of shame in asking.”

In response to that feedback, Wolfe designed a program for incoming MDE students called Path-

ways to Leadership and Advancement in Nursing (PLAN). Instead of requiring students to seek help, PLAN would reach out to those who might need it, based on the information in their admissions applications. And it would place several types of support under a single umbrella. “It’s hub, a community,” she says.

PLAN has four components: financial, academic, emotional, and professional support services. Qualifying students receive a $25,000 scholarship. The school has hired academic coaches for the program, to moderate group study sessions and offer tutorials in skills such as note-taking, time management, and

The 20 inaugural PLAN students “are thriving.

They’re engaged as students. They’ve taken leadership positions.... They’re doing very, very well.”

— Senior Associate Dean Judy Wolfe organization, as well as individual coaching. The Student Support office works closely with PLAN students, providing group sessions on coping techniques, individual counseling with the school’s resident social worker, or referrals to Student Health, as appropriate. Students in the program are also assigned an MDE faculty advisor, a doctoral student mentor, and a professional mentor to discuss career path issues. In addition, they participate in professional workshops offered by Student Life and attend alumni networking events throughout the academic year.

Because the school’s leadership saw such support as central to a successful holistic admissions process, PLAN was implemented before that process went into effect. “Our first priority was to make sure the program was in place and functioning smoothly,” Wolfe explains.

The inaugural class of 20 PLAN students arrived in June 2021, and their diversity spans many dimensions. But they have one thing in common, Wolfe reports: “They’re thriving. They’re engaged as students. They’ve taken leadership positions in university organizations and are contributing to campus activism. They’re doing very, very well.”

And once they graduate, she adds, they’re likely to do a great deal of good. “We’re not just thinking about having these students in our school for 15 months. We’re thinking, ‘How are they going to change nursing?’ That’s the long-term goal.” 

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Selected Faculty

Publications G E T T Y IM A G E S

Our faculty’s research continues to create new knowledge that advances health care. Listed are selected articles published by leading peer-reviewed journals.

Elena Abascal, DNP ’21, Rebecca Schnall, PhD ’09, and Walter Bockting were among the

authors of “Transgender Women’s Barriers, Facilitators, and Preferences on Tailored Injection Delivery Strategies to Administer Long-Acting Injectable Cabotegravir (CAB-LA) for HIV Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP),” published in AIDS and Behavior.

April Ancheta, Billy Caceres, Sarah Zollweg, Cindy Veldhuis, and Tonda Hughes were

among the authors of “Examining the Associations of Sexual Minority Stressors and Past-Year Depression with Overeating and Binge Eating in a Diverse Community Sample of Sexual Minority Women,” published in Eating Behaviors.

Adriana Arcia was among the authors of

“Developing an Educational Resource for Parents on Pediatric Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infection (CAUTI) Prevention,” published in American Journal of Infection Control; and “User-Centered Design of a Scalable, Electronic Health Record–Integrated Remote Symptom Monitoring Intervention for Patients with Asthma and Providers in Primary Care,” published in JAMIA: Journal of the American Informatics Association.

Veronica Barcelona and Jacquelyn Taylor were among the authors of “DNA Methylation Changes in African American Women with a History of Preterm Birth from the InterGEN

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Bakken were among the authors of “Digital

Phenotyping of Sleep Patterns Among Heterogenous Samples of Latinx Adults Using Unsupervised Learning,” published in Sleep Medicine.

Study,” published in BMC Genomic Data; and “Racial Discrimination, Mental Health, and Parenting Among African American Mothers of Preschool-Aged Children,” published in Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Eileen Carter, PhD ’14, and Elaine Larson were

Melissa Beauchemin, PhD ’19, co-authored

Kenrick Cato, PhD ’14, was among the

“Improving Health Equity and Reducing Disparities in Pediatric and Adolescent/ Young Adult Oncology: In Support of Clinical Practice Guidelines,” a review accompanying the 2021 NCCN Guidelines for Pediatric Hodgkin Lymphoma, published in Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network.

authors of “Pain Treatment and Functional Improvement in Home Health Care: Relationship with Dementia,” published in Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Walter Bockting was among the authors of

among the authors of “Differentiating Research and Quality Improvement Activities: A Scoping Review and Implications for Clinical Scholarship,” published in Journal of Clinical Nursing.

Ashley Chastain and Jingjing Shang were

among the authors of “Urinary Catheter Policies in Home Healthcare Agencies and Hospital Transfers Due to Urinary Tract Infection,” published in American Journal of Infection Control.

“Predictors of Eating-Related Psychopathology in Transgender and Gender Nonbinary Individuals,” published in Eating Behaviors.

Karol DiBello was the author of “Underscor-

Billy Caceres was among the authors of

ing the Importance of Advance Care Planning,” published in The Nurse Practitioner.

“A Scoping Review of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drug Use Treatment Interventions for Sexual and Gender Minority Populations,” published in Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment.

Billy Caceres, Veronica Barcelona, and Niurka Suero-Tejeda were the authors of “Lifetime

Trauma and Cardiovascular Health in Latinas,” published in Nursing Research.

Billy Caceres, Kasey Jackman, PhD ’17, Niurka Suero-Tejeda, Michelle Odlum, and Suzanne

PhD student Leah Estrada and Patricia Stone were among the authors of “Nursing Home Antibiotic Stewardship Policy and Antibiotics Use: 2013–2017,” published in Journal of the American Medical Directors Association.

Maureen George was among the authors of “Development of a Smartphone Application for Korean Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Self-Monitoring Based Action Plans,” published in Applied Nursing Research.

Catherine Halliday was among the authors of

“ECMO During a Pandemic: A COVID-19 Quality Improvement Process,” published in AACN Advanced Critical Care.

Kathleen Hickey and Suzanne Bakken were

among the authors of “Phenotypes of Engagement with Mobile Health Technology for Heart Rhythm Monitoring,” published in JAMIA Open.

Jianfang Liu, Maureen George, Suzanne Bakken, and Rebecca Schnall, PhD ’09, were among

the authors of “Clinician Use of HIVRelated Infographics During Clinic Visits in the Dominican Republic Is Associated with Lower Viral Load and Other Improvements in Health Outcomes,” published in AIDS and Behavior.

Care Quality in For-Profit and Nonprofit Agencies: A Comparative Interrupted TimeSeries Analysis, 2012–2018,” published in Medical Care Research and Review.

Lusine Poghosyan and Jianfang Liu were among the authors of “State-Level Scope of Practice Regulations and Impact on Organizational-Level Work Environments for Nurse Practitioners,” published in Health Services Research.

Nancy King Reame was the author of “Anxiety and Hot Flashes as Predictors of Mid-Life Palpitations: Getting to the Heart of the Matter in the Time of COVID-19,” published in Menopause.

Sarah Collins Rossetti, PhD ’09, and Kenrick Cato, PhD ’14, were among the authors of

Jianfang Liu and Lusine Poghosyan were among the authors of “Predictive Risk Models for Wound Infection-Related Hospitalization or ED Visits in Home Health Care Using Machine-Learning Algorithms,” published in Nursing Forum.

“Identifying Nursing Documentation Patterns Associated with Patient Deterioration and Recovery from Deterioration in Critical and Acute Care Settings,” published in International Journal of Medical Informatics.

Kathleen Mullen and Jeanne Churchill, DNP ’10, were among the authors of “Thread-

Rebecca Schnall, PhD ’09, was among the

ing Evidence-Based Practice Assignments in Specialty Nursing Courses,” published in Journal of Nursing Education.

authors of “Usability Evaluation of the mLab App for Improving Home HIV Testing Behaviors in Youth at Risk of HIV Infection,” published in AIDS Education and Prevention.

Allison Norful, PhD ’17, was among the authors of “United States Nurses’ Experiences During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Grounded Theory,” published in Journal of Clinical Nursing; and “Who Advances Nursing Science in Practice Settings and How?” published in JONA: The Journal of Nursing Administration.

of “Predictive Risk Models for Wound Infection-Related Hospitalization or ED Visits in Home Health Care Using Machine-Learning Algorithms,” published in Advances in Skin and Wound Care.

Michelle Odlum was among the authors of “All

Patricia Stone was among the authors of

Alone: A Qualitative Study of Home Health Aides’ Experiences During the COVID-19 Pandemic in New York,” published in American Journal of Infection Control.

“Advanced Cognitive Impairment Among Older Nursing Home Residents,” published in BMC Geriatrics; “Celebrating APIC’s 50th Anniversary and AJIC’s 50th Volume,” published in American Journal of Infection Control; and “The Effect of Data Aggregation on Estimations of Nurse Staffing and Patient Outcomes,” published in Health Services Research.

Uduwanage Gayani E. Perera, Ashley Chastain, Patricia Stone, and Jingjing Shang were among

the authors of “The Effects of Home Health Value-Based Purchasing on Home Health

Jiyoun Song, PhD ’20, Jingjing Shang, and Maxim Topaz were among the authors

Patricia Stone, Ashley Chastain, and Jingjing Shang were among the authors of

“Infection Trends in Home Health Care, 2013-2018,” published in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.

Jacquelyn Taylor and Veronica Barcelona were

among the authors of “Considerations for Cardiovascular Genetic and Genomic Research With Marginalized Racial and Ethnic Groups and Indigenous Peoples: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association,” published in Circulation: Genomic and Precision Medicine.

Eleanor Turi, Jianfang Liu, Sarah Leonard, MS ’20, and Jean-Marie Bruzzese were among

the authors of “Associations Among Anxiety, Self-Efficacy, and Self-Care in Rural Adolescents with Poorly Controlled Asthma,” published in Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology.

Cindy Veldhuis was among the authors of

“Mental Health and Economic Stressors Associated with High-Risk Drinking and Increased Alcohol Consumption Early in the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States,” published in Preventive Medicine.

Olivia Wood, Rafael Garibay Rodriguez, and Rebecca Schnall, PhD ’09, were among the

authors of “A Randomized Controlled Trial of an mHealth Intervention for Increasing Access to HIV Testing and Care Among Young Cisgender Men and Transgender Women: The mLab App Study Protocol,” published in BMC Public Health.

Jiaming Yao, DNP ’10, was among the authors

of “A Stepwise Approach to Inbound Passenger Management at a COVID-19 Temporary Medical Observation Site,” published in Risk Management and Healthcare Policy.

Maryam Zolnoori, Kenrick Cato, PhD ’14, and Maxim Topaz were among the authors of

“Factors Associated with Timing of the Start-of-Care Nursing Visits in Home Health Care,” published in Journal of the American Medical Directors Association.

Spring 2022

Columbia Nursing 27

What does 130 years of Columbia Nursing mean to you?

Illustrations by Sarah Egan

Columbia Nursing celebrates 130 years of “being there.” It has influenced and been influenced by the changing needs of society and our community.

The impact of our nurses is felt locally and globally—caring for others throughout their life span—from the beginning until the end of life.

One hundred thirty years of Columbia Nursing means 130 years of boldly leading the way or charting the path, if you will, in the delivery of transformative health care through research, practice, education, and policy.

How could our founders have known what the next century would look like in the delivery of health care in America? Could they ever have imagined how far-reaching and how vital the nursing profession would be in the lives of our patients, our communities, and our country as we know it today? I think about the unwavering faith, courage, and leadership it must have taken to establish the Presbyterian Hospital Training School for Nurses back in 1892. Through world wars, political and social unrest, and pandemics, Columbia Nursing has taken the lead in meeting our nation’s health care challenges by demonstrating a commitment to both the advancement of nursing as an academic discipline and dynamic practice. Now, 130 years later, we are the inheritors and beneficiaries of this promise and progress. I challenge all of us to be as courageous and bold as our founders were. It is up to each of us to write our chapter in the story of Columbia Nursing.

Jasmine Travers, PhD ’16

May Yong, MS ’14

Nessa Coyle, MS ’81

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Columbia Nursing Spring 2022

We commemorate the nursing legacy established by Columbia Nursing and recognize the ever-expanding role of nursing in our future, requiring us to continuously learn. Nurses are the backbone of our health care industry. As patient advocates and skilled care providers, we understand our role has never been more important in meeting the health care needs of our patients. Whatever the next 130 years may bring, nursing will surely rise to the challenge.

Beth Oliver, MS ’91

Columbia Nursing has been a leader in the profession from its days as a hospital training program established in 1892 to the university setting of today.

Clearly, times have changed, and so have many things at the school. One common thread through it all is that Columbia Nursing has always been and will always be at the forefront of cutting-edge research and education. It trains nurses who go on to transform health care delivery, improve provider and patient outcomes, educate the next generation of nurses, drive policy and advocacy, and lead in clinical care of patients and families.

Don Boyd, PhD ’17

As a nursing student at Columbia in the late 1950s, I was intrigued by the long history of the school and the illustrious contributions to nursing and nursing education made by the school’s founder, Anna Caroline Maxwell. Since my graduation in 1960, many changes have been made with the addition of graduate programs. Entry-level education is now at the master’sdegree level. Many faculty are nationally acclaimed scholars in their areas of expertise. The history of our school has always been an inspiration to me.

To me, when I think of 130 years, the word that comes to mind is resilient. Columbia Nursing has the internal strength to be innovative, houses strategic leaders in nursing science and education, and is nimble enough to change with the times. At the same time, Columbia Nursing cultivates a caring, empowering culture to withstand the challenges and threats in this turbulent world.

Lois Glazier, BS ’60

Katherine Brewer, BS ’02

Columbia University School of Nursing continues to be at the forefront of education and practice for nurses, led by an outstanding faculty and administration. Hail, Columbia Nursing!

Amy Ansehl, MS ’96

Columbia Nursing afforded my colleagues and me the opportunity to be mentored by nationally and internationally renowned faculty. They developed our critical thinking and diagnostic reasoning skills, creating change agents and innovative nurse clinicians, scientists, educators, and scholars.

Clinical practice experiences integrated the most up-todate technological advances, utilized evidence-based research, fostered interprofessional collaboration, and developed our leadership skills. Faculty-student mentoring relationships created caring, competent, and compassionate leaders and empowered us to advance the practice of professional nursing. A Columbia education is an experience of a lifetime, and I am grateful to be a Columbia nurse.

Maureen Murphy-Ruocco, MS ’80

The “neighbors” engraved on the back of my pin comes from Dr. William Draper’s commencement address to the inaugural graduating class on May 15, 1894. More than a century later, my, what neighbors have we been. From the first “neighbors,” bedecked in blue and white stripes with starched collars, aprons, and bibs, to those in today’s white coats of advanced practice, Columbia Nursing has been a peerless example of the best education to be had. I am proud to be number 2,903 (also engraved) in a long line of graduates whose hearts still call Columbia home. It is an honor to be a link in one of the nursing profession’s strongest chains of professional education, excellence, and innovation.

One hundred thirty years of Columbia Nursing represents sustained advancement as the profession developed, change without losing its essence, and expansion over time.

There has always been the commitment to excellence and visionary leadership in practice, education, and research. I have been proud to carry on that tradition and to say that I am a Columbia graduate.

Judith Mercer, MS ’74

Columbia nurses are part of a rich legacy of nurses, practitioners, educators, and researchers rooted in a foundation of integrity and excellence. While they appreciate tradition, Columbia nurses also know to keep their eyes keenly on the future, encouraging all members of our honored, diverse, and trusted profession to lead, grow, and, most importantly, elevate and expand the role of nurses. We Columbia nurses are at the forefront of a profession that cares for the sick and promotes and optimizes health and wellness for all individuals, communities, and populations.... We have done so for 130 years and will continue to do so for the next 130 years and beyond.

Jeffrey Scott Bailey, DNP ’22

Jean Vernon, BS ’52

I am grateful for Columbia Nursing’s enduring efforts in leading innovative academic programs tailored for advancing nursing science, practice, education, and policy, optimizing health for all New Yorkers, the country, and the world.

As students in one of the first DNP cohorts, we were empowered to be trailblazers right from the start, and we forged strong relationships that lasted beyond our graduation.

I believe that this common thread of innovation is steeped in the school’s history, for it was Anna Maxwell’s “pioneering spirit and unwavering belief” that nurses are powerful and transformative. I have carried that notion throughout my years as a clinician, scholar, and educator, and I hope that in doing so, I will ignite the same passion within our future of nursing for many more years.

How do we honor and celebrate Columbia Nursing’s contribution to the nursing profession, clinical scholarship, interprofessional collaboration, population health, equity, and the drive for excellence: 130 candles and balloons for Columbia Nursing’s birthday!

Jesus Casida, MS ’96

Rachel Lyons, DNP ’07

Rose Rodriguez, MS ’06

Spring 2022

Columbia Nursing 29

Alumni Association Board President

JÖRG ME YER

Take Five

Alumni Association Board President Kevin Browne, MS ’92

2021-2022 Alumni Association Board of Directors Laura Ardizzone, DNP ’10 Paige Mackey Bellinger, MS ’12 Daniel Billings, DNP ’18 Felesia Bowen, PhD ’10 Kevin Browne, MS ’92 Nicolas Burry, DNP ’20 Kenrick Cato, PhD ’14 Mollie Finkel, MS ’12 Hilda Haynes Lewis, MS ’99 Christa Simpson Heinsler, BS ’76 Kevin Hook, BS ’98 Denise Houghton, BS ’78 Matthew Jenison, MS ’12 Rosalind Kendellen, MS ’74 Kimberly Lanfranca, MS ’06 Marjorie Salas Weis, DNP ’17 Olivia Velez, PhD ’11 Connie Yip, MS ’13 Julie Yoshimachi, DNP ’20

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Columbia Nursing Spring 2022

What prompted your interest and decision to get involved as an alum?

It was my colleague Laura Ardizzone, DNP ’10, a graduate of the School of Nursing and immediate past president of the alumni board, who invited me to reconnect with the school and get involved with the association. Her enthusiasm was palpable. Her commitment to nursing and all things Columbia Nursing was profound, and, frankly, resonated within me.... I wanted to join her and my fellow Columbians to add my voice and give back to an already strong alumni association.

What do you want to accomplish as the president of the Columbia Nursing Alumni Association?

I plan to bring the alumni board leadership team together and create a space for us to have open and honest conversations regarding our future. I believe that it is imperative for the alumni board to have protected time to think strategically, evaluate industry trends, understand the needs of our members, and understand the future of the discipline of nursing. The association has a vast group of diverse thought leaders, including graduates of the school who work in all aspects of nursing and health care.... It is my hope that we will engage and challenge one another to color outside the lines as we formulate the future course for our association.

Speaking to your fellow alums, why is it important to stay connected to Columbia Nursing after graduation?

I believe maintaining a connection with your academic roots is vital to one’s professional growth and development. I made the unfortunate misstep early in my career to move forward with Columbia in my wake. … I never realized the value-add that would come from maintaining a connection with the school. Laura’s invite helped me appreciate what I was missing … a connection to an institutional powerhouse that was committed

to putting forward highly educated nurses whose desire to alleviate human suffering drives all that they do. Columbia nurses are transforming the nation’s broken health care system, leading nursing services in hospital settings, redefining sick care, generating evidence and new knowledge, writing and influencing public policy, transforming public health, and advocating for the marginalized poor. Staying connected to Columbia provides the graduate with access to the best and brightest nursing has to offer.

What does it mean to you to be president of the alumni association during our 130th anniversary?

What a privilege and honor it is for me to be the association’s current president. I come into my role on the shoulders of those who held the seat prior to me. I have a strong foundation to build upon and am surrounded by countless Columbia nurses who give of themselves tirelessly each and every day in all parts of this world. This is a gift that has been entrusted to me. There is so much more that we can do … as individuals or more deliberately as a collective group of nurses.

The time for us is now.... Gallup has told us over and over again that we are the most trusted profession. The pandemic has woken a sleeping giant. The giant is NURSING. We are finally being seen for our contributions to health care and society at large. Nurses are not heroes; they are doing what they’ve always done—run toward a pandemic. We are an international force that needs to use the current platform to influence change and once and for all take our rightful place at the strategic table, influencing the future of health care as only a nurse can do.

Finish the sentence: I am a proud Columbia nurse because ... ... the school has prepared me to lead and add my voice to help propel the discipline of nursing forward.

2021–2022

Class Notes 1960s Maxine Brown Halpern ’65BS retired as a

school nurse and is living happily in New Jersey with her husband, Ilan.

Phyllis Kate Roberts Temple ’85BS retired after decades in nursing. She spent the last 22 years as a family nurse practitioner in Eugene, Oregon.

Kathleen Kaskela White ’82BS retired from a

Helene DeMontreux Houston ’68BS moved

with her husband, Whiting, to a cottage in a retirement community, Loomis Lakeside at Reeds Landing, in December 2021.

She ended a 53-year career in psychiatric nursing in May 2021. Sadly, COVID-19 made the move less devastating than it might have been, and she felt happy with her decision.

Claudia Gregg Mayor Wynne ’67BS is still working full-time as a nursing field supervisor in quality assurance/staff development.

She has been in her current position for the past 21 years as part of a licensed nonprofit in Abington, Pennsylvania, where they endeavor to provide quality services to the broad community.

1970s Leah Morris ’79BS spent her career working

at the California legislature and in the field of managed health care. Ultimately, she was invited to join the small team that created what is now Covered California, California’s ACA Health Benefit Exchange. Her career culminated in work in palliative and hospice care.

40-year career in nursing and looks forward to the next season of life pursuing other interests.

Anna Woloski-Wruble ’82BS was awarded

the Columbia School of Nursing’s 2021 Distinguished Alumni Award for Nursing Education.

1990s Kevin Browne ’92MS was appointed senior vice president, patient care services, and chief nurse executive at St Joseph’s Health in Paterson, New Jersey.

Kathryn Howard ’92MS worked as a family

nurse practitioner at Bellevue Hospital’s Adult Asthma Clinic from graduation until 2005. The next 10 years were spent traveling, redoing her house in New Jersey, and, finally, heeding the siren call of the central coast of California in 2015. Since then, Kathryn and her husband have been happily retired in her old hometown of Lompoc.

Maureen Madden ’92BS was inducted as a 2021

fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.

1980s

Maribeth Massie ’98MS was selected to join the American Association of Nurse Anesthesiology’s 2021 inaugural class of fellows.

Susan Fox ’84BS was elected board chair of the Westchester County Association.

Tracy Ortelli ’92MS was inducted as a 2021 fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.

2000s Vanessa Battista ’06BS ’08MS was inducted as

a 2022 fellow of the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association. She also began a new role as senior nurse director for palliative care at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Elizabeth Cohn ’09PhD was awarded the Columbia School of Nursing’s 2021 Distinguished Alumni Award for Nursing Research.

Judy Honig ’05DNP was inducted as a 2021 fellow of the National League for Nursing’s Academy of Nursing Education.

Janice Izlar ’06MS was selected to join the American Association of Nurse Anesthesiology’s 2021 inaugural class of fellows.

Brenda Janotha ’08DNP was inducted as a 2021 fellow of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners.

Patricia Maani-Fogelman ’05DNP was brought in to lead the palliative care program at Guthrie Clinic, a rural integrated health system located in north central Pennsylvania and upstate New York that serves 12 counties.

William Daniel Roberts ’05PhD was inducted as a 2021 fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.

Elisheva Schachter Rosner ’05BS has worked

at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital for 15 years and has been an OB clinical instructor for Ramapo College in New Jersey. She also continues to volunteer as president of the Orthodox Jewish Nurses

Spring 2022

Columbia Nursing 31

Class Notes and In Memoriam Association, an affiliate of the American Nurses Association.

Sarah Rossetti ’09PhD was inducted as a 2021 fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.

2010s Laura Ardizzone ’04MS ’10DNP was selected to join the American Association of Nurse Anesthesiology’s 2021 inaugural class of fellows.

Felesia Bowen ’10PhD began a new role as

professor and inaugural associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Paul Coyne ’13BS ’15MS ’16DNP was named

a Crain’s New York Business 2021 Notable in Health Care.

Ava Dawson ’10BS ’12MS was awarded the Columbia School of Nursing’s 2021 Early Career Alumni Award: Emerging Nurse Leader.

Hannah Lee ’14MS was awarded the Columbia School of Nursing’s 2021 Early Career Alumni Award: Emerging Nurse Leader.

Mollie Finkel ’11BS ’12MS is the clinical

program director of gynecological oncology for the Mount Sinai Health System.

Allison Norful ’17PhD was inducted as a 2021

fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.

Amy Rose Taylor ’14BS ’16MS was elected to the Gerontological Advanced Practice Nurses Association as the director at large for a term of two years.

Olivia Velez ’06BS ’11PhD is co-chair and secretary of the board of the Global Digital Health Network.

Laura Will ’12BS ’14MS spent most of her

career as a nurse practitioner in geriatric home care, which included palliative and hospice services. In 2020 her son was born with a severe brain malformation that

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Columbia Nursing Spring 2022

would lead to medical complexities and a shortened life expectancy. She went from working as a palliative care nurse practitioner to being the mom of a palliative care patient. Drawing from both her professional background and personal journey, she is finding ways to support others going

through similar challenges. With Cape Cod Children’s Place, she started Roads Less Traveled, a support group for parents of children with medical complexities. This work pairs well with the monthly column about parental resilience she writes for the organization Know Rare.

2021-2022

In Memoriam 1940s Dorothy Goold Losee ’40 Emily Stringfield Ott ’44BS Mary Conway ’46BS Mary Young ’48 Shirley McKay Taubeneck ’49BS

1950s Jeanne Fistere ’50MS Clarinda Reier Marshall ’50BS Elayne Soley Orr ’50BS Jean Miller Benze ’51BS Anne Coolidge Ford ’51BS Patricia Wray Keller ’51BS Margaret DelMar ’52BS Josephine Brody Grant ’52BS Mary Malloy Greene ’52MS Ann Gilbride Hill ’52BS Dorothy Caspar Pulliam ’54BS Barbara Rolling ’54MS Bernadine Weiss Cutter ’55BS Marianne Taft Marcus ’55BS Janet Quaintance Thompson ’55BS Lenore Frank Hardy ’56BS Paula Shepard Holland ’56BS Frances Haworth Ives ’57BS Anne Bagley Kellett ’57BS Barbara Ball Leutzinger ’57MS Nancy Ennis Shuman ’57BS Ann Johnson ’58BS Sheila Penney Frohling ’59BS

1960s Elaine Anders LoGiudice ’61BS Suzanne Gibson-Cuff ’62BS

Priscilla Jenkins ’62BS Linda Stapelton Reznikoff ’62BS Cynthia Hoffman Priest ’64BS Leonie Symonds ’64BS Joyce Kantor ’66BS Sally Ruffner Leiter ’66BS Mary Clare Flintoft Collings ’67BS Marilyn Cowles King ’67BS Eloise Holder Robertson ’67BS Susan O’Connor Beeler ’68BS Penny Hund West ’69BS

1970s Kathryn Sherman ’73BS Julia Clark ’74MS Kathleen Higgins Steckler ’74BS Diane McManemin Warren ’77BS

1980s Tracey Hattal ’80BS Patricia Thomas Ball ’64BS ’82MS Teri Leichenger ’82BS Jan Smith ’84MS

1990s Deirdre Crotty Manasterski ’94BS ’97MS

2000s Marianne Pavlovitz ’09MS

2010s Shakhira Evans ’12BS ’15MS

Make your gift to the Annual Fu nd today!

SUPPORT THE NEXT GENERATION OF COLUMBIA NURSES Dean’s Discretionary Fund

Scholarship Fund

Global Fellows Fund

To make your tax-deductible contribution, please consider making your gift online at nursing.columbia.edu/annual-fund.

For more information, contact Janine Handfus, associate director, Annual Fund, at 212-305-0079 or jh2526@cumc.columbia.edu.

560 West 168th Street, MC 6 New York, NY 10032

THE

IMPACT SCHOLARSHIP SUPPORT JÖRG ME YER

OF

“ Scholarship support allowed me to focus on my academics and spend more time taking advantage of some of the unique opportunities at Columbia Nursing. This included taking time to participate in global health experiences, interprofessional learning with the other schools, and volunteering in a precepted student-run clinic. I am currently working at a private hematology-oncology practice in New Jersey. In this role I see patients for chemotherapy and problembased visits, conduct assessments regarding fitness for chemotherapy, and educate patients about their treatment regimens and managing side effects.”

— Jaime Betancourt, DNP ’20

For more information about giving to Columbia Nursing, visit nursing.columbia.edu/giving or contact Janice Rafferty Grady, assistant dean, Development and Alumni Relations, at 212-305-1088 or jar2272@cumc.columbia.edu.