Penn Nursing UPfront: Fall 2016 by PennNursing

fall 2016

A LONG AND ONGOING FIGHT AGAINST HIV/AIDS 3 Also: Call the Nurse-Midwife 10 A Nurse for Justice 16 130 Years of Nursing Education 21

SU P P OR T T H E F U TURE Penn Nursing prepares students by providing them with excellent resources and experiences: passionate, expert faculty; a state-of-the-art simulation learning center; and rigorous clinical and research opportunities. Your support of the Penn Nursing Annual Fund is critical to ensuring that students can become tomorrow’s expert leaders and practitioners. Your gift today allows us to focus on the future – our students. Make a gift today to the Penn Nursing Annual Fund with the enclosed envelope or at www.nursing.upenn.edu/giving.

For more information on how you can support students, contact Leah Kelsen at 215.573.8975 or lkelsen@nursing.upenn.edu.

Board of Overseers Andrea Berry Laporte, Nu’69, Chair Dean C. Kehler, W’79, PAR’13 Immediate Past Chair Rosemarie Morrissey Greco, Past Chair

University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing Dean Antonia M. Villarruel, PhD, RN, FAAN Editor Cathy Greenland Assistant Editor Monica Salvia

Melanie Franco Nussdorf, CW’71, PAR’02, PAR’04 Vivian W. Piasecki (chair emerita) Krista M. Pinola, Nu’86 Marjorie O. Rendell, CW’69, PAR’05 (emerita) Carolyn E. Bennett, Nu’91 Jean Renfield-Miller, PAR’15 Carol Lefkowitz Boas, Nu’77, PAR’09 Ralph F. Reynolds, W’84, PAR’17, Cornelius C. Bond, Jr., PAR’79 PAR’20 (emeritus) Ashley Z. Ritter, Nu’07, GNu’10, Gilbert F. Casellas, L’77, PAR’08 GR’20 (ex-officio) Alberto J. Chamorro, W’78, PAR’05, Randi Roy, C’87, WG’91, PAR’19 PAR’09, PAR’10 Sandra Beeber Samberg, Nu’94, Eleanor L. Davis, Nu’82 GNu’95 Kim R. Dickstein, W’87, PAR’17 Marie A. Savard, HUP’70, Nu’72, William R. Floyd, Jr., C’67, WG’69 M’76 Seth Ginns, C’00 Jan A. Sigmon, Esquire, C’82, Stephen J. Heyman, W’59, PAR’90 PAR’13, PAR’17 Wendy Hurst Levine, PAR’11, PAR’12, Martin J. Silverstein, GL’08, PAR’09, PAR’16 PAR’12, PAR’13, PAR’15, PAR’19 Patricia Martín, M’85 Patricia B. Silverstein, C’81 Barbara L. Nichols Susan Drossman Sokoloff, C’84, PAR’17, PAR’18

Contributors Cayla Lockwood, Pier Lopez, William Parker, Katie Siegmann Photography Michael Ahearn, I. George Bilyk, Stuart Goldenberg, Laurie Beck Peterson Content Development and Creation The LightStream Group Design Dale Parenti Design Printing CRW Graphics Advisory Board J. Margo Brooks Carthon, Christina Costanzo Clark, Edward Federico, Terri Cox Glassen www.nursing.upenn.edu Feedback Welcome! Please let us know what you think of this issue of UPfront by contacting us at 215.898.4841 or NurseAlumni@nursing.upenn.edu UPfront is a biannual publication of the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.

contents

Dean’s Message: The Fight Forward

table

f e at u r e s 3

A Long and Ongoing Fight Against HIV/AIDS On June 5, 1981, the first official report of the AIDS epidemic was published. Since then, Penn Nursing has led the way in research, policy, care and outreach.

Call the Nurse-Midwife In its 36th year, Penn Nursing’s midwifery program is one of the most well-respected in the nation.

Penn Presidential Engagement Prize Winner Leads the Way Jodi Feinberg developed “Home, Heart, Health (HHH): Engaging the Community in Bridging the Gap,” a comprehensive home-based cardiac rehabilitation model, and received one of four awards from the inaugural President’s Engagement Prize.

16 A Nurse for Justice

Dr. Kathleen M. Brown has devoted her career to fusing nursing and criminal law to offer help and inspire hope. 18 The Clinical Educator and Autism Advocate

Dr. Margaret Souders is directly engaging students in her clinical practice and seeing them gain firsthand knowledge in working with a vulnerable population.

A Long Way to Go for Children’s Health and Welfare The Field Center for Children’s Policy, Practice & Research works to effect positive change on behalf of children and families.

130 Years of Nursing Education A look back at 130 years of nursing education and innovation at Penn.

d e pa rt m e n t s 24 Penn Nursing News 26

Alumni Connections

Alumni Notes

34 Penn Nursing Babies 35

In Memoriam

37 Calendar

www.nursing.upenn.edu

DEAN’S MESSAGE:

The Fight Forward I am proud of every story that we share in UPfront as they highlight the incredible and impactful work of our faculty, students, alumni, staff and friends. But the cover story in this issue, A Long and Ongoing Fight, was an opportunity for me to reflect on my journey at Penn Nursing when I arrived as an assistant professor and engaged with a broad, dynamic team of researchers, practitioners and community leaders focused on stemming the tide of a global epidemic. It has been 35 years since the first cases of AIDS were reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since then, many milestones have been achieved in the fight against this disease that has infected 71 million people and caused 34 million to die. This anniversary gives me pause to consider the long way we have come in managing this crisis, and the ongoing work still needed to make it possible for better, more effective and affordable HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment therapies around the world. I am proud that my research and the research of many colleagues here at Penn Nursing has been part of this effort to address this healthcare crisis. Our cover story illustrates how that effort continues at Penn Nursing with new and exciting research to advance innovative HIV testing, treatment and education programs. Until we can have an

AIDS-free world, Penn Nursing will dedicate our time and expertise to the fight.

Leading to a healthier future In addition, this issue of UPfront is an opportunity for you to learn more about an outstanding history of nursing education at Penn Nursing and to meet some of our faculty and students who are having remarkable impact on the health and lives of individuals and communities. Our midwifery master’s program will soon celebrate the graduation of our 500th nurse-midwife. In Call the Nurse-Midwife, learn about a program that graduates master’s-prepared nurse-midwives who are effective clinicians, skilled advocates for their clients and forthright leaders in the healthcare community.

You can read about Kathy Brown, CRNP, PhD, FAAN, and learn how she and her students are helping to make a difference in the lives of the most vulnerable members of our society by fighting for justice. We feature an Op-Ed piece by Cindy Connolly, Phd, RN, PNP, FAAN, whose concern for the welfare of children has manifested in a clarion call to talk about the issues of race, class, ethnicity and religion that are affecting our ability to erase child poverty in this country. You will be inspired by Jodi Feinberg RN, Nu’15, one of the first students to win the inaugural President’s Engagement Prize at Penn. Jodi spent her Year of Engagement developing a comprehensive cardiac rehabilitation model for home care. We then pause to celebrate with the HUP Nursing Alumni Association as we mark 130 years of shaping nurse education at Penn and reflect on changes in nurse education as we responded to healthcare, economic, political and social forces.

Be engaged I am proud that Penn Nursing’s mission to improve health and healthcare through nursing science education, practice and local and global engagement is recognized around the world. Our extensive network of alumni, parents, friends and partners is an important part of our ability to accomplish that mission. With you and through you, we continue to forward our efforts to advance science, transform care, develop leaders and engage diverse communities – all with the goal of leading to a healthier future. Alumni Connections pages and events calendar are the place to find a home for your energy, enthusiasm and passion for Penn Nursing. Come back for Homecoming,

register for one of our webinar lectures, attend a Penn Nursing on the Road event in your city or connect with fellow alumni on our LinkedIn page. As I enter the third year as Dean of this remarkable School, I look forward to working together and writing the first chapter in the next 130 years of nursing at Penn and in our continuing effort to lead to a healthier future for all. Thank you for your support and engagement.

ANTONIA M. VILLARRUEL, PhD, RN, FAAN The Margaret Bond Simon Dean of Nursing

UPfront | Fall 2016

A Long and Ongoing Fight Against HIV/AIDS On June 5, 1981, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report describing cases of a rare lung infection diagnosed in five young, previously healthy gay men in Los Angeles. The men also showed symptoms of other unusual infections, indicating their immune systems were not functioning normally. Two had died by the time the article was published. This was the first official report of what would soon become known as the AIDS epidemic.

In July of that same year, the New York Times reported 41 cases of Kaposi sarcoma – a rare and aggressive soft tissue cancer – affecting gay men in New York and California. By the end of 1981, there were 270 reported cases of severe immune deficiency among gay men and 121 had died.

Beginning the battle “It was a horrific time, and there was so much fear,” says Christopher Coleman, PhD, MS, MPH, FAAN, Fagin Term Associate Professor of Nursing and MultiCultural Diversity at Penn Nursing and associate professor of nursing in psychiatry at the School of Medicine. “I was still a nursing undergraduate out in Washington in the early 1980s, and my classmates and I were told we weren’t allowed to care for anyone with an HIV/AIDS diagnosis. I cared for a young female with HIV anyway, which propelled me to pursue advocacy.” Dr. Coleman notes that, at the time, it was not unusual to see people on the street covered in Kaposi

sarcoma lesions. He lost several friends within a matter of months. And misinformation was rampant. “Because of the lack of response by the government, so many young people senselessly died,” he says. “Many families dealing with sick sons or daughters just abandoned them. I saw this firsthand when I took a job in an AIDS hospice center. Doctors and nurses refused to care for people with AIDS because they hadn’t been trained. Funeral homes refused to pick up the bodies.” Dr. Coleman says that though media at the time classified HIV/AIDS as a gay men’s affliction, there were women and heterosexual AfricanAmerican people slipping through the cracks. “A few brave nurses decided to educate ourselves and take care of people with the virus,” he says. “For my master’s program, I focused on

Coleman

www.nursing.upenn.edu

understanding the stigma of HIV. Then, when I decided to get my PhD, I moved to San Francisco. It was the early ‘90s, and that stigma wasn’t as pervasive. I focused on African-American men and women affected by HIV and AIDS and how they were coping with the diagnosis in the context of religion and spirituality.” Dr. Coleman continued his post-doctoral work at the University of California, Los Angeles, studying people who were now aging with the virus, thanks to the introduction of protease inhibitors. He wanted to know what toll the illness took on their bodies over time and if long-term survivors were still engaging in high-risk behaviors. In 2001, he was awarded a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study HIV-related risk behaviors in middle-aged and older African-American men – including those presenting themselves as heterosexual despite homosexual encounters and exposing their wives and partners to the virus. He developed effective interventions in this area. In 2004, Dr. Coleman joined Penn Nursing – an institution already enveloped in the HIV/AIDS fight for more than two decades – to continue his work.

Laying fundamental foundations

“By the time I arrived at Penn Nursing to serve as an assistant professor in 1995, it was almost the second phase of the epidemic,” says Antonia Villarruel, PhD, RN, FAAN, professor and Margaret Bond Simon

UPfront | Fall 2016

Dean of Nursing. “HIV/AIDS was no longer just a ‘gay disease.‘ There was an increased incidence among African-American and Latino populations, but there were no effective interventions.” This changed, says Dr. Villarruel, because of the work of Loretta Sweet Jemmott, PhD, FAAN, RN, professor emerita of nursing, and her husband John B. Jemmott, III, PhD. Over two decades, Dr. Jemmott and her colleagues conducted a series of behavioral intervention trials aimed at increasing safer sex behaviors among minority youth and women. Their trials demonstrated remarkable success in reducing HIV risk-associated behaviors among adolescents and women, and several of Dr. Jemmott’s evidencebased interventions have been translated into programs used nationally and internationally by community-based organizations and clinics in high-risk urban areas. During her time at Penn Nursing, her research brought in millions of dollars in NIH funding. “When I came to Penn, I was fortunate to work with Loretta and John on effective interventions for Latino adolescents, specifically those in Philadelphia,” says Dr. Villarruel. “We began to create a vision of how these could apply to Latinos across the country and in Latin America.” Today those interventions are being utilized in communities across the country and the globe, including in Puerto Rico and Mexico.

Dr. Villarruel says being part of an interdisciplinary group at Penn also helped strengthen Penn Nursing’s fight against HIV/AIDS and establish their role as leaders in it. “The work by Linda Aiken, PhD, FAAN, FRCN, RN, has also been integral to our progress,” she notes. “Her participation in the Penn Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) demonstrated the leadership role of nurses and nursing science.” The first large-scale research conducted by the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research after its establishment in 1988 concerned the impact of nursing care models to improve outcomes for acutely ill AIDS patients and contributed to the establishment of Penn’s NIH-funded CFAR. Dr. Aiken, Claire M. Fagin Leadership Professor in Nursing, professor of sociology and director of the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research, says her role in CFAR was very broad and not limited to nursing. She helped develop pilot initiatives that funded nursing research, among other topics. “The Behavioral and Social Science Program and Research Core I directed in Penn’s CFAR contributed to the development of multiple funded NIH studies published in leading scientific journals documenting the substantial impact of nursing on HIV care and prevention,” explains Dr. Aiken. “I played a leadership role across the university and helped make nursing research a more central focus of CFAR, ensuring a number of professors’ work on nursing was supported, including Nancy Hanrahan and Loretta and John Jemmott at Penn Nursing and Michael Blank in the Department of Psychiatry at the School of Medicine.”

Making the case for nurse-led care According to Dr. Aiken, the AIDS epidemic created the need for, and the opportunity to learn from, nurse-led, patient-centered care models for hospitalized AIDS patients. Fearing a shortage of nurses who would risk HIV transmission to care for AIDS patients, hospitals gave nurses unprecedented control and autonomy to organize and lead dedicated AIDS care units. Nurses took this opportunity to create model, patient-centered care units with interprofessional care teams and collegial partnerships between doctors and nurses. Dr. Aiken was funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research at the NIH to compare patient outcomes in dedicated AIDS units with conventional care in scattered beds on medical units. She and her colleagues documented lower patient mortality and higher patient satisfaction, as

well as lower nurse burnout and job dissatisfaction on the nurse-led dedicated AIDS units due to lower nurse workloads and better work environments. These findings helped inform today’s successful Magnet Recognition program that adopted the principles of nurse autonomy and engagement in hospital governance that characterized the dedicated AIDS units. In the early 1990s, Dr. Aiken’s team competed successfully for a NIH award to enhance HIV prevention in Chile through a nurse-led program that identified patients in primary care settings at risk for HIV infection and intervened with HIV education, testing and partner notification. The Chilean HIV prevention study also laid the groundwork for a successful NIH grant to test the outcomes in the United States of a nurse-led initiative to improve outcomes for mentally ill patients in community settings who were HIV infected, comparing home visits by nurse practitioners with conventional, community-based mental health services. The intervention was successful in improving patients’ adherence to both psychotropic and HIV drugs, reducing HIV viral load and the risk of new infections, reducing transmission risk behaviors and improving patients’ social functioning.

Overcoming changing challenges “These nursing researchers laid the foundation for those addressing HIV/AIDS issues today,” says Dr. Villarruel. “In this new era, we have opportunities for prevention and treatment. Now, we’re looking at the complexities of various affected and at-risk populations. We’re so excited to have these nurse researchers bringing nuances to the field which is what science is supposed to do.” Growing up in Puerto Rico during the first two decades of the HIV epidemic had a pivotal impact on

www.nursing.upenn.edu

Bauermeister

Stevens

José Bauermeister, PhD, MPH, Presidential Associate

Professor of Nursing. “As the epidemic took shape and grew, so did the deadly stereotype that being gay was a presumed precursor of HIV,” explains Dr. Bauermeister, who joined Penn Nursing from the University of Michigan in July. “This message became personally significant when I came out of the closet during my adolescence. This misconceived stereotype shadowed the truth: that some populations – sexual and gender minorities and those living in socioeconomically disadvantaged communities – have a greater vulnerability to HIV/AIDS than others because they experience social marginalization.” Dr. Bauermeister decided to pursue a career in public health to conduct applied research and develop HIV prevention interventions. Over the past 15 years, he’s sought to identify social processes that increase HIV risk in order to develop programs and services to prevent new infections. Much of his research focuses on men who have sex with men (MSM) because national HIV/AIDS incidence data indicates a resurgence of new infections among young men who fit this description. “Although comprising approximately two percent of the population in the United States, MSM accounted for more than 78 percent of new infections among males in 2010,” says Dr. Bauermeister. “Young MSM (ages 13-24), in particular, accounted for more than 72 percent of new infections among youth in 2010. Beyond this age disparity, a disproportionate number of new HIV cases among young MSM (YMSM) occurs within racial and ethnic minority groups, specifically African-Americans and Latinos. Despite clear and evident inequities, we have few evidencebased HIV prevention interventions specific to the needs of these young men. And among evidencebased programs that do exist for MSM, we have limited culturally- and developmentally- adapted content for these young people.” Dr. Bauermeister’s current research focuses on challenging stereotypes and assumptions about why YMSM engage in risk behaviors; developing HIV and sexually transmitted infection-prevention programs that are reflective of, and embedded in, the diverse

UPfront | Fall 2016

Brawner

Teitelman

social settings where YMSM interact; and uncovering interdisciplinary strategies to inform HIV prevention interventions for adolescents and young adults. So far, he’s helped develop technology-assisted interventions including a link-to-care web application, an online intervention tool that delivers tailored HIV-prevention content to high-risk young gay and bisexual men who meet partners online and a mobile messaging intervention designed to change key risk and preventive behaviors in HIV-negative and HIVpositive MSM. In addition, he has worked with biomedical researchers to understand how social context and behaviors affect people’s adherence to protective microbicide treatments. And, he’s worked to integrate high-risk substance use interventions with HIV prevention and care services.

Taking a technological approach Like Bauermeister, Robin Stevens, PhD, MPH, assistant professor of nursing, is also working on mediainformed HIV-prevention interventions to reach young adults – but hers are focused on a broader youth population. “I have two lines of research – how media impacts the way people behave and how we can use media and technology-based interventions to intervene and improve people’s overall and sexual health,” explains Dr. Stevens. “I’m currently investigating social media to see how young people talk about sex, alcohol, drugs and violence and to test how this influences behavior. Some people ‘perform’ on social media to get more ‘likes’ or ‘re-tweets,’ and this creates a picture of youth culture in which people are presenting themselves as riskier than they may actually be in practice. Some youth may not be able to differentiate between the performance and the reality.” These perceptions can greatly influence behavior, she says. Dr. Stevens is also trying to provide health information to youth and young adults through their smartphones. “With our text messaging app, we try to tap into young people’s attitudes, beliefs and barriers to find out why they’re not practicing safe sex and to change those behaviors,” she says. “Instead of telling them to

practice safe sex, which they already know, we might remind them that doing so is a way to show one’s partner more love or tell them how to make condom use more fun and pleasurable.” She is also a visiting professor at the University of California, San Francisco Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS), where she is mentored by leading HIV investigators to refine her program of work in line with NIH priorities. Dr. Stevens says she’s proud to stand and expand upon the work of the first generation of Penn Nursing’s HIV pioneers. “Penn Nursing has been a powerhouse regionally, nationally and internationally,” she says. “We have a foundation of solid methodological approaches and a deep relationship with the community. There’s also a huge amount of support for doing community engaged research. It takes time to build these partnerships, but Penn Nursing fully supports that work.”

Promoting proactive programs Also keeping up with the “changing face of HIV” is Bridgette Brawner, PhD, APRN, assistant professor of nursing. Much of her research is focused on the mental and physical health of urban women and girls and how these factors protect against or increase the risk for adverse sexual health outcomes. “What we’ve found is that symptoms that go along with mental illness – loneliness, guilt, sadness and other emotional concerns– may lead women to

engage in behaviors they typically wouldn’t if they were feeling differently,” says Dr. Brawner. “Impulsiveness related to some of these conditions might impair their ability to stop and think through a situation before engaging in a risk behavior.” Dr. Brawner is working to provide these young women, as well as other vulnerable populations, with tools for dealing with these issues through individual and group-level skills-building social and community programs. “Whether we’re talking about women, youth, racial and ethnic minorities, or other groups, making strides in HIV prevention and treatment requires a multi-pronged approach,” she explains. “In addition to changing individual behaviors, we must improve HIV-related resources in communities and eradicate stigma associated with visiting those sites. We need to intervene with policy and practice changes, as well as biomedical measures, like pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and microbicides, to attack the issue from all sides. And, we need to make sure that even though HIV is now considered a chronic disease, it doesn’t fall off the radar. Yes, we can manage the disease, but some people are still testing too late, having issues accessing medicine or failing to adhere to treatments.” Dr. Brawner says there is still a need to address the ever-evolving face of the pandemic with proactive, rather than reactive, messaging and programs. “Look at Indiana’s recent HIV outbreak associated with the local heroin epidemic which they’re now struggling to get ahead of,” she says. “Yes, there are

www.nursing.upenn.edu

specific groups in which there’s been a statistically greater burden of disease, but we can’t continue to further marginalize these groups while ignoring other at-risk communities. This is a human issue and we all need to respond.”

Exploring the role of relationships With PrEP still a fairly new tool for HIV prevention, Anne M. Teitelman, PhD, FNP-BC, FAANP, FAAN, Patricia Bleznak Silverstein and Howard A. Silverstein Endowed Term Chair in Global Women’s Health Associate Professor of Nursing, is developing interventions to increase awareness and uptake, especially among women. “I’m currently focused on reaching women at a high risk for HIV to let them know about this daily prevention pill,” says Dr. Teitelman. “Very few women even know it exists. And, we face challenges in uptake, because women who may be at the most risk – those who have violent partners, those who are homeless, IV drug users or sex workers – have many other vulnerabilities that make it difficult to take a pill every day. Poverty, mental health issues and even having children compound these factors.” Therefore, effective prevention interventions need to offer an array of options that include PrEP and increase access to HIV testing. In the case of adolescent girls and young women at risk for partner abuse – although clear links exist between coercion, manipulation and violence in relationships and the incidence of unplanned pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections and HIV – there are few interventions focused on relationships.

To address that gap, Dr. Teitelman says, “I developed and evaluated an HIV-focused intervention for adolescent girls, which we called ‘Stand Up Together.’ Funded through NIH, it included a healthy relationship component – how to identify unhealthy relationships, how to get out of them and how relationship dynamics play a role in making decisions regarding safer sex.” Moving from her clinical role as a family nurse practitioner into deeper research, she has collaborated with neuroscientists to study brain biomarkers and their role in sexual risk and decision making and how histories of abuse or maltreatment affected those biomarkers – findings she hopes to apply to future HIV prevention interventions. In her research, she has also worked to promote human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine adherence among young, minority women in order to eradicate the almost-100-percent preventable cervical cancer and learned lessons she hopes to adapt to her HIV PrEP work. Dr. Teitelman is also an award-winning app developer. She has developed two mobile apps and other technology-based interventions to more effectively reach high-risk young women with relevant messaging and relatable stories “We work closely with community advisory boards comprised of women in the population we’re targeting,” she says. “We’ve also brought in consultants from domestic violence prevention groups in the city to ensure that our curriculum is sensitive and current.” About 1 in 5 new HIV infections in the United States occur among women and adolescent girls, and women represent the majority of those affected globally, so there is a great need to implement targeted interventions for women and girls in the continuing fight against HIV. Penn Nursing is taking a leading role in that effort. “Researchers here are interested in vulnerable and marginalized populations and are committed to working with communities to shed light on these groups, address the disparities and make an impact in the ever-evolving quest for prevention and more effective treatment,” adds Dr. Teitelman.

Forging ahead for a healthier future “Funding for this area of research wasn’t always easy to come by despite money set aside to address HIV/ AIDS issues,” says Dr. Villarruel. “Because of issues surrounding homophobia and teaching kids about safe sex, HIV/AIDS researchers have always been under attack. Our scientists, and those across the country,

UPfront | Fall 2016

pursued and forged ahead, and community groups and agencies cared enough to help us address these issues.” Dr. Coleman says he never thought he’d live to see the day when researchers and policymakers would be faced with addressing long-term care planning issues for people living with HIV. But that day has come – evidence of great strides made over 35 years. At the same time, he says, because it’s no longer a ‘state of emergency,’ young people – especially those who didn’t live through those terrible first years – are becoming complacent and taking high risks with their behaviors. “It’s our job to ensure they understand that the risks and repercussions are still very real and to never give up the fight for better preventive interventions across the spectrum as well effective ways to manage the condition and reduce continuing high-risk behaviors among those now living with – not dying of – the disease.” Dr. Bauermeister says the future of HIV prevention and care is promising. “Alongside behavioral strategies, we now have a biomedical prevention strategy with PrEP, as well as

promising developments in the microbicide arena,” he explains. “Microbicides are products like vaginal rings and rectal gels that incorporate antiretroviral drugs. If found to be effective, they are intended to protect against HIV during sex. As we develop and clinically evaluate these products, I work with biomedical researchers to understand and characterize how clinical participants’ social context and behaviors affect their acceptance and adherence. We also are making strides in improving the delivery of prevention and care services for the most vulnerable populations.” Penn Nursing is poised to continue leading this fight, adds Dr. Brawner, because faculty are invested in training the next generation of HIV researchers and clinicians while simultaneously engaging in studies to answer the pandemic’s most pressing questions. “We need to keep our finger on the pulse of HIV/ AIDS. We don’t want to play catch-up,” she explains. “It’s a smart virus that is always mutating and transforming, and we have to keep it at the forefront of our minds to protect future generations. I would love to see us get to a place where we’ve brought the number of new infections down to zero and improved quality of life for those affected.”

www.nursing.upenn.edu

Call the Nurse-Midwife In the early 1980s, the women’s health movement was giving birth to new ideas about childbearing, contraception and well-woman gynecology. While midwifery had been expanding for some time throughout the United States in underserved areas of healthcare need, the women’s movement created an increasing demand for midwifery care among middle and upper class women who were looking for a more humanistic alternative to the care offered then by traditional medicine. The time was right for Penn Nursing to establish a midwifery graduate education program to help meet this increasing demand. “Dr. Fagin, Penn Nursing’s dean at the time, was a leader in nursing and healthcare, and she was convinced that nurse-midwives and nurse practitioners were the primary care providers of the future,” explains Joyce Thompson, DrPH, CNM, FAAN, FACNM, the first director of the school’s midwifery program. Dr. Thompson was recruited in 1979 to develop both the midwifery graduate program and a private midwifery practice at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) – a novelty in the nursing education setting at the time.

UPfront | Fall 2016

“We started with a class of eight students in 1980 and did the clinical supervision at Pennsylvania Hospital and HUP,” she explains. “By the second year, we had a large group of midwifery practices across the state that welcomed our students for their final clinical experiences. At the time, we were one of only a few midwifery programs that offered the majority of advanced midwifery education in community-based midwife practices.”

Graduating comprehensively skilled midwives Today, the program is close to graduating its 500th midwife. It is one of only 39 midwifery programs to be fully accredited by the Accreditation Commission for Midwifery Education (ACME), the national organization that ensures that accredited programs are offering comprehensive knowledge and skills needed to practice as a midwife in the United States. And, the program was one of the first to offer students an opportunity to graduate with dual certification as midwives and women’s healthcare nurse practitioners. As it has always done, Penn Nursing’s midwifery program continues to lead in education innovation that produces comprehensively trained midwives.

An emphasis on public policy began with Penn midwifery faculty member, Sr. Teresita Hinnegan, MSN, CNM, who received a federal grant that supported midwifery student projects in maternal/ child health in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia and Washington, D.C. “We place a strong emphasis on health policy and the role it plays in women’s health beyond the physical exam or delivery room,” explains William F. McCool, PhD, CNM, RN, FACNM, FAAN, Director of the Midwifery Graduate Program. “That includes encouraging students to join committees and task forces in the American College of Nurse-Midwives and attend lobby days in Harrisburg and Washington, D.C.”

Innovating midwifery curriculum Penn’s midwifery program is one of a few in the nation that offers students clinical experience in a wide range of settings, including births at home, birth centers, small community hospitals and tertiary/quaternary academic medical centers. “These opportunities enable students to experience how midwifery care can be extended to women no matter in what settings they choose to access primary, pregnancy and childbirth care. This approach to clinical education also helps graduate students recognize which locations of healthcare delivery are best for them in terms of their careers,” explains Dr. McCool. Reaching more women – including those in remote locations – has been a goal for the program almost since its inception. In 1994, under the leadership of Sr. Hinnegan, the program became an early adopter of distance learning when it initiated a network of live broadcasts across Pennsylvania that allowed nurses from rural, underserved regions of the state to attend midwifery classes at Penn. “The program was ahead of its time – there was no Skype or similar software then. But it lasted seven years and enabled graduates to stay in their communities while earning their MSN in midwifery, and then remain in their communities to offer care to women of all ages,” says Dr. McCool Today, the Penn Nursing midwifery program continues to advance education using modern simulation technology. In the 7,000-square-foot Helene Fuld Pavilion for Innovative Learning, students in the nurse-midwifery master’s program gain skills in a variety of procedures in the simulation lab, including gynecological and prenatal visits, Pap smears, IUD placements and suturing. They also learn hand skills and how to manage emergency situations such as shoulder dystocia, postpartum hemorrhage and newborn resuscitation, all in a safe

and controlled environment. Simulation sessions are videoed and reviewed for debriefing, evaluation and reflection. “Simulation has been an integral part of the midwifery program since its inception,” says Barbara Reale, MSN, CNM, FACNM, Advanced Senior Lecturer A. “We provide a range of learning scenarios in the sim lab, from an OR to a labor and birth room to a homebirth setting. And, the labs give us the opportunity to have our students learn in teams with nurse practitioner and nursing students and OB/GYN residents.” The high-tech, high-touch Fuld Pavilion increases the experiential learning opportunities for nursemidwives. “We are able to provide many learning scenarios, from normal labor and birth to obstetrical emergencies. In the near future, we are looking forward to acquiring a new mannequin that independently simulates labors and births,” says Reale.

Making care more accessible The need is greater than ever for advanced practice nurses and midwives to provide more accessible primary and preventive care to people across the country. To make this happen, adding more midwifery students each year requires greater access to clinical sites and preceptors (practicing professionals in the clinical setting) to help larger numbers of midwifery students develop their knowledge and skills in the field. As part of the Affordable Care Act, a unique Graduate Nurse Education Demonstration project was initiated by the federal government to rapidly increase the supply of APRNs. Penn Nursing is one of only five centers in the project and the only one of the five to have midwives factored into program goals. “Penn midwifery students have historically been welcome in most sites where midwives are able to precept, so our focus turned toward large academic settings, like the University of Pennsylvania Health System, where placements seemed low in relation to the vast number of clinical opportunities,” says Reale. Three years into the five-year project, the midwifery program has established a deeper presence in academic settings, with midwifery students learning side by side with other clinical team members. “We have been able to increase our admissions numbers and graduates using this approach, as well as become part of an overall coordinated system of clinical site placement that recognizes preceptors for the work they do to help teach Penn midwives and nurse practitioner students,” she adds.

www.nursing.upenn.edu

Impacting midwifery care around the world Penn Nursing has long been known for its impact on global health, particularly for women in developing nations, and the midwifery program is no exception. Since 1988, Penn has been a WHO Collaborating Centre for Nursing and Midwifery Leadership, and it holds the honor of being the first nursing school in the U.S. to gain this designation. Dr. Thompson was the Director of the Collaborating Center from 1993 to 2001 and helped make midwifery recognized as a unique profession in the global arena. “All of our midwifery faculty have been involved in global projects, ranging from working with students to offer care and health education in rural parts of Central America and Haiti, to working with international organizations involved in healthcare policy,” says Dr. McCool. “Training other midwives is a major part of our vision for our program.” “Our faculty are committed to working with midwives in other countries,” says Mamie Guidera, MSN, CNM, FACNM, Advanced Senior Lecturer A. “We have the resources to influence education and create more

UPfront | Fall 2016

midwives around the world, and we take that responsibility seriously.” The fruit of that broad vision is evident in many countries, including Guatemala, where Guidera and Dawn C. Durain, CNM, MPH, FACNM, Advanced Senior Lecturer A, regularly teach women’s health seminars and provide training on the provision of clinical services to local traditional birth attendants. “Over time, we have seen these traditional birth attendants become adept at understanding what is normal, what is an emergency and how to make the proper decisions about transfer into the formal healthcare system,” explains Guidera. Faculty like Kimberly Trout, PhD, CNM, APRN, Assistant Professor of Women’s Health, are actively partnering to promote midwifery professional development, expand the midwifery workforce and reduce the attrition of midwives in Haiti. In addition, current midwifery faculty have traveled to countries that include Egypt, India and Botswana to update midwives, nurses and physicians on obstetrical care advances, as well as research techniques for investigating healthcare outcomes in their respective nations.

During many of those teaching trips, graduate students accompany faculty to support their education efforts. “This gives students experience in understanding different cultural beliefs and practices in care, and sometimes plants the seed for future involvement in global education,” says Guidera. Now moving into its 36th year, Penn Nursing’s midwifery program is one of the most well-respected in the nation. It has always appeared in the top three of U.S. News & World Report rankings of midwifery

programs nationwide and has earned the number-one status several times. Yet, its success is truly defined by the number of its graduates who have distinguished themselves in their careers. “We have graduates making an impact in global health caring for the underserved, in policy and clinical leadership, in entrepreneurial capacities, in the military and in specialty care practices around the world,” says Dr. McCool. “Penn Nursing midwives are everywhere!”

The Midwife Advocate During a high school job as a nurse assistant at a small community hospital, Tonia Moore Davis, GNu’02, MSN, CNM, FACNM, often found herself taking the long route in and out of the hospital in order to pass by the newborn nursery and maternity services ward. “There was something calling me to serve women and babies with my future career,” she says. Good thing she heeded that call. Moore Davis’ career has included service as the clinical practice manager at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing in Tennessee, and a national leadership in nurse-midwifery and health policy.

“When I entered Penn’s nurse-midwifery program, it was clear that public policy was a key thread throughout the curriculum,” she explains. “Penn not only prepared me to be a nurse-midwife but to also contribute to leading the profession in the early years of my career.”

As a scholar, her research interests include the use of mindfulness-based strategies in preterm birth risk reduction and epigenetic influences on perinatal health.

Recently inducted as a fellow of the American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM), Moore Davis’ national ACNM leadership has included service to its Division of Standards and Practices and spearheading the ACNM Benchmarking Project. As faculty for Vanderbilt University, she has been instrumental in curriculum redesign that incorporates innovative teaching strategies.

“Penn’s nurse-midwifery program helped me recognize and appreciate the need for clinicians to be public policy advocates for not only their professional discipline but also for the clients whom they serve,” she says.

The Military Midwife Hernandez, who is stationed at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Okinawa, Japan, enlisted in the Navy 23 years ago partly to continue her family’s proud military tradition, as well as to gain experience in the medical field and earn her college degree.

From teaching ways to prevent postpartum and newborn morbidity and mortality in Central America, delivering new life onboard a hospital ship in the midst of the devastation of an earthquake, or helping to stand up for midwifery education and women’s health services in Afghanistan, military midwives like Lieutenant Commander Andrea Hernandez, GNu’14, MSN, CNM make an impact around

the world. “Military midwives and private-sector midwives are similar in that we all provide comprehensive holistic care to women throughout the lifespan,” explains Hernandez. “We primarily care for military members and their beneficiaries. However, we also provide disaster relief and humanitarian assistance around the world.”

While military midwives typically practice in hospital settings and abide by a rank structure, the biggest differences from their civilian counterparts are their mission and populations they serve. “First and foremost, regardless of the branch of service, we are worldwide deployable in service to our country, under oath to support and defend the Constitution and/or represent the interests of the United States,” she says.

“The expectations at Penn Nursing to practice evidence-based healthcare closely parallel the standards in Navy medicine,” she says. “Penn provided me with an excellent academic foundation, a network of resources and a broad clinical base from which to begin my career as an advanced practice nurse in the U.S. Navy.”

www.nursing.upenn.edu

Penn Presidential Engagement Prize Winner Leads the Way As an undergraduate student, Jodi L. Feinberg, Nu’15, RN, BSN came face-to-face with a startling statistic: Only 14 percent of patients who have a heart attack attend outpatient cardiac rehabilitation programs even though the patients who receive cardiac rehab stay healthier and are better able to avoid hospitalization. Feinberg wondered if developing a program that increased accessibility to cardiac rehab would result in better outcomes. “I wanted to increase access to the benefits of cardiac rehab through an alternate delivery model that would help elderly, homebound patients. As a nurse, I realized I could improve patient care if I understood the system and advocated to improve it,” she explains. With mentorship from Terri Lipman, PhD, CRNP, FAAN, Mirian Stirl Endowed Term Professor of Nutrition, Professor of Nursing of Children and Assistant Dean for Community Engagement, Feinberg developed “Home, Heart, Health (HHH): Engaging the Community in Bridging the Gap,” a comprehensive home-based cardiac rehabilitation model. Her project netted one of the four awards from the inaugural President’s Engagement Prize.

UPfront | Fall 2016

“The President’s Engagement Prize is truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the world,” says Feinberg. The $100,000 prize allowed Feinberg to implement her pilot program in partnership with New York University Langone Medical Center (NYULMC) and the Visiting Nurses Services of New York (VNSNY). Prior to launch, Feinberg interviewed patients to better understand their needs. “I was surprised that many patients didn’t understand why they were hospitalized,” she says. “It’s unrealistic to expect patients to manage their disease independently when they lack awareness of their heart condition”. Further, patients said they could not attend outpatient rehab because of physical limitations, transportation issues and socioeconomic barriers. Feinberg proposed increasing access to cardiac rehab by modifying cardiac rehab services for the home-care setting. Feinberg incorporated the patients’ input to develop a program and train interdisciplinary teams of registered nurses, physical therapists and occupational therapists to deliver the adapted cardiac rehab services. She created patient nutrition and exercise teaching tools for clinicians to use during visits.

During the pilot, 53 patients received an average of 11 visits from the teams over a one-month period. And the results were impressive: Patients’ symptoms, their ability to self-manage those symptoms and their decision-making markedly improved. Many reported making lifestyle changes and an increased awareness of their cardiac disease. “Of our patients, only 11 percent were readmitted to the hospital, while the national heart failure 30-day readmission rate is 24 percent,” says Feinberg. Feinberg’s findings will be published in The Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation and Prevention. She also will present her data at the national American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation meeting in New Orleans in September 2016. Once the data are disseminated nationally,

there is the potential to impact the care of patients with cardiovascular disease nationwide. Feinberg is currently employed on NYULMC Cardio Vascular Special Care Unit and additionally plans to conduct a larger study on the efficacy of home-based cardiac rehab. She continues to work with VNSNY, the country’s largest not-for-profit certified home health agency, to guide the clinicians who use her model and prepare for the expansion of the program. Feinberg hopes the program made possible by the President’s Engagement Prize inspires others. “With Penn’s vision and support, anything is possible, so dream big,” she says. “Together, we can impact healthcare’s evolving landscape and nursing can lead the way.”

About the President’s Engagement Prize President Amy Gutmann established the President’s Engagement Prize in 2014 to put Penn’s values and students’ knowledge to work to benefit humankind, a Penn Compact 2020 goal. Thanks to generous donors, winners receive $100,000 to implement their projects and $50,000 for living expenses so they can begin work they are passionate about after graduation. Seniors in Penn’s four undergraduate schools may apply for the annual prize by submitting a project proposal, budget, faculty recommendation and securing a faculty mentor and a community project partner agreement. Gutmann says winners are more than excellent students. “They possess an amazing ability and eagerness to put their knowledge to work.” She adds, “This prize enables students, immediately after Commencement, to go do something really big in the world.” Two of the three recipients of the 2016 President’s Engagement Prize have direct connections to Penn Nursing.

Melanie Mariano, Nu’15 will spend the

next year working with the Free Library of Philadelphia system to implement her project, “Reaching HEALthy: Health Expansion Across Libraries.” Through Reaching HEALthy, Mariano will be embedded in the Free Library’s Central Branch to connect individuals with resources to address existing health concerns, provide preventive care tips and offer in-house screenings for blood pressure, height, weight, vision and hearing, along with advice on what to do if the results fall outside normal ranges. “The library is a place of social capital; it’s a place people see as a safe haven,” Mariano says. “If I can provide library visitors something similar to what a health clinic can provide in a less-intimidating environment, then why shouldn’t a nurse be there?” Kriya Patel, C’16 was inspired when she took a course taught by Kathleen Brown, Practice Associate Professor in Penn Nursing, called “Women and Incarceration.” The students spent the semester learning about the city’s prison system and visiting

Riverside Correctional Facility, an all-female facility in Philadelphia, one day a week to provide interactive health workshops to prisoners. For her Year of Engagement, Kriya will work with women who are about to be discharged from Philadelphia’s Riverside Correctional Facility and will be mentored by Dr. Brown. The goal behind her project, “Coming Home to Continued Care,” is to help these women obtain identification and health insurance – both of which the vast majority lack – in order to ease their reentry into society. “At Riverside Jail right now,” Patel explains, “there are 622 women. But within the past 12 months, 5,200 different women have been released. Two-thirds of Riverside’s population is currently on medication for behavioral health issues; once released, however, prisoners typically receive just a five-day supply of medication.” Obtaining health insurance, Patel says, will help women who are about to be released continue their critical access to stabilizing medication.

www.nursing.upenn.edu

A Nurse for Justice Kathy Brown, CRNP, PhD, FAAN, stands among the remains of Cellblock 14 at Eastern State Penitentiary, once the most famous and expensive prison in the world. Operational from 1829 until 1971, the Eastern State Penitentiary is now a museum and historic site, open year-round, in the Fairmount section of Philadelphia.

Sexual assault victims. Prostitutes. Prison inmates. While the rest of the world often ignores these people, Kathleen M. Brown, CRNP, PhD, FAAN, Practice Associate Professor of Nursing, has devoted her career to fusing nursing and criminal law to offer them help that inspires hope. From developing an effective and comprehensive sexual assault response team protocol in Philadelphia, breaking the cycle of prostitution and drug addiction for women and reforming the Pennsylvania clemency practice for lifers, Dr. Brown puts her research, education and heart into helping the most vulnerable people. “That’s the nurse in me,” says Dr. Brown. “When I see there’s a need, I want to try to meet it.”

Meeting the needs of sexual assault survivors Shortly after her graduation as one of Penn Nursing’s first nurse practitioners, Dr. Brown was frequently asked to work with rape victims in area emergency departments. At that time, rape victims would often wait alone for care. And emergency department

UPfront | Fall 2016

workers had little guidance about how to collect evidence from the victims. “Can you imagine the horror of having been raped, then waiting alone for treatment?” asks Dr. Brown. “Everyone agreed something had to change, but no one was coming up with solutions.” While waiting with rape victims in the emergency department, Dr. Brown started to advocate for quick and compassionate treatment for them. She also studied how she could collect evidence from a victim in the most appropriate and effective way to connect a suspect to a crime scene. “There were no rape kits, no guides, no DNA forensics then. I was just trying to figure it out,” she says. That thought process led Dr. Brown to study Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANE) programs in other states and bring the knowledge to Philadelphia. She implemented the first sexual assault response team in Pennsylvania and launched SANE nationally and internationally. She has also taught hundreds of regional nurses how to effectively collect forensic evidence that can stand up in court and how to handle the emotionally charged nature of rape cases.

“You could say that was my launch into forensic nursing: that and my first times testifying in court,” she says. “Early on, I would testify in a rape case and the biggest hurdle would be prosecutors asking me who I was and why my expertise was germane.” She continued her advocacy and research, and her protocols have been implemented by the state and the American Prosecutors Research Institute, a division of the National Institute of Justice.

Advocacy for prostitutes Dr. Brown’s work with rape victims helped her form relationships with law enforcement officials and prosecutors, which uniquely positioned her as a trusted expert and change-maker. But she is quick to clarify that changing systems starts with getting to know the people within those systems – like drug-addicted prostitutes who bounce between jail cells and the street. “Prostitution is not something a little girl thinks about doing someday. Instead, it’s a means to survival when that little girl runs away from a violent and dysfunctional home and has no skills and no network for care,” explains Dr. Brown. “The addiction piece comes as a means to cope with the situation she finds herself in.” Dr. Brown believes that given enough time and support, prostitutes can leave the street and the drugs behind and not just survive, but thrive. “These young women do not belong in jail,” she says. “They need a safe place where they can get out of the cycle of victimization and incarceration.” She created the Breaking the Cycle program, which provides a home for these women, as well as treatment for addiction, mental healthcare and job training. “The key, we have found, is to work on all three aspects at once – mental health, addiction and job training. We’re getting them stable so they can effectively rebuild their lives,” she adds. This fall, Penn Nursing students will join Dr. Brown at Breaking the Cycle homes to conduct healthrelated training for the residents. “These students won’t find this challenge easy, but I guarantee they will find out what it feels like to make a real difference.”

Balancing social justice and reform

widened her focus to another forgotten population: life sentence prisoners. “There are people who are sentenced to life imprisonment who legitimately change and deserve an opportunity for clemency, the only way to commute a life sentence,” explains Dr. Brown. In Pennsylvania, the commutation process is steep and often unrewarding. Between 1994 and 2014, only six requests for commutation were granted. One prisoner, Thurmond Berry, applied for commutation five times over the 39 years he has been incarcerated at State Correctional Institution – Graterford. Berry was charged with being an accomplice in a robbery during which someone else killed a bystander. He was also, Dr. Brown reasoned, a perfect example of a person deserving of equitable justice. “I was trying to find a way to more effectively teach my students about social justice and reform and thought they should learn more about the commutation process in the Pennsylvania prison system,” she says. Dr. Brown broached the thought with the Department of Corrections and met with men in the lifers group at Graterford, then asked her class whether they would be willing to work on commutation appeals for certain prisoners, one prisoner at a time. “My students read all the records, dug deep into research and chose those they felt they could write an appeal for,” she explains. The students were even able to meet their clients through a sanctioned video conferencing program and helped with 20 applications for clemency. One of those was for Berry. “Up till then, my students had a great conceptual grasp of clemency, but it really hit home when they were able to see and speak with these men,” she adds. Berry was one of the first four people to get the board’s approval for commutation in six years. “For me, his release is a highlight of my entire career,” says Dr. Brown, who has since been appointed to the Advisory Council to the Board of Pardons for Pennsylvania. “This is what nursing is – meeting people where they live and finding a way to engage them to change protocols and policies for the better,” she says. “As nurses, we care about people. That’s what is important in this world.”

From helping to transition sex traffic victims off the street and back into productive life, Dr. Brown

www.nursing.upenn.edu

THE CLINICAL EDUCATOR AND AUTISM ADVOCATE Penn Nursing’s clinician educators are all about relationships. Through their practice, scholarship, patient care and teaching, they create deep and sustaining connections that inform nursing practice, advance knowledge and enhance care. Perhaps one of the biggest rewards for a clinician educator like Margaret Souders, PhD, CRNP, assistant professor of Human Genetics at Penn Nursing, is directly engaging students in her clinical practice and seeing them gain firsthand knowledge in working with a vulnerable population she is passionate about. “Nursing is a practice profession,” says Dr. Souders, whose practice in the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Department in the Autism Integrated Care Program at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) informs her teaching, research and scholarship. “My students participate in my clinical practice with me to learn how to diagnose autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and care for these children and their families. Not many nurses know a lot about ASD, because they’re often afraid to interface with sometimes-aggressive children.” Aggression in children with ASD can cause a vicious cycle of behavior problems, escalated stress and worsening behavior. This cycle can interfere with interventions to help the child with ASD. Souders has dedicated her career to finding ways to break that cycle, and encourages students to join her in her clinical practice and research in order to continue to build an important body of knowledge. “Margaret has been able to develop a really collaborative, team-based approach to caring for children with autism,” says Julie Fairman, PhD, RN, FAAN, Nightingale Professor of Nursing, chair of the Department of Biobehavioral Health Sciences and director emerita of the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing. “She works on both practice and research teams to improve care delivery to these children. That’s her strength, as is getting the services these children need and working on transitions of these services as they grow into young adults.” Dr. Fairman calls Dr. Souders “the ultimate example of how clinician educators combine education, research and practice.”

UPfront | Fall 2016

Preparing the next generation of ASD care providers Good clinician educators don’t just impart knowledge – they use their experience to impact teaching. As co-director of a minor in autism, Dr. Souders teaches three courses – one focused on the epidemiology of ASD, screening and diagnosis; another that outlines treatments for ASD; and a leadership course. “This summer, we created simulations to help nurses interface with very aggressive children,” she says. “Our goal is to teach them to de-escalate a situation without feeling scared. These simulations will help nurses gain confidence interacting with aggressive kids, re-direct behaviors and help families to feel that they’re being treated with dignity.” Dr. Fairman says these simulations are a very effective way to teach nursing students how to work with children in high-stress situations before they head into a clinic, or if clinical experience is not immediately available. Dr. Souders herself entered the field dealing with an aggressive child in a somewhat desperate situation. “I was a pediatric nurse practitioner at CHOP taking care of children with chronic illnesses on long-term respirator and ventilator support,” she says. “I got a call one day from the bio-behavioral unit at CHOP that they needed a nurse practitioner to help deal with a child who was very aggressive and selfinjurious, hitting her head 450 times in 15 minutes. I wasn’t afraid, and I was able to get through to her, conduct a physical exam and send her for a CT scan. I really like kids and think I have an instinctual way of interacting with them. I became fascinated with diagnosing children and helping families manage.”

Including students in revolutionary research to alleviate sleep symptoms Much of Dr. Souders’ research focuses on cognitive behavioral therapy modified for children with ASD and insomnia, a common problem in this population. She is enthusiastic about involving her students in her research. “As a result of this research, I can prepare nurses and occupational therapists to go into homes and make ecological changes that help parents create relaxing routines, activities and environments that will encourage their children to sleep,” she explains. Her experiences and drive to learn more in order to help her patients sets an example for her students.

After earning her bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in nursing from Penn Nursing, Dr. Souders completed a postdoctoral fellowship in sleep medicine, which prepared her for her unique role in addressing the connection between sleep and behavioral issues in children with ASD. “While I was pursuing my doctoral degree and caring for children in my clinical practice, I realized a lot of my kids didn’t sleep well and their parents were overwhelmed,” she says. “This was a big clinical problem with no studies or evidence to back up interventions. I decided to conduct my own studies and gather the data myself.” She recently completed a United States Department of Defense (DOD) grant project on the feasibility of tailored behavioral interventions for insomnia in children with ASD. Through her work, Dr. Souders has helped improve sleep for children with ASD by about an hour each night.

“Many of these children have severe anxiety or symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity (ADHD) disorder, so they’re always in a hyper-aroused state,” explains Dr. Souders. “Calming strategies and ecological changes can make a big difference. Blue light from TVs and other technology, pets in the bedroom and too many stuffed animals are some of the problems we see. For sleep, a child’s room should be cool and quiet, have an orangey glow that fades into darkness and be free of clutter.” Dr. Souders is now pursuing additional grants that will allow her to continue, and improve upon, these studies. And, she’s eager to continue working with a new generation of clinicians willing to take on the unique challenges that come with ASD. “Penn Nursing students are brilliant and innovative,” she says. “They just need to be exposed to really important bodies of knowledge and learn by doing in order to become excellent clinicians.”

Half of children who have autism have trouble falling or staying asleep, which may make their symptoms worse. Blue light from TVs and other technology can be part of the problem.

www.nursing.upenn.edu

A Long Way to Go for Children’s Health and Welfare By Cynthia Connolly, PhD, RN, PNP, FAAN, Associate Professor of Nursing; Co-faculty Director at Penn’s Field Center for Children’s Policy, Practice & Research; Senior Fellow, Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing I became interested in the political context of children’s health as a young nurse almost 40 years ago. I saw that some children and families received much more support than others. Public investments in cancer research and care, for example, dramatically reduced mortality rates for some pediatric cancers. But it seemed to me that other children, such as those in chronic pain, who suffered from mental illness, or were born with rare genetic disorders, received less than their share. Legislation’s impact on the health of children and families has always been direct and substantial. Before the 1965 Medicaid law, for example, poor children had no right to any care. And even today thousands of children in the United States lack insurance. Even more are “underinsured” meaning that an insurer will not pay for care a healthcare provider believes is essential. We have a weak social safety net for children and families. As a historian as well as a pediatric nurse, I know that there is nothing “inevitable” about poverty. One third of elderly Americans were once poor. But the 1935 Social Security Act reduced that number to ten percent. And a nation very similar to ours culturally, Great Britain, has been able to cut its child poverty rate in half over the last 10 years, so there’s an international model for change. And it is one that needs our immediate attention. Levels of poverty in American children remain stubbornly high. Nationally, 25 percent of children are poor. The number is much higher in Philadelphia where almost 50 percent live below the poverty threshold. Research tells us that poor children are sicker and more likely to develop chronic conditions that continue into adulthood.

My work at the Field Center for Children’s Policy, Practice & Research draws together my practice background, policy experience and expertise in historical research to effect positive change on behalf of children and families. The Center is a joint venture between Penn Nursing, the School of Social Policy & Practice, Penn Law, and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). Our work is multifaceted. We undertake research on how foster children can better access available resources for college, consult on legislation and mentor the next generation of nurses, doctors, lawyers, social workers and others on child welfare-related issues. A major strength of our work is an interdisciplinary commitment to identifying “gaps” in health, educational and social welfare systems. We recently completed a policy brief about poverty, for example that looked at the issue through a variety of lenses. In addition to my nursing perspective, I contributed my historical knowledge of how and why the American model to address child poverty evolved the way it did. This knowledge is essential: All laws reflect a series of compromises and negotiations. Attempts to affect positive change need to engage with that reality and consider the intended and unintended consequences of past action – and inaction. We owe children a healthy start. But too few children get that, ultimately impacting every nurse’s ability to deliver care in every setting. As such, we need to contribute our voices, energy and ideas to solving this problem. Nursing is a politically diverse profession and we do not need to speak with one monolithic voice. But, as the United States’ largest group of health professionals, we DO need to speak.

To learn more about child welfare and related issues, check out the Field Center’s webpage at http://impact.sp2.upenn.edu/fieldctr/

UPfront | Fall 2016

130 YearsNursing of Education It took 10 years of petitioning, but by 1886, the Board of Lady Visitors of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania had successfully opened the Training School for Nurses, where women could come to learn the science of nursing. That kind of perseverance and tenacity proved prescient: The advancement of nursing education since then has required leaders with vast amounts of energy, foresight and resolve. “Each dean found herself at the intersection of certain economic, social and political forces as the landscape for healthcare and higher education changed,” says Neville Strumpf, PhD, RN, FAAN, Interim Dean of Penn Nursing from 2000 to 2001. “Above all else, they recognized that nurses needed a sophisticated education and skill set to function in the healthcare settings of the time and dedicated themselves to advancing that goal.”

Developing the nursing education model At the turn of the 20th century, nurses learned as apprentices in hospital schools. Yet even at that time, the HUP Training School (precursor to the formal education of Penn nurses) applied advances in science and medicine to enhance the nursing curriculum. HUP Training School students learned about the newest medical innovations including radiology and anesthesiology, and graduated to become first-of-a-kind nurse leaders, including Philadelphia’s first OR nurse and nurse anesthetist. One of those early graduates, Theresa Lynch, EdD, RN, took the helm of her alma mater in 1942 to advance a focus on educating nurses in safe, evidence-based care – recognizing a nascent nursing science that needed to be integral to nursing education and practice. Economic, health and technologic advances at the time were affecting nursing education. People began

living longer, the country was on the brink of a baby boom and the construction of hospitals made healthcare increasingly accessible. Demand increased rapidly for nurses who could care for patients after complicated surgeries, administer new drug therapies and provide intensive care. “Dr. Lynch recognized what these changes in the healthcare landscape meant for educating nurses and advocated a collegiate education,” says Patricia D’Antonio, PhD, RN, FAAN, Killebrew-Censits Term Professor in Undergraduate Education; Chair, Family and Community Health department; and Director, Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing. “She was clear that nurses needed to know how to think critically, demonstrate specialized skills, communicate and manage and that a baccalaureate education would give them those tools.” At the time, there was the HUP School, as well as the basic Collegiate School of Nursing at Penn, which offered a five-year program leading to a bachelor of science in nursing. Dr. Lynch’s goal was to consolidate those programs and launch an independent school of nursing. That notion challenged the status quo: Most nurses then were still educated in hospital diploma programs, including those enrolled in the HUP program. “Dr. Lynch faced much opposition from university administration regarding the value of an independent school of nursing at Penn,” says Dr. Strumpf. In fact, when a promised merger of the nursing programs in the School of Education and Division of Medical Affairs didn’t happen, Dr. Lynch left the school, only to be called back a year later in 1950 to be named dean of the School of Nursing.

Lynch www.nursing.upenn.edu

“The Penn Nursing story, like all great stories, has moments of tension and strife, as well as achievement and success,” says Dr. D’Antonio. “Without thoughtful debate, creative vision and courage of conviction, nothing can change.”

Changing the status quo for educating nurses Dr. Lynch was ahead of her time in advocating for higher education – as was her successor, Dorothy Mereness, EdD, RN, FAAN, the School’s second Dean. Both women achieved advanced education at a time when postgraduate training for nurses consisted of internships in pediatrics or infection control, practicums in midwifery or anesthesiology or theory in public health. Before the 1950s, nurses seeking master’s degrees usually pursued them in administration or education. Perhaps that struggle was the impetus for both Drs. Lynch and Mereness to become leaders of change. “Both worked hard to ensure a rigorous educational program and standards and recruit the best students and faculty,” says Dr. Strumpf. Before her retirement, Dr. Lynch launched the graduate education division at Penn Nursing and Dr. Mereness cultivated its growth. During Dr. Mereness’ deanship (1965 to 1977), trends in the healthcare environment were again shaping nursing education. Healthcare was moving toward a patient-centric model, and nurses needed to learn more about a fuller range of patient needs beyond simple, basic care. The profession had reached a point at which more sophisticated educators were essential, putting pressure on university programs to prepare nurses as researchers, teachers and clinical practitioners. “Dr. Mereness recognized that for nursing education to have its fullest impact, it had to move away from standardized policies and practices and move toward

Merenes

UPfront | Fall 2016

Fagin

putting patients’ individual needs at the center of care,” says Dr. D’Antonio. To accomplish this, Dr. Mereness reorganized the School’s master’s programs to develop specializations in nursing. She raised admission standards, increased curriculum length and launched a graduate program for family nurse clinicians. “She was devoted to improving nursing education and the clinical skills of nurse practitioners,” says Dr. D’Antonio.

Expanding learning opportunities By the late 1970s, trends were again redefining education. Roles and expectations developed for the professional nurse, who often had an expanded scope of practice, including managing communitybased health centers and overseeing healthcare services companies. In addition, the women’s health movement coincided with an escalated interest in natural childbirth, increasing the need for nursemidwives. As expectations for nurses rose, so too did expectations for nursing education. In 1977, the University tasked the new Dean of the School of Nursing, Claire M Fagin, PhD, FAAN, RN, with the goal of making the School the leading nursing program in the country. “This was no small task, as the School came close to being closed, along with other schools in allied health, in the mid-70s,” explains Dr. Strumpf. “She was charged with a number of quality goals, all with high hurdles.” Chief among those hurdles was a changing healthcare delivery system. In order to graduate nurses at the top of their field, Penn Nursing had to deliver a rigorous education experience that melded disciplines like ethics, education, psychology, public health and more to enhance clinical decision-making.

Lang

Meleis

“Dr. Fagin recruited the best faculty she could find from across the country, established a committed Board of Overseers and developed strong partnerships with the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania as a firm foundation for her strategy,” says Dr. Strumpf. From that foundation, she grew the doctoral program and clinically focused master’s programs; launched the midwifery program and the PhD program; and established the Center for Nursing Research. The School quadrupled in size and established a strong research enterprise. It also earned its reputation as the number one nursing school in the country.

Building on a legacy of transformative education practice By the early 1990s, healthcare reform was under way and the managed care industry was growing. Nursing education was again evolving to meet those challenges. Norma M. Lang, PhD, RN, FAAN, FRCN, the School’s fourth Dean, was determined to form an academic laboratory for change in nursing education. In collaboration with faculty, she strengthened interdisciplinary educational opportunities at Penn Nursing to prepare students for the shift to more collaborative, integrated, interdisciplinary healthcare teams. Under the leadership of Penn Nursing’s fifth Dean, Afaf I. Meleis, PhD, DrPS(hon), FAAN, the curriculum at all levels underwent changes to increase focus on inter-professionalism, global health and preparing culturally sensitive and competent practitioners to care for diverse populations. In particular, the BSN curriculum underwent a major revision, to integrate more clinical opportunities and advanced technology

throughout the undergraduate experience. As a result of Dr. Meleis’s determination and recognition of the growing importance of simulated learning to prepare students for interdisciplinary care and futuristic trends, the School was able to open the Helene Fuld Pavilion for Innovative Learning and Simulation, a pioneering educational center. For more than 130 years, Penn Nursing has been synonymous with visionary leadership that not only brought acclaim to the School of Nursing, but also influenced numerous advances in nursing education. From delving into how students learn in order to deliver education in an equitable and effective manner, to engaging in collaborative pedagogy, Antonia M. Villarruel, PhD, RN, FAAN, Penn Nursing’s current Dean, has brought her own approach and innovative thinking to today’s challenges in nursing education. Recognized globally for her leadership in research, policy and practice, Dr. Villarruel is cultivating an environment of inquiry, learning and critical thinking that will write the next chapter of the Penn Nursing story. “What really characterizes Penn Nursing is our history of taking a long view of the present and the future in order to establish preeminence in research, teaching and practice,” says Dr. D’Antonio. “Our story has always been about producing a new generation of researchers, teachers and clinicians dedicated to leading healthcare into the future. But the one thing that has kept Penn Nursing so strong is our commitment to preparing students to improve healthcare systems and meet the needs of the individuals, families and communities we all serve.” www.nursing.upenn.edu

PENN NURSING NEWS Penn Nursing faculty and students are advancing science, delivering solutions and transforming policy and practice. You can learn more about their impact on health and healthcare at www.nursing.upenn.edu.

Interim Director Named for Penn Nursing’s Center for Global Women’s Health Wendy Grube, PhD, CRNP, Practice Associate Professor, has been appointed the Interim Director of the Center for Global Women’s Health. She has a long-standing commitment to global women’s health as demonstrated through her leadership in women’s health research, teaching and practice.

Her research focuses on promoting access to essential preventive healthcare for underserved populations and has informed strategies to decrease preventable deaths from cervical cancer in rural Appalachia. This work was essential to the creation of a cancer screening site for uninsured women in West Virginia, which has allowed hundreds of never- or rarely-screened women residing in an economically depressed rural region access to high quality, no-cost care. Internationally, Grube has directed a team of healthcare professionals to develop an evidence-based, allopathic clinical education program to expand the diagnostic and treatment capacity of traditional non-allopathic Indian practitioners in rural areas. Grube is also the director of Penn Nursing’s Women’s Health/Gender Related Care Nurse Practitioner program and the director of the Comparative Health Systems course in Thailand.

New Associate Dean for Practice Rosemary Polomano, PhD, RN, FAAN, Professor of Pain Practice, has been appointed Associate Dean for Practice at Penn Nursing. In this role, she will provide strategic vision and leadership for practice and community engagement and work closely with the School’s Assistant Dean for Community Engagement and with the Associate Deans for Academic Programs and Research/Innovation, as well as the Department Chairs, to ensure the integration of practice, education and research. Polomano will also collaborate with the Chief Nursing Officers at the University of Pennsylvania Health System, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Veteran’s Administration to advance clinical practice priorities.

Polomano is a well-recognized researcher, clinician and educator. Her research focuses on clarifying and identifying mechanisms for neuropathic pain, the impact of pain prevention strategies on short- and long-term pain outcomes for active military service members and veterans and on the treatment-related pain of cancer patients. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Institute of Nursing Research and the Department of Defense. She serves as co-director of the University of Pennsylvania’s NIH-designated Center of Excellence in Pain Education, where she leads a successful interprofessional course on pain science and practice with the schools of nursing, dentistry and medicine, as well as with schools of pharmacy. Polomano is a Senior Nurse Scientist at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and also holds a secondary appointment as Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care at the Perelman School of Medicine.

UPfront | Fall 2016

Penn Nursing Expert: Alternatives Needed to Opioid Treatment of Pain in Cancer Survivors Improving the way opioids are prescribed can ensure patients have access to safer, more effective chronic pain treatment while reducing the number of people who misuse, abuse or overdose on these drugs. This includes cancer survivors who experience chronic pain and for whom the current clinical paradigm relies heavily on the use of opioids. In a just published JAMA Oncology letter to the editor, “Intended Target of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Opioid Guidelines,” Salimah H. Meghani, PhD, MBE, RN, FAAN, Associate Professor, addresses the need for effective, health insurance-covered treatments other than opioids for cancer survivors with chronic pain. “This is a challenging time for cancer survivors who continue to experience moderate to severe pain beyond active cancer treatment. The chronic pain management paradigm is shifting more expeditiously than the available evidence for access to workable alternatives,” Meghani wrote.

National Institutes of Health Awards $9 Million Grant for Study on Health Disparities in HIV Prevention A research team from Penn Nursing, the University of Michigan School of Nursing and Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health has been awarded a $9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to adapt and test a HIV prevention intervention for adolescent men who have sex with men. The intervention builds on an Herb Ritts Foundation initiative and seeks to address the growing disparity in new HIV cases among young men by offering life skills training and community-based HIV prevention resources through an online app. From 2000-2010, the annual number of new HIV diagnoses among young men who have sex with men more than doubled, with racial and ethnic minorities encumbering a disproportionate number of these new infections. “Our aim is to empower young gay and bisexual men to find the services they need and enable them to make positive changes in their lives,” said lead researcher José Bauermeister, PhD, MPH, Presidential Associate Professor of Nursing in the Department of Family and Community Health at Penn Nursing.

Penn Nursing leads fight for full scope of practice for PA nurse practitioners Working with Pennsylvania Schools of Nursing and organizations that include the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) and the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania, Penn Nursing faculty and Dean Antonia Villarruel, PhD, RN, FAAN are making the case for full practice authority for nurse practitioners in Pennsylvania. Removing practice restrictions on nurses would improve health in Pennsylvania by increasing access to comparable or better healthcare at lower costs, and it would save Pennsylvanians at least $6.4 billion within the next ten years. Most recently, the Pennsylvania Senate passed Bill 717, allowing nurses to provide care to the full extent of their education and training. The measure now faces the larger hurdle of passing in the State House of Representatives.

www.nursing.upenn.edu

ALUMNI CONNECTIONS From the Penn Nursing Alumni Board President

Hello Penn Nursing Alumni! The 2016-2017 academic year is under way and great things are happening here in the School of Nursing. I hope this letter reaches each of you in your path to advance health through nursing and that you will take an opportunity to connect with us for mutually enriching networking and programming this year. We have many exciting events and opportunities approaching. On October 28th we celebrate the birthday of Theresa Lynch, the founding dean of the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, with high tea. Multiple webinars are scheduled throughout the year that we hope resonate with your interests and practice. And of course, Dean Villarruel will also present her annual Virtual Town Hall webinar on January 26. If you graduated from the BSN program in a year ending with a 2 or a 7, start planning for your reunion! I look forward to celebrating with friends from the Class of 2007 this May 12 to 14 during Alumni Weekend. In addition, master’s reunions are scheduled for graduates of the Adult Acute programs on May 13, following the fall Women’s Health and Midwifery Reunion on October 28, 2016. I want to THANK those of you who gave back to our school last year through financial giving, preceptorship, attendance at events both in person and virtually, membership on the Alumni Board and through the Penn Interview Program. Your talent, time, and generosity continue to be essential as we strive to remain the top school of nursing in the world! Beginning with Dr. Lynch’s visionary thinking and continuing through the current work of Dean Villaruel AND ALL OF YOU, our community of both HUP and Penn Nursing Alumni carry the legacy of this tremendous school. The Penn Nursing Alumni Board welcomes you back to OUR school early and often following graduation so that we may continue to share our successes, build our future and learn together. Keep in touch and stay well! Best, Ashley Z. Ritter, Nu’07, GNu’10 President, Penn Nursing Alumni Board

UPfront | Fall 2016

From the HUP Nursing Alumni Association President Dear Fellow Alumni, This fall, HUP celebrated our 130th Reunion in Philadelphia. Many returned and had a wonderful, exciting weekend reminiscing about our student days and hearing from nursing leaders from Penn’s School of Nursing and Health System. Patricia (Pat) Walter Marcozzi, Reunion Chair, began planning years in advance. Julia (Tierney) Davis, our secretary and always actively involved in many aspects of the Association, assisted greatly with the reunion. Pat’s reunion work was recognized with the Penn Nursing Alumni Spirit Award, given at Penn’s Awards Ceremony. Eleanor (Crowder) Bjoring traveled from Texas to receive Penn’s Legacy Award. It was a wonderful ceremony, thanks to the Penn Nursing Alumni Awards Committee and Dean Villarruel. I hope you will nominate a HUP alumnus for these awards in future years. The Board continues to be hard at work serving you. Elizabeth (Betty) Irwin, Archives Chair, is very close to completing the HUP SON archives. I owe Betty a huge thank you for the many hours she has dedicated in preserving our memories and legacy. Betty has decided to step down and Beverly (Bev) White Ejsing will take over. The HUP archives will be preserved at Penn’s Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing. I know Penn Nursing will treasure the history started with HUP SON. Linda Knox will fill Deborah (Haug) Whealton’s role as Philanthropy Chair, working with The Philadelphia Foundation. Susan McKelvey, Nominations Chair, is contacting graduates to run for vacant positions on the HUP Alumni Board in 2017. The Spring 2016 Election results bring Bev (White) Ejsing as incoming Vice President of the HUP Alumni Association. The Board of Directors for 2016-2018 are: Beverly (Bev) Emonds, Susan McKelvey and Mary Wilby. I invite any HUP graduate to join the Board, especially past recipients of a HUP Alumni Scholarship. If you are interested, contact me by early January 2017 at edreisbaugh@verizon.net. Along with our current Board work, we are proud of these two women and their accomplishments from our past: Earlier this year, Dr. Lillian (Sholtis) Brunner HUP’40, passed away. Several HUP and Penn Nursing alumni attended the service in Wayne, Pa. Dr. Brunner was known for her Textbook of Medical and Surgical Nursing, served as an Overseer for Penn Nursing, and helped to establish the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, which holds many HUP archives. Dr. Theresa I. Lynch HUP’20, would have celebrated her 120th birthday this year. One of the most memorable dates of a Dean Lynch legacy is 1950 when Penn’s School of Education and the Division of Medical Affairs merged to create an independent School of Nursing of the University. Dr. Lynch was the first and founding dean of the School of Nursing, from 1950-1965. On October 28, Penn Nursing is hosting a high tea in honor of Dr. Lynch’s 120th. See page 37 for details. Our Association also recognizes our current partners at Penn Nursing. Under one umbrella, we maintain our own identity while supporting each other in numerous ways and on various occasions. Dean Antonia M. Villarruel is absolutely wonderful and very supportive of the HUP Alumni Association. I hope you met her at the reunion. I also thank Monica Salvia and Pier Lopez in Penn’s Alumni Office for all they do for us. Finally, I commend Ashley Z. Ritter, President of Penn Nursing Alumni, for the communication she and I had over the past year. Ashley, it has been great! I know we will continue to work together to foster this excellent relationship with our two alumni associations. Warm Regards, Elaine Nuss Dreisbaugh, HUP’60 President, Alumni Association of the School of Nursing of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania www.nursing.upenn.edu

ALUMNI CONNECTIONS Volunteer Opportunities Penn Nursing relies on the experience, skill and generosity of alumni volunteers to provide career support to students and fellow graduates, support programs and events, recognize outstanding alumni, recruit prospective students and advance the School and profession.

Virtual Nursing Interview Committee Interview Penn Nursing undergraduate applicants, many by phone or Skype, answering their questions about today’s School of Nursing and providing feedback to the Admissions Office. Projects:

Whether you are available for just one hour a year or multiple times a month, live in Philadelphia or in London, work in direct patient care or are taking a break in your career, there’s a volunteer position for you.

• Conduct three or four applicant interviews a year (each lasting approximately 30 minutes) in person or virtually • Summarize the meeting for the Admissions Office • Opportunity to participate in college fairs and yield events throughout the admissions cycle

Many of our current opportunities are listed below. If you don’t see something that you are interested in, contact us. We would love to hear from you and appreciate your support.

Time Commitment: 1-4 hours a month, October-February; interviews can be coordinated to fit your schedule.

LinkedIn Career Ambassadors Using LinkedIn, provide career support for Penn Nursing students and alumni in various areas. Projects:

• • • •

Actively post job advice and opportunites Post professional growth experiences and articles Answer student and alumni questions Start a conversation or add a comment to a current post

Time Commitment: Pref. 2 hours a month, or as available, year

–round, coordinated to fit your schedule. Preferred Skills: LinkedIn user, collaborative, strong

communication and networking skills, initiative, self-starter. Regional Event Host Committee Support events by adding your name to a local Host Committee. Projects:

• Support event marketing efforts by inviting your local alumni and friend network • Provide feedback on event planning • Serve as on-site event hosts, greeting attendees and connecting alumni to one another and the School. • Targeted Areas for 2016-2018: Boston, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, New York and more. Suggestions for locations are welcome! Time Committment: 1-2 hours (mostly by email) in advance of the event at your convenience, 2 hours at the event. Preferred Skills: Well-connected, familiar with the local area,

ideally part of the local Penn Alumni Club and/or willing to connect, able to generate enthusiasm, good communication and marketing skills.

Preferred Skills: Positive undergraduate Penn Nursing

experience (preferably a graduate of the last 10 years), able to maintain confidentiality, excellent communication skills, comfortable with technology in general, ability to discern qualified candidates. Alumni Awards Committee Work with a group to recognize outstanding alumni by acknowledging their varied contributions. Projects:

• Review nominees and select finalists • Regularly review award categories • Promote awards and awardees Time Commitment: 2-4 hours a month, beginning in September. Heaviest workload from November to March, with attendance at the event in May. Preferred Skills: Collaborative, able to maintain confidentiality,

excellent communication and speech-writing skills, ability to discern qualified candidates. Student-Alumni Connections Committee Work with a group to support opportunities for mutually beneficial relationships between alumni and students. Projects:

• Support the Alumni Liaison Shadowing program • Educate students, faculty, staff and alumni about QuakerNet, LinkedIn and other networking tools • Coordinates with Penn’s Student Services Office, Career Services, and Alumni Relations to connect alumni with students • Creates strategic, ongoing partnerships with student organizations at all educational levels • Works on networking opportunities at Homecoming, Wellness Week, Alumni Weekend and regional events Timeline: September through May Preferred Skills: Organized, collaborative, strong communication

and networking skills, comfortable reaching out to alumni, faculty and students.

UPfront | Fall 2016

A LUMNI NOTES 1940s Dorothy Lutz Hamilton, HUP’48, is living at a great retirement community, Sandhill Care in Palm City, Fla. After being out of nursing for 20 years, she worked part-time at Overbrook Hospital in Summit, N.J.

1950s Jo Delgado Sox, HUP’56, has lived in

1970s Marie A. Savard, HUP’70, Nu’72, M’76, Int’79, is the

chief medical officer of Perform Rx. Barbara S. Kiernan, GNu’71, is a school

nurse at Immaculate Conception Catholic School.

California for 58 years. She loves it there and is now living in a lively retirement community in Oceanside, where she notes that there is never a dull day!

Sandra Brodbeck Fortney, HUP’73, is

Mary Ellen Bachman, HUP’56, writes that after receiving her BSN at HUP’s five-year program, she worked for six months at Reading Hospital and then took her anesthesia course at Lancaster General Hospital where she worked for 34 years in anesthesia. Lancaster General Hospital is now part of Penn Medicine where Mary Ellen has been volunteering for the past 23 years.

Beth Morgan Polvino, HUP’73, recently retired from nursing after 43 years of service. She notes that she now has plenty of time to devote to her many other pastimes: birding, photography, gardening, nurturing butterflies, quilting and travel.

working as a consultant for Deloitte. Sandy and her husband of 43 years, Fred, are enjoying being new grandparents.

1960s

Sue Jackson Shaver, HUP’73, recently participated in a WWII reenactment at the Reading Airfield wearing her graduation uniform!

Louise Tackacs Lane, HUP’63, is “finally”

Jane C. Rothrock, Nu’74, GNu’78, is a

retired after 52 years of nursing. She notes that her job now is chauffeuring her three granddaughters around every afternoon. Louise and her husband are keeping active and enjoying relatively good health.

professor at Delaware County Community College.

Jacqueline Poole Martin, HUP’64, has been retired for three years but is keeping busy with her first grandchild and with volunteer work and community health. Patricia Santa Maria Roberts, HUP’64, has

moved closer to her grandchildren in Iowa City, Iowa. She managed her husband’s plastic and reconstructive surgery practice for 28 years before retiring. Donna Sue Gibson, HUP’65, works as a

chairperson for the Board of Health in the town of Williamsburg, Massachusetts. Jackie Saupp Talcik, HUP’66, is now retired

from her position as executive vice president at Iroquois Healthcare Alliance. Judith M. Bucko, Nu’67, is a staff nurse at

Central Behavioral Health. Marita M. Hutchinson, Nu’69, is now an

attorney.

Ella Ryan-Meloni, HUP’74, was honored at

team of healthcare providers with clinic locations in five designated community sites. When fully operational at all five site locations, they expect to manage approximately 4,000 patient encounters per year. Suzanne M. Cheeseman, Nu’76, is a

professor of nursing at Tyler Junior College. Jane E. Grant, Nu’76, is a nurse practitioner at IPC Psychiatric Services. Mary Ellen Kenworthey, Nu’76, is a nurse

practitioner at Maricopa Integrated Health. Barbara Kirk Tzamalas, HUP’76, worked at HUP after graduation and then lived in Boston for 30 years, where she worked at Massachusetts General Hospital and Tufts. She is married and has one son. Mary Ellen Tierney Boos, HUP’76, is working as a nurse/office manager at Cardiology Consultants in Philadelphia’s Lansdale office. Patricia L. Gerrity Nu’77, GNu’79, GR’83, is a

professor at Drexel University. Mary T. Marchetto GNu’77, is the associate

chief of research and education at the VA Medical Center – Manchester. Marianne L. Dietrick-Gallagher, GNu’79, GR’00, is a senior consultant at IMA

HUP recently with the fifth annual Maryellen Reilly Leadership Award for her work as the director of the Patient Flow Management Center.

dairy farmer.

Kathleen R. Bell, Nu’75, is the chair of the

1980s

PM&R Department at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

Peter M. Blood, Nu’80, GNu’82, is a musician.

Mary G. Henning, Nu’75, is a case manager

for Lankenau Medical Center. Gloria J. McNeal, GNu’75,

Dean at the School of Health & Human Services at National University, San Diego, California, recently shared a video which highlights the launching of her new project to establish nurse-managed health clinics without walls, embedded within the community of Watts Los Angeles, Calif. With a $1.5 million HRSA grant under the Nurse Education, Practice, Quality and Retention – Integrated Preclinical/Clinical Program (NEPQR-IPCP) award mechanism, Gloria has established an interprofessional

Consulting. Sherwin A. Ferguson, Nu’79, works as a

Jeanne M. Bonadonna, Nu’80, is a

psychiatric consultation liaison nurse at the Medical University of South Carolina. Dawn V. Cedrone, GNu’80, is the owner of NewBornMom Breastfeeding Solutions LLC. Suzanne F. Foley, GNu’80,

works as an independent consultant.

Daryl S. Sharp, GNu’80, is a director for

Accountable Health Partners. Catherine S. Dewitt, Nu’81, is a staff nurse at

Fresenius Dialysis. Anita R. Schmeer, GNu’81, is a nurse practice educator at Lincoln Tech Institute.

www.nursing.upenn.edu

ALU MNI NOT ES

( C O N TI N U ED )

Bryan Lipinski, Nu’82, is the

new chief executive officer of Lee Medical Inc. located in Cool Springs, Tenn., a nursing-driven, vascularaccess insertion and management company. He previously was a division president at SpecialtyCare, and continues to serve on the board of Healthcare Resources of America, based in Dallas. He lives with his wife Teresa, and her two daughters in Nashville. Amy Byers Shannon, Nu’82, works at

Community Volunteers in Medicine in West Goshen. Wendy Grube, GNu’82, GR’10, has been appointed as

the interim director of the Center for Global Women’s Health at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. In addition to her work at Penn Nursing, Wendy has served as a member of the National Medical Committee for Planned Parenthood of America, as an expert faculty contributor for the development of CORE curricula related to reproductive health topics for the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals (ARHP) and as an educator for the Philadelphia Colposcopy Program. She was appointed to the Expert Advisory Panel for Male Sexual and Reproductive Health by the Office of Family Planning within the Office of Population Control, DHHS, and served as clinical faculty for the Male Training Center, Philadelphia, Pa. In the announcement of Dr. Grube’s appointment, Dean Antonia Villarruel noted, “Dr. Grube has dedicated her career to health and well-being for women around the globe and, as a result, is eminently qualified to direct the Center for Global Women’s Health.” See page 24 for more details. Lynette E. Guyer, GNu’82, is a certified school

nurse at Salisbury-Elk Lick School District. Susan L. Hertz, GNu’82, is a director at The

Denver Hospice. Judith Rich, GNu’82,

President and CEO of Tuscon Medical Center (TMC) Healthcare has been named to the Board of Trustees of the American Hospital Association (AHA). Judith began her tenure as president and CEO of TMC Healthcare in 2007 after serving as a senior consultant for The Bard Group in 30

UPfront | Fall 2016

Newtown, Mass. from 2006-2007. Judith served as the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association (AzHHA) Board Chair from 2012-2015 and has been a member of the AzHHA Board since 2008. Judith’s term on the AHA Board begins immediately and runs through December 31, 2018. Valerie T. Cotter, GNu’83, has

retired as an advanced senior lecturer at Penn Nursing and is beginning a new phase in her career. Val has been at Penn Nursing since 1983, initially as a clinical instructor, and subsequently as director of the Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Program. Notably, Val has particular expertise in the field of dementia and not only specialized in this area as a nurse practitioner but collaborated on a number of research grants related to memory disorders. During her tenure at Penn, Val has received a number of awards including the Provost’s Award for Distinguished Teaching (1997) and the BHS Department Academic Staff Mentorship award (2014). Val has been a Fellow at the American Nursing Academy of Nurse Practitioners, a Visiting Scholar at Aomori University and Keio University in Japan (2004), and participated in Geriatric Nursing Research Summer Scholars Program at the Hartford Institute for Geriatric Nursing/ New York University College of Nursing (2011). In 2010, Val earned a DrNp from Drexel University in the Clinical Scientist Track; while there she was also appointed an Independence Blue Cross Nurse Scholar. Currently, Val is a co-investigator on two HRSA grants entitled: (1) Enhancing Geriatrics Primary Care and Education, and (2) Academic Practice Partnership for the Underserved in Philadelphia. Val has recently accepted a standing faculty position at John Hopkins University School of Nursing. Regina McCabe Grazel, GNu’84, was elected

president of the National Association of Neonatal Nurses (NANN) for the 2015-2016 term. Jean serves on the Board of Directors as the immediate past president in 2016-2017. Jean is a certified perinatal clinical nurse specialist. She holds several clinical designations including ANCC board certified High-risk perinatal nurse, Neonatal Resuscitation Program (NRP) regional trainer, NANN neonatal development care specialist and certified breastfeeding counselor. Jean

served two terms on the NANN Board of Directors and is a former president of the local Delaware Valley Chapter of NANN. She is employed by the New Jersey Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics as the program director for the New Jersey Department of Health Critical Congenital Heart Defects Screening Program. Linda D. Wagner, GNu’84,

is a professor at Central Connecticut State University.

Joann K. Erb, GNu’85, is a clinical educator at

Abington Memorial Hospital. Joel L. Lorenz, Nu’85, is a certified registered nurse anesthetist at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Vicky A. Stilwill, Nu’86, is a nurse reviewer

at EviCore Healthcare. Patricia A. Ragone, GNu’87, is an instructor

in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at Drexel University College of Medicine. Vonetta M. Barnes, GNu’88, is a nursing

supervisor at Evergreen Medical Center. Linda Haddad, GNu’88, is an associate professor at the University of Florida College of Nursing. Katherine M. Soulas, Nu’88, works at Peace

on Earth Yoga. Carolynn S. Bruno, GNu’89, is a specialty director nurse practitioner at Yale University. Susan A. Pickering, Nu’89, is a public health nurse at Public Health Management Corporation. Maria D. Rocktashel, GNu’89, is a nurse

practitioner at Main Line HealthCareLankenau Hospital. Kelly Swinkels, GNu’89, is the director of

women’s services at St. Petersburg General Hospital.

1990s Michael T. Clark, GNu’90, GNU’14, is a clinical assistant professor of nursing at Rutgers School of Nursing in Camden. Laura B. Hummel, GNu’90, is a doctor of nursing practice at McCormick and Associates of Middletown. Jane G. E. Silver, GNu’90, is a school nurse at

Saucon Valley High School.

Kathleen Moore Martin, Nu’91, GNu’96, is a school nurse at Medford Memorial Middle School.

Sheila D. Sakraida, GNu’95, is a neonatal

nurse practitioner at the Christiana Care Health System.

Megan W. Mueller, Nu’98, CGS’00, is on the associate counsel at Thomas Jefferson University.

Nancy A. Niemczyk, Nu’92, GNu’94, is now

Mary C. Hannigan-Conroy, GNu’96, is a nurse

Dakara A. Rucker, Nu’98, is a physician at

the director of the midwifery program at the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing.

practitioner at Erickson Living in Maris Grove.

Kaiser Permanente.

Madelyn T. Herzfeld, Nu’96, GNu’99, is the chief executive officer of Carevive Systems.

Colleen A. VanGelder, GNu’98, is a nurse

Ana R. Maitin, Nu’96, GNu’99, is a charter

Tara N. Hieger, Nu’99, GNu’00, is a nurse

school nurse practitioner.

practitioner at Portland Gastroenterology.

Kathy A. Paulik, GNu’91, is the vice president

of Patient Care Services at St. Luke’s Quakertown Hospital. Sheila M. Roswell-Lincoln, Nu’92, is a nurse

practitioner at Hope Hospice. Christine L. Shea, GNu’92, is a nurse

practitioner at Womancare OB/GYN. Carol A. Vincent, GNu’92, GNC’95, GR’12, is

an associate director at Gilead Sciences.

Tracey L. Noble, Nu’96, is a nurse at

Lisa E. Malott, Nu’99, is the owner of Wish

St. Luke’s Hospital.

Vintage Rentals.

Debra J. Pennypacker, GNu’96, GNu’14, is a

2000s

certified registered nurse practitioner at Mainline Healthcare.

Hannah U. Rabinowitz, GNu’00, is the director

Martha A. Boudakian, GNu’97, is a midwife

Sarah Ann Delgado, Nu’93, GNu’99, is a

at Welcome Home Midwifery.

nurse practitioner for the American Association of Critical Care.

Michele Damas, GNu’97, is a nurse

Hugh R. Brenner, GNu’94, works as a private

practice nurse. Patricia P. Ganley, GNu’94, is a pediatric nurse practitioner at Harvard Medical Center. Kara Linker Goldstein, GNu’94, is a nurse

practitioner at Weiser and Associates.

practitioner and manager at Anne’s Choice. Anne L. Ersig, Nu’97, GNu’99, is a nurse

researcher at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Michelle H. Gurel, Nu’97, is a registered nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital. Patricia A. Johnston, GNu’97, is a nurse

Heather E. Harker, Nu’94, is an ambulatory

practitioner at United Health.

educator for the Cooper University Health System.

Jill Simon, GNu’97, is a nurse practitioner

Sabina E. Harker, GNu’94, is a patient intake

coordinator at Capital Health Hospital. Tonya Schneidereith, GNu’94, recently

co-edited and authored chapters in a clinical genetics text for prelicensure, graduate and practicing nurses. Published by Springer, it is entitled Lashley’s Essentials of Clinical Genetics in Nursing Practice (2nd Ed). You can find the textbook here: www. springerpub.com/lashley-s-essentials-ofclinical-genetics-in-nursing-practice-secondedition.html Jeannette S. Kates, Nu’95, GNu’97, is a

palliative care nurse practitioner at Samaritan Healthcare and Hospice and an assistant professor at Holy Family University. Kathleen Martin, GNu’95, GNu’97, is a nurse

practitioner at Alliance Oncology. Lisa M. Noguchi, C’93, Nu’95, GNu’97, is the

scientific director of pregnancy research at Microbicide Trials Network.

practitioner at the Veterans Affairs Hospital.

and administrative director at St. Mary Health Care.

of education at Memorial Hospital Pembroke. Elizabeth A. Ferguson, Nu’01, is a clinical

nurse at the University of California, Los Angeles. Brooke Beck Keeney, Nu’01, and her

husband Randy, “joyfully announce the birth of our fourth child, Andrew Levi, on April 17. Big sisters Abbie and Anna and big brother Tyler love their little brother and we are all adjusting to life as a family of six! We are enjoying raising our growing family in Houston.” Kelly L. Thrush, Nu’01, GNu’03, is a nurse practitioner of internal medicine at Penn State, Hershey Medical Center. Amanda L. Carritte, Nu’02, GNu’04, works

Dana J. Weyrick, GNu’97, is a nurse

with Essex County OB/GYN Associates.

practitioner at Abramson Cancer Center-Penn Medicine.

Doris H. Chan, Nu’02, GNu’05, works as an

Jacqueline L. Cromeans, Nu’98, is a nurse

practitioner at Presbyterian Health Services. Virginia B. Marshall, GNu’98, is the national

director of palliative care at Hospice and Palliative Care Compassus.

independent contractor. Francine Neall, GNC’02, is a licensed family

and marriage counselor. Debra Peasley, GNu’02, is a registered nurse

at Choice Home Healthcare.

Regina S. Cunningham, GR’03, was recently appointed the University of Pennsylvania Hospital Systems (UPHS) senior vice president and chief executive of the Health System. In her new role, Regina will provide leadership to nursing colleagues from each entity throughout UPHS. Her close collaboration with chief medical officer and Senior Vice President Patrick J. Brennan, MD, to advance interprofessional collaborations across the system will continue, and she will partner with Antonia Villarruel, PhD, RN, FAAN, dean of the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, to advance scholarly platforms for nursing across Penn Medicine. Dean Villarruel stated, “This appointment acknowledges Regina’s outstanding leadership and demonstrates a new level of commitment to nursing at UPHS.” www.nursing.upenn.edu

ALU MNI NOT ES

( C O N TI N U ED )

Maya Clark-Cutaia, Nu’03, GNu’06, adjunct faculty

Kathryn M. Fenton, Nu’05, returned to the

Eric D. Bowles, Nu’07, is a certified

lecturer at the School of Nursing, welcomed her second child, Genevieve Elise on July 21, 2016 weighing in at 7lbs, 7oz and 19 ¾ inches long.

Philadelphia area after living in California for several years and working as a registered nurse at Alameda Health System to start medical school this summer at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University in Camden, N.J.

registered nurse anesthetist at Broadway Surgical Institute.

Crystal N. Gould, GNu’03, is a nurse

Karen A. Kaskie, GNu’05, GNu’09, is a nurse

practitioner at Drexel University College of Medicine.

practitioner at MedOptions Inc.

Jean Romano, GNu’03, is a chief nurse officer

at Good Shepherd Penn Partners. Katherine Colby Troutman, Nu’03, writes, “I

am a certified family nurse practitioner, specializing in dermatology, living and working in Los Angeles; my skincare blog is www. skintranslations.com. I am self-publishing a children’s book, Sunny Goes to the Beach, that models best practices for sun safety; intended for ages 3 to 8, it tells the rhyming tale of a young girl and her day at the beach with her parents and best friend. “ Stacy Vonsik, GNu’03, is a legal nurse

consultant at Greenberg Traurig. Sara L. Camp, GNu’04, is the director of Social

Strategy at Steven Camp Plastic Surgery. Heather C. Demeno, Nu’04, GNu’14, is a nurse

practitioner for the Palliative Care Team at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Elizabeth S. Frederick, Nu’04, GNu’06, is an

outpatient cardiology nurse practitioner at Colorado Springs Cardiology. Sharon Katzenbach, Nu’04, GNu’06, shared “Our third baby girl was born at home into her proud Papa’s hands! So thankful to have been cared for by our skilled and caring midwife.” Daniel J. Kaumpungan, Nu’04, is a clinical

nurse manager and educator for Critical Care Unit. Seungeun Oh, GNu’04, is a nurse at Jefferson

Hospital. E. Behan-Heinbockel, GNu’05, is a nurse at

Cooper University Health Care. Karen Chang, Nu’05, GNu’08, is a staff

member at Nemours. Katherine S. Dunning, Nu’05, GNu’11, is a

clinical coordinator and works in the labor and delivery unit at Mount Sinai Hospital.

Megan L. Mariotti, Nu’05, GNu’08, GR’08, GR’09, is the assistant director of operations

Kathleen Hinkle, GNu’07, is a nurse practitioner at MainLine Health. Katelin K. Hoskins, Nu’07, GNu’08, GR’08, is

a nurse practitioner at Princeton Health System. Leigh E. Kinczewski, Nu’07, GNu’14, is a nurse practitioner at Fox Chase Cancer Center.

Miriam Paris, Nu’05, GNu’09, is a nurse

oncology nurse practitioner at Snow Companies.

Casey Templin, Nu’07, GNu’17, and husband Eric welcomed their first child, Grace Hannah Sachinwalla. Casey shares with us, “She was born at 11:55pm on July 1, 2016 at 8lbs, 20.5 inches, and captured our hearts instantly. She has spent the summer trying to stay cool, and charming friends and family alike. We are so excited to have her join the Penn Nursing family!”

Marcia R. Gardner, GR’06, is the associate dean for Undergraduate Programs and Assessment at Seton Hall University.

Jennifer A. Addis, Nu’08, is a clinical nurse II at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland.

Colleen M. Halliday, GNu’06, is a nurse-

Caitlin M. Hildebrand, Nu’08, GNu’11, is the

midwife at Somers Manor.

director of education and quality assurance at American CareQuest Home Health and Hospice.

practitioner. Jennifer Taft, Nu’05, GNu’12, is a neonatal nurse practitioner at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Jennifer L. Blood, GNu’06, is an adult

Angela M. MacMillan, GNu’06, GNu’08, is now a nurse practitioner at St. Luke’s OB/GYN at Eaton Pointe. Angela has been caring for women locally for the past 22 years. She is most proud of building trusting provider-patient relationships that treat and respect women’s physical and emotional needs. She obtained her MS in Nursing through the Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner Program at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a sexual counselor and attended the Sex Therapy Post-Graduate Institute in New York and the Council for Relationships Sex Therapy Program in Philadelphia. Ann M. Myers, GNu’06, is a certified nursemidwife at Saint Joseph Medical Center. Jocelyn G. Strong, Nu’06, GNu’10 and her

husband Greg Strong welcomed their first child, Henrietta “Etta” Anne Strong at Pennsylvania Hospital on November 20, 2015. Jocelyn just celebrated her 10-year reunion as a Penn Nursing graduate. Jamie Weller, Nu’06, is a cardiac clinical lead registered nurse at Bayada Home Health Care.

nurse practitioner at Penn Presbyterian. UPfront | Fall 2016

research nurse at Emory University.

at Penn Medical Center for Healthcare and Innovations.

Courtney M. Biddle, Nu’07, GNu’10, is a

Katherine L. Carssow, Nu’07, is a clinical

Nancy Hesse GNu’08, is the interim president

and chief executive officer of Cancer Treatment Centers of America at Eastern Regional Medical Center in Philadelphia. Last December, she was included in the Becker’s Hospital Review annual list of hospital and health system “Women Leaders to Know.” Larah Yael Kirschner, GNu’08, is a nurse

practitioner at St. Christopher Hospital for Children. Alexandra Kotsovos, Nu’08, GNu’10, married Walter Hawkins, W’10, in Houston on Oct. 24, stating “We were surrounded by family and friends, along with many other Penn alumni.” Alexandra and Walker moved to Connecticut this summer, where he will be attending Yale for his MBA and she will continue her work as a nurse practitioner. Leia Mita, Nu’08, GNu’15, is a nurse practitioner at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Vida M. Ruiz, GNu’08, is a certified nursemidwife at Brockton Community Health Center.

Victoria R. Solly, Nu’08, is a registered nurse

at Hackensack University Medical Center. Laura L. Anderson, Nu’09, GNu’11, GR’16, is

a registered nurse at the Seattle Children’s Hospital. Jennifer L. Johnson, Nu’09, is a nurse

practitioner at New York University Langone Medical Center. Stephanie R. Johnson, Nu’09, GNu’11, is a geriatric

nurse practitioner at Northwest Geriatrics. Michael A. Stawnychy, Nu’09, GNu’13, is a

nurse practitioner at Penn Medicine.

Amy W. Stimpfel, Gr’11, and her husband Scott Stimpfel, GRD’13, welcomed their son Peter William Stimpfel on October 14, 2015. He was born at NYC Langhorne Medical Center, weighing in at 7lbs 11oz and 21 inches long. Mom notes that he’s a happy, healthy baby and ready to be a future Quaker. Michael D. Villanueva, GNu’11, is a certified

registered nurse anesthetist at Maryland Cancer Center. Brittany E. Colligen, Nu’12, is an emergency

room nurse at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Leigh R. Foppert, Nu’12, GNu’14, is a nurse

2010s

practitioner at the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania.

Shameem P. Balakrishnan, Nu’10, GED’14,

Kelly Anne Gallagher, GNu’12, WEV’12, is

works as a kindergarten teacher.

the director of Nurse Residency Program at Penn Medicine.

Sara Bekele, Nu’10, GNu’13, is a nurse

practitioner at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Rebecca M. Coyle, GNu’10, works as a nurse practitioner at Thomas Jefferson University. Rachel S. Glincher, Nu’10, GNu’15, is a nurse

practitioner at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Carla A. Paredes, Nu’10, GNu’15, is a

registered nurse at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Meredith S. Annon, GNu’11, is a nurse-

midwife at Magee Hospital. Allison J. Boyer, Nu’11, is a nurse at the

University of Maryland. Alan T. Guffanti, GNu’11, is a nurse

practitioner at Advanced Vascular and Wound Associates. Margaret S. Harper, GNu’11,

is a nurse practitioner at Family Psychological Associates. Annemarie Marrou, Nu’11, GNu’13, and Jeffrey Michael Yenor, Nu’11, GNu’15,

recently welcomed a baby boy, Gabriel. She shares, “He carries the legacy of two Penn Nurses – his father and I met as ABSN students on the steps of Fagin Hall in the summer of 2010.” Antonette A. Shaw, Nu’11, GNu’13, is a

pediatric nurse practitioner at Esperanza Health Center.

Sarah B. Green, GNu’12, is a pediatric nurse

practitioner at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. Karly R. Kassay, Nu’12, and her husband Chris just had their first baby. Karly notes, “Leo Christopher Kassay was born on May 13, 2016 at Pennsylvania Hospital with the help of some amazing Penn Midwives. He weighed a hefty 9lbs 15oz and 22inches! We are doing well. Most of our time is currently spent snuggling our little guy and taking many walks outside enjoying the beautiful weather.” Jacquelyn Killeen, GNu’12, is a member of the surgical team at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Mohammad I. Mojadidi, Nu’12, is a nurse at

Rachel M. Woods, GNu’12, is a nurse

practitioner at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Leana C. Aungst, GNu’13, GNu’14, is a palliative care nurse practitioner at Riverside Regional Medical Center. Ashley Y. Barbour, GNu’13, is a neonatal

nurse practitioner at Stanford Children’s Hospital. Amanda L. Berger, GNu’13, is a nurse

practitioner at Delaware Valley Institute of Fertility and Genetics. Daphna J. Blank, Nu’13, GNu’16, is a nurse at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Meredith R. Davide, Nu’13, GNu’16, is a

registered nurse at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Rachel R. Gunderson, GNu’13, is a nurse practitioner at Houston Methodist Hospital. Elizabeth M. Kirby, Nu’13, GNu’14, is a nurse practitioner at George Washington Medical Faculty Associates. Sharon B. Kluger, GNu’13, is a pediatric nurse practitioner at the University of Texas Health Science Center. Sara E. Micciche, GNu’13, is a nurse practitioner at Haddon Pediatrics. Paula S. Mulliner, GNu’13, is a nurse

practitioner of cardiology at the University of Pennsylvania Health Systems. Menglin S. Shen, Nu’13, GNu’18, is a registered nurse at the Veterans Affairs New Jersey Healthcare System.

the University of California San Francisco Medical Center.

Priscilla Sicard, CGS’02, GNu’13, GR’13, is a nurse educator at Einstein Medical Center.

Brianna E. Morgan, C’08, Nu’12, GNu’15, GNu’16, is a nurse practitioner at the

Lauren E. Adis, GNu’14, is a psychiatric nurse

Pennsylvania Hospital. Jennifer C. Schockemoehl, Nu’12, GNu’16,

is a nurse at the University of Pennsylvania. Anny A. Su, G’06, GFA’06, Nu’12, GNu’14, is a registered nurse at Howard University Hospital. Shimeng Tang, GNu’12, is a nurse practitioner

at Memphis Pediatrics. Chee Vang, Nu’12, is a registered nurse at UC

Davis Medical Center. Tracy A. Walker, GNu’12, is a pediatric nurse

practitioner at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

practitioner at Westchester Jewish Community Services. Melissa Christie, Nu’14, GNu’15, is a nurse practitioner at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Tessa N. Covert, GNu’14, is a certified

registered nurse practitioner at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. Kelly K. Formuth, GNu’14, is a nurse

practitioner at House Call Providers. Lindsay M. Jodoin, Nu’14, is a registered

nurse at Princeton Plainsboro Hospital. www.nursing.upenn.edu

ALU MNI NOT ES

( C O N TI N U ED )

Emily L. Johnson, Nu’14, GNu’17, is a senior

Heather E. Bong, Nu’15, GNu’18, is a

nurse at New York University.

registered nurse at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Joan E. La Joie, GNu’14, is a registered nurse practitioner at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Julianne B. Clampet, Nu’15, GNu’18, is a registered nurse at White Plains Hospital.

Alyssa C. Messina, GNu’14, is a nurse

Pauline Dabrowski, Nu’15, GNu’18, is a now

practitioner at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

a registered nurse at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Kharell M. Mitchell, GNu’14, is a nurse practitioner at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Natalie P. Delcarson, Nu’15, GNu’18, is a nurse at the

University Medical Center of Princeton.

Kevin E. Scesa, Nu’14, is a registered nurse

at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Renata Siruckova, Nu’14, is a clinical nurse

at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Andrea H. Valovcin, Nu’14, GNu’16, is a registered nurse

at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.

Stephanie S. Foster, Nu’15, GNu’18, is a registered nurse at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Iris Mayoral, Nu’15, is a registered nurse at

Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at University of California Los Angeles Health. Stacey M. Ward Beran, GNu’15, is a

pediatric nurse practitioner at Alden Village. Sophia Yang, Nu’15, is a nurse at the Hospital

Lindsay A. Bernardo, Nu’15, GNu’18, is a

of the University of Pennsylvania.

registered nurse at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Anjerie G. Yohn, Nu’15, is a registered

If you are a HUP Nursing or Penn Nursing graduate, we want to hear about your life! Send us a personal or professional update at NursingAlumni@nursing.upenn.edu or call us at 215.746.8812. Photos are encouraged!

nurse at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

PE NN N URSING BAB I ES ! Do you have a new baby or adoption? We want to celebrate with you! Send us an image of your little one and your story to NursingAlumni@nursing.upenn.edu or call us at 215.746.8812. If requested, we’ll send you a Penn Nursing onesie (6 month size). Photos are encouraged!

Henrietta “Etta” Anne Strong

(Jocelyn G. Strong, Nu’06, GNu’10)

UPfront | Fall 2016

Gabriel Yenor

(Annemarie Marrou, Nu’11, GNu’13 and Jeffrey Michael Yenor, Nu’11, GNu’15)

Peter William Stimpfel

(Amy W. Stimpfel, Gr’11)

Leo Kassay

(Karly Kassay, Nu’12)

Tyler Rose Katzenbach

Grace Hannah Sachinwalla

(Sharon Katzenbach, Nu’04, GNu’06)

(Casey Templin, Nu’07, GNu’17)

IN MEMORIAM Lois B. Thompson, HUP’47, passed away on August 12, 2015. She was a retired nursing instructor.

1940s Madelyn Ketels Keelan, ED’40, passed away

on August 13, 2011. Margaret Horton Knoecklin, HUP’41, passed

away on March 16, 2015 at the age of 95. At HUP, Margaret was a surgical head nurse who enlisted in the U.S. Army the day after Pearl Harbor, serving four years in the Army Nurse Corps as part of the China, Burma, India theatre of war. She was stationed with the 20th General Hospital in Ledo, India, achieving the rank of 1st lieutenant. After retiring from the Army, she received both her B.A. and M.A. degrees from Drew University. Margaret wrote a novel about her experiences in the war entitled Dream On Lieutenant. Mary G. Loney, NED’41, passed away on

August 19, 1999. Viola G. Williams, HUP’41, passed

away on January 19, 2015. She was a retired nurse. Patricia Zullioski Fensenmeyer, HUP’46,

passed away on October 14, 2014. Phyllis Bartlett Antunes, HUP’47, passed

away on May 7, 2016. She was a resident of Doylestown, Pa. and was involved in many civic activities in her community. As a nurse she worked at Doylestown Hospital, for Bucks County in Public Health, as an office nurse and for the Pennridge School District as a school nurse before she retired in 1992. She enjoyed travel to Europe with her late husband George. She was a devoted wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. Georgeanna M. Bittner, HUP’47, passed

away on February 28, 2016. Ruby Hillard Evans, HUP’47, passed away on January 16, 2016. She worked as a medicalsurgical nurse at St. Francis Hospital in Pittsburgh for 20 years. Ruby is survived by her two children, seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. Jane Renshaw, HUP’47, passed

away on February 9, 2016. She was a retired nurse.

Lavina V. Williams, HUP’47, passed away on

January 27, 2016. She received her B.S. in Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania and began her career in Philadelphia. She spent the majority of her career working in the maternity ward at Palmerton Hospital. She was very active at St. John’s in the Heights Lutheran Church being part of Ladies Aide, church council, Willing Workers and social ministry. Phyllis Bechtel Crilley, HUP’49,

passed away on February 13, 2016. Phyllis was a nurse and a homemaker who loved to spend time with her grandchildren. She was an avid reader and gardener. She is survived by her son, daughter and three grandchildren. Phyllis’ classmate, Helen Best Whalen wrote, “Over the years we kept in contact via notes. She was always upbeat and family oriented. We shared many memories of our years at HUP and for a time after we graduated four of us shared an apartment, as we practiced our skills, learned over the preceding three years. It was a special time.” Carolyn Homan Pickett, HUP’49, passed

away on October 30, 2015. She was a beloved nurse who was a supporter of the March of Dimes. She loved crocheting and gardening. She is survived by her two sons, four grandchildren and a great-grandchild.

1950s Marjorie Bassett, HUP’50, passed away on December 1, 2015. Marjorie was a registered nurse at Gesinger Medical Center and for Columbia Montour Home Health, where she retired. She received her degree in nursing from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing in 1950. She was an active faithful member of St. Peter’s Methodist Church, where she served on the leadership team; was involved in ice cream socials and drama team. She was also a volunteer for the American Heart Association and volunteered with the American Red Cross blood drives. Marge will be well remembered by many for her listening ear and her encouragement. With all of life’s challenges that she experienced and those that were shared with her, she would always respond with her beautiful smile saying “God is good.”

Mildred Schilling, HUP’50, passed away on August 30, 2015. Millie was married in 1951 to her sailor, Galen Laird, for 64 years and had five children. She was an evening supervisor at the Chesapeake General Hospital, Chesapeake, Va. where she retired in 1992. She is survived by her husband, four children and eleven grandchildren. Casmira A. Marciniszyn, Nu’51, of Groton, Conn., retired director of nursing at Mercy Hospital in Charlotte, N.C., died on August 16, 2015. She had been director of nursing at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia. During World War II, she served in the U.S. Army as a nurse. Doris Jean Speck Stumpff, HUP’51, passed

away on October 21, 2015. Doris worked as a nurse for the Salvation Army in Brazil but for the most part she worked as a homemaker and caregiver to her family. She and her late husband Walter retired in Alabama and North Carolina but continued to travel the world together for many years. Doris was an avid seamstress, a great cook and loved to play bridge. She is survived by her children, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Helen Carpenter, HUP’52, passed away on

January 10, 2016. Andre C.G. Malecot, Gr’52, a retired professor of linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, died on Sept. 3, 2015. He taught at Penn from 1962-69. Margaret Urffer Africa, HUP’52, passed away on November 11, 2015. She is survived by her son Walter and two grandchildren. Corinne Lewis Tiffany, HUP’53, passed away

on January 24, 2016. She was a retired nurse from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Barbara Coan Houghton, HUP’54, passed

away on April 7, 2014. Mildred M. Ellis, HUP’54, passed away on November 17, 2015. Elizabeth Menges Conrad, HUP’54, passed

away on June 21, 2013. Betty Ann Shindeldecker Hallinger, HUP’54,

passed away on March 29, 2011. Amy D. Geissinger Nu’55, passed away on October 19, 2014. She was a retired nurse from the U.S. Army.

www.nursing.upenn.edu

I N M E MORI A M

( C O N TI N U ED )

Marian Keitz Comley, HUP’55, passed away

on August 19, 2015. Shirlee Reiff McLean HUP’55, passed away

on September 15, 2014. Shirley J. Burch, HUP’56, passed away on

August 23, 2015. Shirley served as a pediatric nurse at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, the Children’s Hospitals of Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., and the Suburban Hospital of Bethesda, Md. Throughout her life, Shirley was a dedicated volunteer, serving in local schools and churches and taking an active role in community life, including some friendly competition in local Scrabble and trivia groups. Also an avid traveler, Shirley visited nearly every U.S. state and 12 countries. She is survived by her beloved husband Douglas H. Burch, her two daughters, Susan Jane Burns and Jennifer Marie Burch, her grandson Riley Fleak, and her sister Dorothea Rowden. Her family noted that “Shirley had terrific memories of her time at Penn Nursing and kept in touch with her classmates through the years.” Nancy Supernavage Fieldler, HUP’56, passed

away on September 20, 2015. She was known for her beautiful soprano voice and while at HUP, she wrote, directed and starred as lead soprano in Caps and Bucks Presentations. She was the head nurse on the Pediatric Children’s Ward at Penn where she assisted in the first bypass surgery performed at Penn. She also worked at visiting and hospice nursing. She was the director of Promise Day Care Center in Cherry Hill, N.J. She worked with VNA for Central N.J. from 2001 until 2015, when she retired. She is survived by her husband Jim Buckley and son Scott Hunter. Barbara B. Cleaveland, Nu’57,

passed away on May 5, 2016. Thelma Stevenson Turansky, Nu’57, passed away on February 17,

2016. She was a retired nursing instructor. Marjay Wren Cooper HUP’59, passed away

on February 5, 2016. Sara Sandoe Dunlap, Nu’59, passed away on

February 11, 2015.

UPfront | Fall 2016

1960s

1970s

Phyllis L. Fischer, Nu’61, passed away on

Kathleen G. Bodnar, Nu’70, passed

February 23, 2013.

away on November 11, 2015.

Laraine Lincoln Cooper, HUP’63, passed

away on September 8, 2014. Barbara A. Mullin, Nu’63, passed

away on August 22, 2015. She was a nurse for the Philadelphia Department of Health. Annette C. Squire, GNu’63, passed

away on December 8, 2015.

Jeanne V. Obenchain, GNu’70, passed away

on January 4, 2012. She was a clinical nurse specialist at the VA Medical Center. Carol A. Heller, Nu’71, passed away on

February 16, 2016. Patricia C. Bonan, Nu’72, GNu’79, passed

June 24, 2015.

away on September 4, 2015. She earned her BSN and MSN from the University of Pennsylvania, later pursuing a career as a psychiatric nurse specialist at Jefferson Hospital. Patricia’s friends and family note that they will remember her for her kindness and indomitable spirit.

Doris C. Russell, Nu’64, passed away on

Betty J. Connor, Nu’73, passed away on

September 26, 2003.

June 6, 2015.

Marie M. Green, Nu’64, passed away on

December 1, 1990. Ann S. Madison, GNu’64, passed away on

Marlene Kennedy, HUP’66, passed away on

Bonnie L. Rosen, GNu’75, passed away on

March 3, 2013.

February, 6, 2016. Bertram F. A. Lewis, Nu’78, passed

Margaret “Maggie” McKerns Kauffman, HUP’66, passed away on June 17, 2016. She

was the founding head nurse of Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit at Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center. She also worked in home health and in long-term care. When Governor George Wallace was shot in Laurel, Md. during his presidential campaign, Maggie cared for him at Holy Cross Hospital. Wallace later appointed her as an honorary lieutenant colonel of the Alabama State Militia. She is survived by her husband, four children and six grandchildren.

away on October 23, 2015.

1980s Ann S. Dellaira, GNu’81, passed

away on February 23, 2016.

Margaret E. Beattie, Nu’82, passed

away on March 15, 2016. She was a clinical nurse specialist at Thomas Jefferson University.

Paula B. Brogan, Nu’67, passed away on July

Lisa S. Hylton, GNu’87, passed away on November 27, 2014. She was a nurse practitioner for Kaiser Permanente.

15, 2014. Eleanor M. Allen, GNu’68, passed away on

January 1, 2016. She was a professor at Southwest Adventist. Grace D. Jauron, Nu’69, GNu’71, passed

away on July 3, 2001. Marion G. Molinari, Nu’69, passed

away on February 27, 2016.

1990s Margaret A. McGrath, GNu’91, passed away

on February 9, 2008. Dr. Diane F. Barger, GRN’94, passed away on

October 31, 2008.

2010s Nancy A. Weaver, Nu’69, passed away on

March 18, 2009.

Jonathan Yan, Nu’14, GNu’19, passed away on January 1, 2016. He was a nurse at Penn Medicine.

MA R K YO U R C A LEN DARS Fall 2016 October 19

Happy Hour for NADM/HLMP Alumni

Please join us for these upcoming events: October 28-29

Homecoming Weekend Featuring the Annual Nurse Networking Event during Saturday’s QuakerNet tailgate

October 22

Graduate Program Open House October 25

Claire M. Fagin Distinguished Researcher Award Presentation with awardee Janet Deatrick Philadelphia, Pa. October 28

High Tea in celebration of Penn Nursing’s first Dean, Theresa I. Lynch’s 120th birthday Philadelphia, Pa.

November 10

Penn Nursing On the Road in Baltimore Alumni, parents and friends are invited to hear from Dean Villarruel and guests October 28

Midwifery and Women’s Health MSN Alumni and Friends Reunion Philadelphia, Pa.

DATE TBD

Webinar: Regina Cunningham presents Leadership Skills for Nurses

Spring 2017 January 26

Webinar: Annual (Virtual) Town Hall with Dean Villarruel DATE TBD

Webinar: Rosemary Polomano presents Shaping the Future of Practice: Visions and Ideas into Action April 20

Webinar: Wendy Grube presents a Vision for The Center for Global Women’s Health May 12

Celebrating Excellence: Student, Faculty and Alumni Awards Ceremony May 12-14

Alumni Weekend 2017. Save the date! May 13

Adult Acute MSN Alumni and Friends Reunion May 15

Commencement

For more information, please visit our events calendar at www.nursing.upenn.edu or call the Nursing Alumni Office at 215.746.8812

Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage P A I D Permit #2563 Phila., PA

Claire M. Fagin Hall 418 Curie Boulevard Philadelphia, PA 19104-4217 www.nursing.upenn.edu

TAKE THE NEXT STEP IN YOUR CAREER. Now accepting applications to our DNP and 14 different master’s programs, including: • Doctor of Nursing Practice in Nurse Anesthesia • Neonatal Nurse Practitioner • Family Nurse Practitioner • Pediatric Nurse Practitioner • Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner • Nurse-Midwifery • Adult-Gerontology Nurse Practitioner • Adult Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Post-master’s options available!

START YOUR APPLICATION TODAY. www.nursing.upenn.edu