UAB Nursing Magazine Fall 2015 by UAB School of Nursing

LEADING NURSING EDUCATION, RESEARCH AND CARE INNOVATIONS

Nursing Rounds

Creating a Forensic Nursing Specialty School working to improve care statewide

Growing Pediatric Partnership Collaborating with Children’s of Alabama for patient and staff satisfaction

The Future of Nursing Care Starts Here

Innovations in Teaching, Research and Care

A look at the new UAB School of Nursing

4 Transitional Care Innovations

The UAB School of Nursing is collaborating with UAB Medicine, UAB Hospital and the Birmingham VAMC to establish nursemanaged transitional care clinics for Birmingham’s and Alabama’s most vulnerable patients.

Departments 24 The Assessment

36 The Review: Leadership

A roundup of UAB School of Nursing news and notes

26 Five Questions With...

Books that are shaping the careers of UAB School of Nursing alumni, faculty and graduate students

Kristi Henderson on leading the national charge in telehealth

39 In Their Own Words Real-life experiences as told by the clinicians, researchers, faculty and students who lived them

ON THE COVER: BSN student Adam Robinson with Professor

Maria Shirey, PhD, MBA, MSN, RN, NEA-BC, ANEF, FACHE, FAAN 2

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Gifts that Changed Everything Future nurse leaders excel with the help of generous donors

UAB NURSING MAGAZINE STAFF

EDITOR Jennifer Lollar

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Jessica Huffstutler

WRITERS Jimmy Creed, Catie Etka, Nancy Mann Jackson, Laura Hornsby Lesley, Jennifer Lollar, Deborah Lucas, Anita Smith

PHOTOGRAPHERS Caleb Chancey, Rob Culpepper, Catie Etka, Jennifer Lollar, Andi Rice, Steve Wood

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t’s an exciting time for UAB School of Nursing! This issue of UAB Nursing showcases how our faculty, students and alumni are leading the transformation of health and health care through innovations in education, research and clinical care. Standing at the center of care delivery, whether locally or globally, in the hospital, home or community, the UAB School of Nursing is at the forefront, leading the translation of research, educating advanced nursing specialty experts to deliver better care at lower costs, designing population-based care for chronic disease, developing telehealth programs to improve access and outcomes across the spectrum of health, and partnering to set the policy agenda to improve care throughout Alabama and beyond. Read about the UAB School of Nursing’s three interprofessional transitional care clinics, and our thriving educational and innovative partnerships with UAB Hospital and Health System, Children’s of Alabama, Birmingham Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the community. Our scientists and pre- and post-doctoral students are reaching underserved and diverse populations in the rural South and inner cities with the greatest health disparities, aiming to improve their quality of life through support groups, better health information and engagement, palliative care, network resources for survival and living well. UAB nursing students, faculty, alumni and donors have been recognized across multiple national and international venues throughout the past year, as presidents of prominent nursing organizations, award recipients for their contributions to education, research and clinical care by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, American Association of Critical Care Nursing, Friends of the National Institute of Nursing Research, and Committees of the U.S. Senate, among others. You’ll also find an uplifting story about our alumna, Kathy Henricks, who as a UAB baccalaureate nursing student in 1973 made the difference in the care experience for a 10-year-old boy, so much so that he sought her out through social media more than 40 years later to say thank you. And best of all — read about our people — our faculty, students, alumni and donors who make the world of UAB Nursing such an inspiring place to live and work.

UAB (www.uab.edu/nursing/home/building). Our building was designed and built almost 50 years ago, long before today’s complex technology and advances in health care and education emerged. Yet, tomorrow’s health care system requires nurses equipped with creativity, compassion, competency and comprehension together with the IQ and EQ to navigate evolving medical developments and to achieve better health at a lower cost. Just imagine the next 50 years of nursing education at UAB in this state-of-the-art building. From the triple aim to global health, the Affordable Care Act is revolutionizing the nation’s health system, challenging us to improve patient and provider behaviors to improve health and outcomes of care. The UAB School of Nursing is poised for this challenge. The future of nursing at UAB is now!

Letter from the Dean

Dean Doreen C. Harper, PhD, RN, FAAN Fay B. Ireland Endowed Chair in Nursing

Standing at the center of care delivery… UAB School of Nursing faculty, students and alumni are leading the transformation of health and health care through innovations in education, research and clinical care.

Also in this issue, we introduce you to the plans for our building transformation, 1701 University Boulevard — the Future of Nursing Education at FALL 2015 / UAB NURSING

Assistant Professor Dr. Michele Talley, Assistant Professor Dr. Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Ann Somerall, and Instructor Kendra Weaver

There are none better than nurses to lead innovations and new discoveries in education and health care because, ultimately, nurses are the best positioned to improve health outcomes across populations.

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Innovation. Merriam-Webster defines it

as “a new idea, device or method, or the act or process of introducing new ideas, devices or methods.”

LEADING NURSING EDUCATION, RESEARCH AND CARE INNOVATIONS WRITTEN BY JENNIFER LOLLAR // PHOTOGRAPHY BY CALEB CHANCEY, ROB CULPEPPER AND STEVE WOOD

Nurses and the nursing profession have long been known for innovation, from the founder of modern-day nursing Florence Nightingale and her innovations in sanitation reform and formal nursing education to today’s nurse educators and scientists, finding the most creative ways to tackle the world’s most crucial health and health care issues.

he UAB School of Nursing’s strategic alignment with the university’s top-ranked academic health science center, along with its alignment with Veterans’ and children’s health care, has helped make the School a recognized international leader in educational, research and clinical innovations.

The UAB School of Nursing is at the forefront in establishing pioneering transitional care clinics to take care of the most vulnerable populations across the health care continuum, forming policy to guide national health care practice, creating program innovations to improve care practices nationally, conducting novel research to reach rural populations facing the greatest effects from chronic or preventable conditions, and finding new and creative ways to educate students to be the future leaders who will shape coordinated, proactive and superior patient care. There are none better than nurses to lead innovations and new discoveries in education and health care because, ultimately, nurses are the best positioned to improve health outcomes across populations.

Pictured above (from left to right): UAB cardiologist and collaborating physician Dr. Vera Bittner, Nurse Practitioner Shannon DeLuca, Nurse Practitioner Dr. Dana Mitchell, and Clinical Nurse Leader Erica Arnold. Pictured right: Assistant Professor Dr. Tedra Smith, is the Primary Care Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Specialty Track Coordinator and teaches in the BSN and MSN programs. FALL 2015 / UAB NURSING

SUCCESSFULLY LEADING transitional care innovations Three nurse-managed clinics provide care for those with diabetes and heart failure, and Veterans with mental health needs. Clinical care coordinator Susan Kurre, and Social Worker Erin Clarkson.

> LEADING DIABETES CARE INNOVATION When the UAB School of Nursing opened its nurse-managed PATH (Providing Access to Health Care) Clinic in 2011 its goal was to help patients with no health insurance, many of whom were homeless, without access to health care.

“This clinic has an incredible impact on the quality

life for our patients, not just in terms of their diabetes, but also in terms of their overall health.” -Dr. Michele Talley

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Keeping patients’ blood sugar in check prevents other long-term complications.

But its founder, Associate Dean for Clinical and Global Partnerships and Professor Cynthia Selleck, PhD, RN, FAAN, had her sights set on expanding the clinic to provide chronic disease management for uninsured and underinsured patients with diabetes and began looking for innovative ways to make this a reality. In 2012 the School received a three-year, $1.4-million Nurse Education Practice Quality Retention (NEPQR) grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to develop and implement an interprofessional collaborative health-care transition clinic at the PATH Clinic to improve the quality of care and outcomes for underserved patients with diabetes recently discharged from UAB Hospital. It, along with supplemental funding from the UAB Health System, brought together a team that included nurses, physicians, nutritionists, social workers and more, to provide follow-up and continuing care, along with access to testing supplies and medications, for these patients.

“Diabetes is an enormous health issue in Alabama,” said Will Ferniany, PhD, CEO of the UAB Health System. “More than a third of our non-maternity patients in UAB Hospital suffer from, and nearly half of our patient days are associated with, poor blood sugar control. When you factor in that a large number of these patients lack insurance, and they often have no access to medical care or diabetic medications and supplies outside of the hospital, providing a source of ongoing care with access to needed medications and testing supplies is a win-win situation.”

Selleck said data show the clinic has resulted in improved patient outcomes, decreased hospital admissions and significantly reduced hospital costs. “We followed 218 unique patients who used the clinic for at least a year. Not only did the days they spend in the hospital decrease significantly, there was a 60 percent decrease in the cost to take care of them when they were hospitalized,” she said. UAB Hospital Chief Nursing Officer, Assistant Dean for Practice at UAB Hospital and Assistant Professor Terri Poe, DNP, who was instrumental in launching the PATH Clinic diabetes project when she was a DNP student in the School, is impressed with the outcomes so far. “These patients still visit our emergency department but they come for true ‘emergency’ reasons, not for clinic-type visits related to their diabetes,” she said. “And, when they do come in they are not as likely to be admitted. The PATH Clinic has helped reduce the patients’ complications from diabetes, thus decreasing the cost to the health system.” “This clinic has an incredible impact on the quality of life for our patients,” said Clinic Nurse Practitioner, MSN Program Director and Assistant Professor Michele Talley, PhD, CRNP, ACNP-BC. “The quicker we get their blood sugars under control the

quicker we reduce other complications and impact their health long term.” Survey data also show the PATH Clinic team, which comprises clinical and non-clinical providers, has been quite successful. Because the project was originally funded with a NEPQR grant, there was a tremendous amount of team evaluation required. For even the most seasoned providers, it has been a valuable learning curve. “Everyone, through this project, learned the best ways to function as a collaborative interprofessional team to provide quality, patient-centered care, including shared patient-centered problem solving,” Selleck said.

QUICK FACT: Our study found that for 218 unique patients who used the PATH clinic, there was a 60 percent decrease in the cost to take care of them when they were hospitalized.

In Summer 2015, the PATH Clinic moved onto the UAB campus into the Medical Towers building, giving the clinic more space, adding extra clinic days and providing a more convenient location for patients. “If there is something wrong with the patient and they need care right away from the emergency room, we are a lot closer than we were,” Talley said. With the success of the PATH Clinic, other faculty are using the model as a starting point for other nurse-managed interprofessional transitional care clinics for other conditions and populations.

Dr. Michele Talley has been with the diabetes clinic since it opened in 2012.

> INNOVATIVE HEART FAILURE CARE For a number of years, UAB Hospital has monitored heart failure patient outcomes, said Connie White-Williams, PhD, RN, FAAN, Director of the Center for Nursing Excellence and Assistant Professor. Traditional quality efforts have only modestly improved inconsistent length of hospital stays and higher-than-desired readmission rates. Interim Chair of the Department of Acute, Chronic and Continuing Care and Professor Maria Shirey, PhD, MBA, MSN, RN, NEA-BC, ANEF, FACHE, FAAN, collaborated with White-Williams as part of the UAB Nursing academic practice partnership

to open a nurse-managed, interprofessional transitional care clinic for heart failure patients recently discharged from UAB Hospital. The goal is to reduce 30-day readmission rates and improve access to care for the underinsured and medically underserved. “This builds on the PATH Clinic’s model with modifications to address the care complexity requirements for heart failure patients,” Shirey said. “We hope to replicate its outstanding outcomes.” The clinic has been open for six months, is supported by a $1.5 million Nurse

Patient Care Technician Peterica Hall checks the blood pressure of one of the clinics’ patients. FALL 2015 / UAB NURSING

"Our shared social

worker is able to help patients with prescription

assistance programs, transportation, housing and other needs.” -Dr. Maria Shirey

Collaborating physiciancardiologist Dr. Vera Bittner said nurse practitioner Shannon DeLuca and the clinic staff do an excellent job stressing medication adherence to patients.

Education Practice Quality Retention (NEPQR) grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), and comprises an interprofessional team of nursing, medicine, social work, health services administration and health information technology professionals. Transitional care coordination begins while patients are in the hospital. A clinical nurse leader serves as case manager, coordinating care across the health care continuum. Nurse practitioners and other providers see patients in clinic and hospital rounds on eligible heart failure inpatients. Team members also evaluate patients for palliative care eligibility and contact them within 48 hours of discharge to ascertain their well-being and confirm scheduled follow-up visits. “Our goal is to get these patients into evidence-based therapies, reverse their heart failure if we can and educate them on how to self manage,” Shirey said. “We also identify their barriers to compliance to help them be successful,” said Clinic Nurse Practitioner and Instructor Shannon DeLuca, MSN, CRNP, AGACNP-BC.

Dr. Connie White Williams, center director of the UAB Hospital Center for Nursing Excellence, teamed with Professor Dr. Maria Shirey (not pictured) to start the heart failure clinic.

QUICK FACT: Survey results show 95 percent of office visits resulted in satisfied or very satisfied ratings. Qualitative results also have been impressive. Patients say they feel they can ask questions and are treated with respect. 8

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Early results are encouraging, Shirey said. All patients referred to the clinic are seen within seven days of discharge. This is an important metric that has contributed to UAB Hospital receiving bronze level recognition from the American Heart Association’s Heart Failure Get with the Guidelines program. And, Shirey added, the clinic’s patient satisfaction scores are much greater than anticipated. Survey results show 95 percent of office visits resulted in satisfied or very satisfied ratings. Qualitative results also have been impressive. Patients say they feel they can ask questions and are treated with respect. “This clinic’s approach is different than others in that it is much more patient-centered,” said Vera Bittner, MD, UAB cardiologist and the clinic’s collaborating physician. “They do an excellent job in ensuring that the barriers

to treatment are removed as much as possible and, because they follow the patients so closely and see them so frequently, they do an excellent job of keeping patients on their medications.” The team also is performing well. Team members have been working closely with their evaluators, led by Lisle Hites, PhD, Director of the UAB Center for the Study of Community Health Evaluation and Assessment Unit. “Preliminary results indicate that successes are emerging as the team matures, resulting in more efficient communication in the interprofessional approach,” Shirey said. Innovative collaboration doesn’t end within the team. Many patients of the Heart Failure Clinic also receive care in the PATH Clinic. The two coordinate patient visits and share a social worker who is pivotal in helping patients. “Both clinics have to be creative in finding additional resources for what is an underserved patient population,” Shirey said. “Our shared social worker, Erin Clarkson, is able to help patients with prescription assistance programs, transportation, housing and other needs, and is a common face between the two clinics, which is reassuring for our patients.” Ferniany said these two clinics are excellent examples of the positive impact for patients and hospitals that can happen when academic health centers partner with schools of nursing. “These interprofessional transitional care clinics see some of the most complex populations served by UAB’s Academic Health Center and demonstrate the added value of engaging School of Nursing faculty and students to develop patient-centered solutions to chronic care,” said Dean and Fay B. Ireland Endowed Chair in Nursing Doreen C. Harper, PhD, RN, FAAN.

> TRANSITIONAL INNOVATIONS FOR VETERANS The School’s newest nurse-managed transition clinic, the VA Mental Health Afterhours Clinic, opened in May 2015. It is a partnership with the Birmingham VA Medical Center, offering appointments for those recently discharged from the Birmingham VA Medical Center or Veterans and their families in acute need, and those who want to avoid emergency department services. It is open on Tuesdays from 1 to 8 p.m. “Within the first two months we saw nearly 75 patients. Anytime we can add additional services to meet the needs of Veterans, it’s a good thing,” said Chair of the Department of Family, Community and Health Systems Professor Teena McGuinness, PhD, CRNP, PMHNP-BC, FAAN. Led by Instructor Chance Nicholson, MSN, BS, CRNP, PMHNP-BC, RN-BC, the clinic offers follow-ups, walk-in appointments, intakes, assessments, medications, psychotherapy and referrals. “The idea is to serve patients that may not have been able to be seen by their regular provider and to extend care hours so that individuals who work during the day, who may not be able to take off to come in for their appointment, can be seen. It gives people who really need to be seen the opportu-

nity to fulfill the need they have, hopefully preventing a readmission or preventing them from relying on emergency services,” Nicholson said. A unique aspect of the clinic is that in addition to Nicholson, staffing the clinic are three mental health nurse practitioner residents. The Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Residency Program was created by a five-year pilot program from the Veterans Health Administration Office of Academic Affiliation to the Birmingham VAMC and UAB School of Nursing. The patients the residents see are quite challenging, McGuinness said. They have PTSD, panic, mood or anxiety disorders and even mild or moderate dementia. Often these are combined with other chronic conditions, including diabetes, lung disease or high blood pressure.

is without our support should a need arise.” “The mental health nurse practitioners in this clinic are increasing access to high-quality interprofessional team-based care for some of the most complex Veterans with behavioral healh issues and conditions in a more convenient setting,” said Cynthia Cleveland, DNP, RN, NE-BC, Chief Nursing Officer for the Birmingham VAMC. “The program also has helped our Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Residents see the need to further their education through our Doctor of Nursing Practice Program (DNP),” McGuinness added.

Nicholson supervises the residents and provides clinical expertise and consults on patients when necessary. “This is an excellent educational opportunity,” he said. “Each time residents see a patient, we are there for support. While there is independence for residents to see patients, there is never a time the resident

Instructor Chance Nicholson supervises residents and consults on patients.

SETTING THE POLICY AGENDA IN HEART FAILURE CARE advanced cardiac disease. The purpose of the symposium was to identify priorities for research, clinical care and policy and to generate new ideas and collaborations that could affect national change. In June 2015, UAB School of Nursing Marie L. O’Koren Endowed Chair Professor Marie Bakitas, DNSc, CRNP, NP-C, AOCN, ACHPN, FAAN, along with Assistant Professor Laura Gelfman, MD, MPH, and Associate Professor Nathan Goldstein, MD, from the Ichan School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, came together on the UAB campus to lead an interdisciplinary group of 25 national leaders representing palliative care, geriatrics and heart failure to discuss the state of the science of integrating palliative care for patients with

“The goal of this two-day symposium was to begin to create a national agenda for integrating palliative care into routine heart failure care,” Bakitas said. “We worked to identify gaps, and said ‘these are the issues — what are we going to do about them?’ and then worked together to identify strategies to establish national standards for quality heart failure care.” UAB and Mount Sinai, which have John A. Hartford Foundation Centers of Excellence in Geriatric Care, secured an American Federation for Aging Research Change Agent Grant and National Palli-

ative Care Research Center and departmental support to fund the symposium. They will report the symposium results in March 2016 at the Annual Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine and Nursing meeting; additional dissemination activities will include a “white paper” and international cardiology professional meeting presentations. “Our challenge now is to continue the momentum and sustain a structure for the group to continue its work, even without funding. Ultimately our goal is to improve care for patients who have heart failure and their families,” she said. “There needs to be more done to translate research and good clinical care practices into national policy. In the end it is about the patients and trying to smooth the transition as they advance in their illness.” FALL 2015 / UAB NURSING

Leadership Resources ical resources having forensic nurse leaders on faculty offers, we have the opportunity to provide knowledge and clinical expertise not only in creating a forensics specialty but also in providing this knowledge across the myriad of undergraduate and graduate programs we offer,” said Dean and Fay B. Ireland Endowed Chair in Nursing Doreen C. Harper, PhD, RN, FAAN.

Dr. Patricia Speck is leading the School’s forensic nursing initiatives.

Growing a Forensic Nursing Specialty Building educational, research and clinical capacity at UAB and beyond WRITTEN BY // PHOTOGRAPHY BY JENNIFER LOLLAR

hen you say “forensic nurse,” many have a preconceived idea of the specialty based upon television shows like “CSI” and “Law and Order: SVU.” But it encompasses much more and offers dozens of career avenues for nursing clinicians and researchers.

Forensic nurses investigate car accidents for car insurance companies and ask, "Knowing what we know about the pattern of injuries, what happened here?” They also can investigate medical errors in hospitals, asking how did this happen and what is our responsibility moving forward for preventing it from happening again? And forensic nursing’s roots are grounded in the founder of modern-day nursing. “Florence Nightingale was the first forensic nurse who worked with victims of intentional trauma – from war and those in prisons,” said Professor Patricia Speck, DNSc, RN, FNP-BC, DF10

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IAFN, FAAFS, FAAN. “Forensic nursing is a holistic approach to a patient whose life and health are intersecting with legal systems.” And, she said, forensic nursing permeates the entire nursing profession. “Not one nurse that practices can avoid the intersection of the law in their practice,” Speck said. “Therefore, every nurse practices some level of forensic nursing.” Recruiting top faculty Speck was recruited to the UAB School of Nursing in 2014 by Dean and Fay B. Ireland Endowed Chair in Nursing Doreen C. Harper, PhD, RN, FAAN, with the goal of creating a graduate forensic nursing specialty at both the master’s and doctoral levels, and to ensure the basic tenants of forensic nursing are woven into nursing education at all levels, much like is done with cultural competency. “Given UAB’s focus on social justice and equity, and the exceptional clin-

Speck, who also is Program Director for Global Outreach in the School, is a board-certified family nurse practitioner and internationally recognized expert in advanced practice forensic nursing of sexual and domestic assault and abuse and trafficking. (See sidebar for more). Speck, along with two other colleagues, wrote the first national practice standards document, Forensic Nursing: Scope and Standards of Practice, in 2009. Forensic specialty The graduate specialty in forensic nursing is slated to begin in Fall 2016 but students across all programs already are being taught forensic nursing concepts they can carry into practice, similar to how health disparities or cultural competence are taught. “We have created the framework for what concepts are taught at every level and in every course,” Speck said. “Once students graduate and begin their practice they will know how to efficiently and competently practice the basics of forensic nursing until they can get a specialist involved in their patient’s care.” And the graduate specialty will be robust. In developing the curriculum Speck and other academic leaders in the school have looked at the state of Alabama and Deep South needs and how they can be best served by the track and its graduates. “We know that there are a lot of needs around sexual assault examination,” Speck said, “especially in smaller rural hospitals because the farther away you get from a large city, someone certified to do a sexual assault examination is more rare, not unlike other areas of health care.”

Students first will be taught the scientific foundation for forensic nursing. Then they will learn one-on-one care, how to collect evidence, how to document evidence, patterns of injuries seen in different scenarios and the latest techniques for testing blood and DNA. This will be capped with a broad picture of what all of this means in different populations. As part of the specialty, students also will be involved with court systems, forensic laboratories and health-care areas, including emergency rooms, because about a third of what is seen in emergency rooms has forensic implications. “For someone who is looking at forensic nursing at UAB, the potential for what they can do and what they will learn will be incredible,” Speck added. “A strategic goal for our academic programs is to provide programs and specialties that are cutting edge and best position us to prepare graduates who can meet the needs of the health care system of tomorrow,” said Professor Linda Moneyham, PhD, RN, FAAN, Senior Associate Dean of Academic Affairs. “Forensic nursing is a good example of how we can better meet the needs of the health care system.” Building research capacity There also will be cutting edge research opportunities for graduate students in the master’s and doctoral programs. Currently, Speck is the Principal Investigator of a three-year, $939,398 grant from the Department of Justice (DOJ) Programs/ National Institute of Justice (NIJ) for a project to help combat the reduced minority-victim reporting in sexual assault and abuse and subsequent prosecution decisions that continue to affect minority women adversely in the health and criminal justice systems. The forerunner of this study, published in March 2015, provided expanded knowledge about what influences DNA recovery, how long it can be recovered and the methods to do so. “Because these findings were not gen-

eralizable to minority populations the Department of Justice awarded this grant to repeat the study with minorities, as minorities are victimized in larger percentages than all other populations,” Speck said. And Speck already is mentoring doctoral students. PhD student Rosario V. Sanchez, MSN, RN, CCRN, CFN, SANE-A, FN-CSA, DABFN, relocated from New Jersey to study with Speck. Her expertise is in intercontinental forensic health and human trafficking which also is her dissertation focus.

She also is lending her expertise to help build a family violence center in Birmingham, and is in talks with the state medical examiner about the School’s students interfacing with that office and has connected with the interdisciplinary child abuse group at Children’s of Alabama. “Forensic nursing is all about interprofessional work; obviously no one investigates crime or injury by themselves,” Speck said. “You learn to work in teams and there is so much potential in Alabama for working with teams that are well developed.”

Connecting with campus, community Speck also is working to extend forensic nursing’s reach beyond the walls of the School. She is working with the UAB Title IX office on the Coordinated Community Response to sexual violence on campus. She is engaged in program evaluation so that the Title IX office can use the rapid cycle improvement methods to ensure timely response to new or emerging issues facing the campus. “UAB’s program is active and progressive and the interventions that are ongoing are creating a safer campus for UAB faculty, staff, students and visitors,” Speck said.

Doctoral Student Rosario Sanchez relocated to study with Speck.

PATRICIA SPECK RECEIVES 2015 IAFN ANN BURGESS FORENSIC NURSING RESEARCH AWARD Professor Patricia M. Speck, DNSc, APRN, FNP-BC, DFIAFN, FAAFS, FAAN, has been named the 2015 Ann Burgess Forensic Nursing Research Award winner by the International Association of Forensic Nurses. The award honors an individual who has made exceptional research contributions to the field of Forensic Nursing through clinical program development, scientific achievement, legislative changes or educational activities. Speck is an internationally recognized family nurse practitioner and researcher in public health-forensic nursing practice globally, is experienced in policy and curriculum development and program evaluation and is a consultant to programs nationally and internationally responding to violence and subsequent health disparities in Africa, Eurasia, Caribbean and the Americas. She also maintains active faculty practices globally and locally, consulting nationally and internationally. FALL 2015 / UAB NURSING

Partnerships

Child Care: Faculty Collaborate with Children’s of Alabama to Improve Care, Outcomes for Patients and Nurses WRITTEN BY NANCY MANN JACKSON // PHOTOGRAPHY BY JENNIFER LOLLAR

T Drs. Gwen Childs and Wendy Landier are working with Children’s of Alabama to lead innovations to improve pediatric care.

he School of Nursing collaborates with Children’s of Alabama both, academically and clinically, to improve care and outcomes for the young people who receive care there. Two nursing faculty members are currently involved in important projects at Children’s that furthers this longtime partnership and are producing powerful results for children, their families and the level of care provided at the hospital.

Wendy Landier, PhD, CRNP, Associate Professor A member of the newly-created Institute for Cancer Outcomes and Survivorship, Landier holds an appointment within the Department of Pediatrics in the UAB School of Medicine, as well as within the School of Nursing. As an internationally recognized expert in pediatric oncology and survivorship care, Landier conducts research focused on improving outcomes in childhood cancer survivors. Currently, Landier is involved in several clinical research studies onsite at Children’s. For instance, she is co-leading two studies: one is focused on the factors that influence childhood cancer survivors’ experience with the human papillomavirus vaccine (HPV), and the other study is focused on improving medication adherence in children with leukemia. Landier is also involved in a study to identify and treat children with increased risk of hearing loss due to receiving treatment for neuroblastoma, and another study to understand the effective delivery of patient and family education in pediatric oncology. Because all these research studies are clinical in nature, “there is an 12

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opportunity for nursing students at all levels to experience firsthand what it is like to conduct clinical research at Children’s, and to gain skills and experience in pediatric oncology clinical research,” Landier said. “Dr. Landier’s program of research in childhood cancer survival is an excellent fit with the cancer survivorship programs in the School of Nursing and at UAB,” said Dean and Fay B. Ireland Endowed Chair in Nursing Doreen C. Harper, PhD, RN, FAAN. In addition to conducting research, Landier is also working with Kim Whelan, MD, MSPH, and Smita Bhatia, MD, MPH, to expand the Taking on Life After Cancer (TLC) Clinic at Children’s, which provides specialized long-term follow-up care for childhood cancer survivors. “The overall goal of this clinic is to provide a health promotion focused, follow-up clinic for childhood cancer survivors that gives them the knowledge, tools, and specialized care that they need to maximize their health potential both during childhood and as they move into adulthood,” Landier said. Because Children’s has an outstanding history of commitment to pediatric oncology research, Landier says

her work there is a perfect fit. “I look forward to a long and rewarding collaboration with Children’s and the School of Nursing through the conduction of high-quality clinical Dr. Gwen research, which will inChilds teaching clude both Children’s the clinical scholars. Oncology Group-affiliated studies as well as investigator-initiated work,” she said. “Through this research, we will have the opportunity to learn from our patients and families and to address important gaps in knowledge in the field of pediatric oncology; together, we can move the field forward.”

Preparing Nurse-Scholars In addition to supporting ongoing research at Children’s, faculty members are teaching onsite nurses to organize and conduct their own evidence-based projects through the Clinical Scholars Program, a partnership between the School and Children’s of Alabama. “The goal of the Clinical Scholars Program is to help give nurses more information about developing evidence-based projects and equip them with skills to do so in order to improve quality of care and patient outcomes,” said Associate Professor Gwendolyn Childs, PhD, RN, director of the program. In its second year, the Clinical Scholars Program selects 10 nurses for each 12-month cycle. Once a month, the scholars attend a full day of classes taught by the the School’s faculty, where they learn about the importance of evidence-based practice and how to conduct it. In the meantime, each participating scholar develops, implements and assesses a project based upon Children’s initiatives and strategic plan. Throughout the year, Childs serves as a mentor and supporter for each scholar and his or her project. To be selected for the scholars program, nurses must be at least BSN-prepared and a full-time employee at Children’s. Because they are firmly embedded in patient care at Children’s, their projects in evidence-based care are highly relevant and useful to their co-workers and the patients they serve.

For instance, two nurses working in the hematology unit are conducting a project focused on family education about central line changes. “They recognized that kids were being readmitted with central line infections and realized that parents did not understand how to take care of the central line at home,” Childs says. “In this project, the nurses are involving parents at the hospital in taking care of the central line, showing videos, and answering questions while the child is in the hospital. They are hoping this will increase parents’ understanding of how to maintain the line at home.” “This collaboration brings together the best of the UAB School of Nursing with

our Clinical Scholars to provide better care for our children and their families,” said Deborah E. Wesley, RN, MSN, Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer of Children’s of Alabama. The Clinical Scholars Program, funded by a generous philanthropic donation from The Thomas F. Lowder Family Foundation, is a win-win for the hospital and the nursing school. “Children’s really wants to see all its nurses involved in research of evidence-based projects,” Childs says. “This program helps nurses improve their skills and participate in evidence-based projects that will improve their practice. Also, by providing our resources to this program, the School of Nursing is helping to improve care and outcomes at Children’s, and we’re also showing nurses how furthering their education can really help improve practice.”

VA Nursing Academic Partnership earns 2015 AACN Exemplary AcademicPractice Partnership Award The UAB School of Nursing and the Birmingham Veterans Affairs Medical Center are the recipients of the 2015 American Association of Colleges of Nursing Exemplary Academic-Practice Partnership Award for their VA Nursing Academic Partnership, which recognizes AACN member institutions involved in highly productive and model academic-practice partnerships. “The School and BVAMC have enjoyed a 40-year relationship—one that flourished in 2009 when our partnership to plan and develop our original VA Nursing Academy began,” said Dean and Fay B. Ireland Endowed Chair in Nursing Doreen Harper, PhD, RN, FAAN. This unique partnership is strategically designed to accomplish mutually beneficial goals, the most important being the shared vision to transform the care of Veterans and their families by working collaboratively to educate compassionate, highly competent nurses and nurse practitioners. AACN recognized the partnership for fulfilling a number of its criteria, including demonstrating an innovative and sustained relationship that extends beyond clinical placements and for demonstrating positive, measurable outcomes. From the time it was selected as one of the country’s original VA Nursing Academies, now known as the VA Nursing Academic Partnership (VANAP), the partnership has grown to include a Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Residency and the country’s first VA Nursing Academic Partnership for Graduate Education (VANAP-GE). “This award recognizes the value of the academic and service partnership to benefit the care of Veterans and their families,” said Cynthia Cleveland, DNP, RN, NEBC, Chief Nursing Officer for the Birmingham VAMC. FALL 2015 / UAB NURSING

Leadership

A UNIQUE APPROACH TO COMMUNITY HEALTH CLINICALS //

AMNP students get a real-world look at the harsh realities of life for vulnerable populations

WRITTEN BY JENNIFER LOLLAR

When Associate Professor Jennan Phillips, PhD, RN, FAAOHN, took over as program director for the Accelerated Master’s in Nursing Pathway (AMNP) in the Fall 2014 semester she knew one thing — with so much to do in such a short period of time, clinical experiences had to be meaningful and creative.

he AMNP provides an option for non-nurses — who have a bachelor’s degree or higher in a field other than nursing — to pursue a nursing degree. This unique category of students is eligible for master’s-level admission to this graduate program once prerequisite nursing foundation course requirements are met.

One of the changes was in the community and mental health clinical experiences. The cohort of students was split. Half did their psychiatric nursing clinical with hospitalized patients, and half were in community settings seeing clients with mental health problems or who were homeless. Then they switched. The results were positive.

The clinical experiences the AMNP students complete vary from those of the BSN, because they build on the liberal arts and scientific background from other previous undergraduate degrees.

“Community and mental health clinical experiences are closely related because both deal with vulnerable populations. Clients with behavioral health issues have similar comorbidities and prob-

UAB NURSING / FALL 2015

lems whether hospitalized or receiving treatment in the community. With these changes, students seemed to have a better understanding of the impact nursing could have in the community and greater satisfaction than previously when taking the two clinical courses in separate semesters,” she said. And the creativity didn’t stop there. Knowing that nurses and patients often don’t come from the same communities, Phillips and her team of instructors came up with unique learning experiences that would give the AMNP students an in-depth look at the issues facing different communities — some from a first-person perspective. One of the modules for the community clinicals focused on vulnerable populations. The students were assigned to use the local public transportation system to experience many of the same difficulties

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"One student, after using public transportation to try to get from their assigned community to a health clinic, and realizing the time and effort it took, cried." ///////////////////////////////////////////////

of patients who rely on our inadequate bus system to access health care, obtain their medications and buy groceries. They were then asked to assess the community-based upon the ease of finding healthy foods, what types of stores and restaurants they could find, the condition of real estate, etc. “This is an excellent learning experience because it enables students to develop sensitivity to the experiences of persons in underserved communities,” Phillips said. “One student, after using public transportation to try to get from their assigned community to a health clinic, and realizing the time and effort it took, cried. They had no idea what people went through just to be able to see a health care provider. Most of these students have never faced that type of hardship.” Phillips added that the bus ride windshield survey through different communities also was eye-opening. “Most students reported dollar stores and a lot of fast food restaurants, places to buy alcohol and tobacco, and bars on the windows of occupied buildings and decaying vacant real estate,” she said. “This worked well and was a good learning experience because it gave the students an idea of how difficult it is for vulnerable populations to secure their medications and find healthy foods in their communities. Not to mention dangers they would face in the community trying to get these items.” The students didn’t just look at commu-

nities. They also spent time with first responders who go into these communities of vulnerable populations, studying the impact on this workforce. “They were assigned to ride along with Birmingham Fire and Rescue and look at the community from the perspective of a pre-hospital provider working in an environment that is essentially uncontrolled,” Phillips said. “The students also accompanied paramedics into emergency departments to see how both the patients and first responders were treated. It gave them an excellent perspective to see how their actions as a nurse can impact the workflow and workday of others.” Phillips said it is important for students to have global health experiences as well, though international travel may not be possible. The School uses the non-profit Lineville, Ala.-based Servants in Faith and Technology (SIFAT) training facility, which offers a simulated global village demonstrating the issues these villages face to give students a perspective of how the global environment impacts health. “The exercises in the villages show students how outside forces, like famine, drought and war, can control poverty and health,” she said. “There also is a simulated slum, giving the students a perspective of how desperate people keep their families fed and sheltered, how sex trade workers take women away and how village leaders are not always respectable people, and how all of this impacts health.” “Teaching strategies that actively engage students in real-life experiences are essential to increase students’ depth of understanding of issues,” said Professor Linda Moneyham, PhD, RN, FAAN, Senior Associate Dean of Academic Affairs. “Such activities serve to challenge students’ preconceived notions of populations and to facilitate the application of concepts and principles they learn in the classroom. These experiments help us to prepare nurses with the competence to care for populations whose culture and life expereinces are different than their own. Our faculty are applying similar innovative strategies in our other programs to achieve this level of engagement.”

WALKER RECOGNIZED FOR EXCELLENCE, INNOVATION Associate Professor Deborah K. Walker, DNP, CRNP, NP-C, FNPBC, AOCN, has been selected as the 2015 recipient of AACN’s Excellence and Innovation in Teaching Award. To be selected for the award, faculty must demonstrate significant innovation in teaching/ learning approaches to promote learner outcomes; lead in the promotion and implementation of innovation in teaching/learning approaches in nursing education; act as a role model for creating and sustaining a culture in nursing education that integrates theory and practice; mentor faculty in evidence-based teaching/ learning approaches; and share innovation outside of their home institution. Walker’s experience in clinical practice, global health as a Fulbright Senior Specialist, and teaching with technology, has provided the basis for the development of teaching innovations that impact students in the United States and in Africa. Her extensive experience in oncology nursing as a nurse practitioner also provides the content and context for her teaching activities.

FALL 2015 / UAB NURSING

Research

TELEMEDICINE: Removing barriers for rural women with HIV WRITTEN BY DEBORAH LUCAS //

Research technician Dr. Corilyn Ott connects with potential study participants across Alabama via telemedicine software.

diagnosis of HIV/AIDS is no longer a death sentence. But, there are still barriers to care that go beyond medication, especially to one of the country’s most atrisk populations, African-American women in the rural South.

Associate Professor Mirjam-Colette Kempf, PhD, MPH, has embarked on a unique pilot study using telemedicine to provide mental health counseling to these women who cannot readily access mental health care. The desired outcome is better mental health and, consequently, better adherence to HIV treatment plans. “Some 50 percent of those diagnosed with HIV have some mental health issue,” Kempf said. “Depending on the study cited, as many as 60 percent of women with HIV are depressed. They find themselves in rural areas without ready access to mental health professionals, and they bear the weight of the shame and stigma they feel for having contracted the disease.” Sixty-six of Alabama’s 67 counties are designated as mental health professional shortage areas. Dr. Mirjam-Colette Kempf

Using a $450,000 grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, Kempf set in place a screening process for prospective participants. “Telemedicine allows them to see the person on the other end and communicate in a similar way as in a face-to-face session without having to drive additional miles to gain access to a specialty care facility such as UAB,” Kempf said. Participants interact with the interventionists at UAB

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANDI RICE AND ROB CULPEPPER

UAB NURSING / FALL 2015

via secure telemedicine software connecting the School of Nursing with community clinics in Dothan, Montgomery, Tuscaloosa and Selma. In line with UAB’s commitment to student involvement in interdisciplinary research, students trained in cognitive behavioral therapy in the Clinical Psychology doctoral program speak with participants once a week for 12 weeks. The participants are on average 42 years old, with reports from those having been infected by life partners who did, and did not, know they themselves were infected. “There is so much judgement about HIV no matter how the person was infected,” Kempf said. “Many of these women have no one to talk to about their condition because they have internalized society’s attitude of guilt and shame.” In addition, many of the women have suffered or are suffering other traumatic life events such as abuse, post-traumatic stress and poverty, which also contribute to depression. “We are attempting to overcome some of the psychosocial and structural barriers to care by sharing the amazing resources we have here at UAB,” Kempf said. But beyond helping individuals, there is a public health issue this study can address: adherence to medication protocols and education.

It’s estimated that 1 million individuals are infected with the HIV virus in the United States. Of those, only 80 percent know they are infected. Of those, only 20 to 25 percent have their viral load under control and pose little risk to others. Mental health issues such as depression are known to prevent patients from taking their medication as scheduled and attending their clinic visits, both placing themselves and others at risk. “By addressing depression we can improve an individual’s mental and physical health and impact public health,” Kempf said.

During the weekly sessions, participants talk about adherence as well as any other topic that is impacting their lives. Participant feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. “Some say it’s the highlight of their week,” Kempf said. When the 4-year study concludes, Kempf plans to disseminate the intervention to facilities and professionals who provide care to this population, testing its efficacy via a multi-center NIH-funded trial. “Interventions such as Dr. Kempf ’s are critical to increasing positive health outcomes for individuals with HIV disease,” said Linda Moneyham, PhD, RN,

FAAN, Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and a pioneer in HIV research, which includes developing a telephone intervention for counseling rural HIV-infected women. “Even though there are now highly effective pharmacological treatments that have advanced life expectancy of individuals with HIV disease, the benefits of such treatments are limited for some populations because of social, psychological, and environmental factors that can impact access to care and treatment. Nursing researchers such as Dr. Kempf are impacting the health outcomes in HIV disease through the development of interventions that target the social, psychological and environmental determinants of HIV-related health disparities.”

MARIE BAKITAS RECEIVES 2015 FNINR PATH-PAVER AWARD Already internationally known as an innovative nursing pioneer, leader and scientist for her sustained, high-impact program of research in pain management and palliative care, Professor and Marie L. O’Koren Endowed Chair Marie A. Bakitas, DNSc, CRNP, NP-C, AOCN, ACHPN, FAAN, has been named the recipient of the 2015 Friends of the National Institute of Nursing Research (FNINR) Path-Paver Award. The Path-Paver Award is given to a midto-late career nurse scientist who has achieved one or more breakthroughs in theory development, research methods, instruments or subject matter that has paved the way for other scientists and who has influenced and mentored the next generation of nurse researchers. Over the past three decades, Bakitas has spearheaded initiatives in pain and symptom management through quality improvement, research and policy change projects. Her work in pain management then led Bakitas into her current body of research in creating a

model for early palliative care. Bakitas is “one of the most influential palliative care nurse scientists and pioneers,” said Linda Cronenwett, PhD, RN, FAAN, Dean Emeritus and Professor at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing and Co-Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Executive Nurse Fellows Program, in her nomination letter. “Dr. Bakitas’ impact and sphere of influence in the field of palliative care, through mentoring the next generation of scientists and clinicians, extends beyond theory to practice, legislation and health policy, all of which have changed the quality of life for individuals and their families.” Early palliative care tests the theoretical constructs proposed in the 1990 World Health Organization (WHO) Pain Relief and Palliative Report. The WHO model challenges the notion that palliative care is about “end of life.” “Some of the worst experiences I witnessed were situations where in a quest for cure, little was being done to comfort patients who had long-lasting pain from cancer treatment, those with serious illnesses moving toward the end of life, and those already at the end of life,” Bakitas said. “That is when I truly

understood you can’t plan for the end of life at the end of life, you’ve got to do it at the beginning, when patients are first diagnosed with an illness that likely will lead to end of life. If you provide coaching, communication, and decision-making skills to patients and families at the beginning of an illness, what happens at the end might look very different.” Bakitas has made significant and sustained contributions to advancing innovations in pain relief through her membership in the Oncology Nursing Society, since 1999 has led a team that has tested and demonstrated the efficacy of Project ENABLE (Educate, Nurture, Advise, Before Life Ends), and is also paving the way for integration of early palliative care for patients with heart failure and their caregivers. “Dr. Bakitas’ passion, commitment and scientific contributions have led to a shift in the paradigm of care for seriously ill persons and their family caregivers,” said Professor and Associate Dean for Research Karen Meneses, PhD, RN, FAAN. “She has continuously and diligently sustained her research program to break new ground in the most challenging areas of health care.”

FALL 2015 / UAB NURSING

Innovation

Display of letters brings

Nightingale to life WRITTEN BY CATIE ETKA // PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROB CULPEPPER

ursing luminary Florence Nightingale was a pioneer in her time and continues to pave the nursing landscape into the 21st century. The core values developed by Nightingale have created a bond between all nurses that can be attributed to her teachings and passion for nursing excellence.

Concepts taught and founded by Florence Nightingale are intertwined into coursework at all levels throughout a student's journey in the UAB School of Nursing.

The UAB School of Nursing is fortunate in that the University acquired through donation a collection of 50 of her letters in 1958. While the original letters remain at the Reynolds Historical Library, it has

been a priority of Doreen Harper, PhD, RN, FAAN, Dean and Fay B. Ireland Endowed Chair in Nursing, to bring the letters to life.

uate and Pre-Licensure Programs and Associate Professor Lynn Stover Nichols , PhD, RN, BC, SANE, and Instructor Kala Blakely, DNP, CRNP, NP-C.

“These letters represent nursing history at its center,” said Harper. “But they are no use sitting in a box. With the Barrett Brock MacKay Florence Nightingale Exhibit we set out to create something intentional and visual that the students and faculty can interact with daily.”

From this committee, an idea was born to create a student brochure to make the letters and their purpose more readily accessible to the students. The brochure details applicable uses for all levels of nursing education, from bachelors to doctoral.

In March 2012, UAB School of Nursing Board of Visitors member Barrett Brock MacKay, and her husband Rick, funded the interactive exhibit to bring the Dean’s vision to life. The exhibit features four iPads with virtual copies of the letters, as well as photos, quotes and an audio recording of Florence Nightingale’s voice. The letters are also available to view online in both the original and typed versions.

The Ba rrett Br ock Ma Florenc cKay e Nigh tingale Exhib

at the U AB Sch ool

of Nurs ing

UAB NURSING / FALL 2015

Once the vision became a reality, Dean Harper appointed a Nightingale Committee to develop different ways to further utilize the letters and initiate programming and curriculum changes rooted in the School’s values and strategic plan that also incorporated Florence Nightingale’s legacy in nursing. Currently serving on the committee are Interim Assistant Dean for Undergrad-

These tangible resources, combined with the live exhibit, allow the students to gain more appreciation for the importance of nursing history and Florence Nightingale’s work, said Blakely. “The work we do every day is affected by the advances she made in our field.” The brochure is included in new student materials during orientations. Concepts taught and founded by Florence Nightingale are intertwined into coursework at all levels throughout a student’s journey through the UAB School of Nursing. This seamless integration allows students to experience her legacy as soon as they begin their studies in the School. “From day one students are able to experience her impact,” said Stover Nichols. “Through both the exhibit and the brochure, Florence Nightingale’s legacy is woven into each class in the UAB School of Nursing.”

Grocery Anatomy

WRITTEN BY // PHOTOGRAPHY BY CATIE ETKA

On any given day, walking through the School’s nursing skills and competency assessment labs seems more like visiting aisle 10 at your local grocery store than the skills practice area in one of the nation’s leading schools of nursing. nstructor Bonnie Bibb, MSN, RN, Director of Clinical Simulation and Training, Assistant Professor Penni Watts, PhD, RN, CHSE, and Student Assistants Connor Moon and Tyler Burckhard, are known for engineering creative replacements for bodily fluids and task trainers in the simulation lab.

Task trainers are 3D models resembling body parts used to train nursing and other students. For the hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students using the School’s labs each week, to learn new skills or practice ones they have already learned, a lot of time and resources is required to make their experiences as lifelike as possible. While faculty are more than willing to put in the time, they like to get more creative with resources. It is not uncommon to come across obscure grocery items in the skills and simulation lab to get as close as possible to the texture, look and even smell of what students will encounter in practice. The faculty use upright turkeys and ribs to practice thoracentesis, ham hocks to perform wound debridement, tissue paper and petroleum jelly to mimic burns and intravenous infiltration and oatmeal or makeup to replicate blood and pus. Graduate students use turkey legs to practice bone marrow aspiration and Cornish hens for thoracotomy procedures. Faculty and staff constantly look for ways to offer the most realistic simulation possible. “These household items and animal parts actually do a great job of simulating human body parts and fluids,” said Watts. “Students can practice task training numerous times, and we don’t need to re-purchase official task trainers.” In fact, these grocery items often do a better job of simulating than the official task trainers. The students rave about how realistic and accurate these everyday items are. “The hands-on experience was invaluable; to hold and feel the women’s health care devices such as speculums, tenaculums, and uterine sounds. The women’s health faculty provide creative and realistic simulation materials to ensure we are prepared for clinical rotations and beyond,” said Heather Logan, first semester DNP student. Some of these women’s health moulage ideas are inspired from articles, the Internet, conferences and

networking. However, some procedures are unique to UAB and the School’s own faculty. Assistant Professor Donna Dunn, PhD, CRNP, CNM, FNP-BC, and Bibb wanted students to gain a better understanding of the different stages of dilation of a woman’s cervix during childbirth. The team came up with a replica using a cardboard box, fittings and couplings from the plumbing section in the hardware store and suture pads. Each box represents a different stage of dilation. And, Assistant Professor

Aimee Holland, DNP, CRNP, WHNP-BC, NP-C, RD, uses a hotdog to simulate a cervix and a small, red pipe cleaner to simulate an endocervical polyp. The creative simulations the faculty do in the lab also are interprofessional. By working with the Physician Assistant program in the UAB School of Health Professions and Assistant Professor Kristopher Maday, MS, PA-C, CNSC, simulations for an emergency caesarian birth are created using a water-filled balloon, a plastic bag and an extra-large suture pad.

Whole turkeys, turkey necks and hamhocks are just some of the items faculty use to simulate the human body.

While using groceries and other items in the labs can be fun and interesting, the reason for them is serious. Many nursing skills are acquired through dutiful and repetitive time in the skills lab. From intravenous insertion to wound closure using suturing techniques, nursing students learn to call the simulation lab their second home, mastering important skills before coming in contact with live patients. FALL 2015 / UAB NURSING

Research

INNOVATIVE PATHWAYS INTO NURSING

}

The most affordable nationally ranked degree programs with a myriad of entry points providing the skills and knowledge to impact health globally

ocated in one of the world’s largest academic health science centers, the UAB School of Nursing offers innovative academic pathways to bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees, transforming the nursing workforce with highly educated leaders.

U.S. News & World Report, in its survey of the Best Nursing Schools for 2016, ranked the UAB School of Nursing 13th nationally, with three MSN Specialty Tracks ranked on reputation — Nursing Health Systems Administration is listed 9th, Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner 12th and Family Nurse Practitioner 14th. The School also ranks number one in the “Top 50 Best Value MSN Programs of 2015,” number 17 in the “Top 50 Best Value BSN Programs of 2015,” and number 27 in the “Top 50 Best Value RN to BSN Programs of 2015” by valuecolleges.com, which recognized the School’s affordability, quality of corporate and medical partnerships, high-tech simulation labs, impressive faculty and quality of online classes. “The UAB School of Nursing consistently ranks in the top 20 of nursing programs nationwide, offering students high-quality affordable undergraduate and graduate nursing education programs,” said Dean and Fay B. Ireland Endowed Chair in Nursing Doreen Harper, PhD, RN, FAAN. Graduates become bedside nurses, expert practice leaders at the highest level, health care executives, faculty and nurse scientists, or any one of hundreds of career options. Some of the pathways into the profession offered by the School include: 20

WRITTEN BY JENNIFER LOLLAR // PHOTOGRAPHY BY CATIE ETKA, ROB CULPEPPER AND STEVE WOOD

UAB NURSING / FALL 2015

} BSN Fourth Semester Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing (BSN) student Daniel Ty Sumner said growing up he was the clumsy kid who always got hurt playing sports or with friends. That, combined with early clinical experiences at UAB Hospital, led him to want to practice in acute trauma and orthopedics after graduation. “While I was in the Acute Trauma Care Unit I was able to follow a patient to the OR. I was with him the whole time — pre-op, scrubbed in to watch the surgery and followed him to the Post Anesthesia Care Unit. It gave me an overall experience, and I was able to see all of the different roles a nurse plays. It also showed me the interprofessionalism that goes into patient care — surgeons, scrub nurses, surgery techs, anesthesia. I chose UAB because of the quality of the education I could get here and this exceeded my expectations.” He also is excited for the leadership opportunities the nursing profession offers. “As a bedside nurse I’m going to have anywhere from three to five patients a day. I like that I can take charge of a patient’s care and know everything going on with each patient to improve each patient’s experience.”

} Nurse Practitioner Fourth semester Family Nurse Practitioner with Oncology Subspecialty Student Chelsea Morgan Baker wasn’t sure what type of nursing she wanted to go into when, as an undergraduate student in the UAB School of Nursing, she began a preceptorship on the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit at UAB Hospital. “I feel like this area chose me,” she said. “I ended up loving it, and I fell in love with working with these patients.” Baker said as she became more immersed in oncology nursing she realized she could do much more for her patients as a nurse practitioner. Since beginning her first clinical rotation in gynecology/oncology at UAB, a new world of cancer care has opened up for her, with the differences in solid tumors versus the blood cancers she has been working with. “There are several cutting-edge clinical trials ongoing in gynecological cancers and patients come from all over the country to participate in them,” she said. “It’s amazing to get to experience that.”

} BSN to PhD Jacqueline Bui, BSN, RN, knew when she completed her BSN in August 2014 she wasn’t going to be a bedside nurse her entire career, but beginning her doctoral program less than a year after graduation wasn’t a consideration, either. Bui, a Dean’s Nursing Scholar and in the Honors Program as an undergraduate, completed her BSN in three years and was working in the cardiothoracic intensive care unit at UAB Hospital when Professor and Associate Dean for Research Karen Meneses, PhD, RN, FAAN, contacted her about returning to school. As part of the undergraduate honors program, Bui worked with Meneses on the Young Breast Cancer Survivors Network. “I did all of the research I could on the PhD program and talked with Dr. Meneses. She answered all my questions, I met some of the students, and I was convinced.” Today, Bui is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholar, Komen Graduate Trainee in Disparities Research, Colvin Scholarship recipient and UAB Comprehensive Cardiovascular Center Trainee. Her research, while cancer-related is also tied to her love for cardiology. “Because many breast cancer and pediatric cancer survivors die of cardiac complications, Dr. Meneses and I are going to work on a research project for these survivors,” Bui said. “Ultimately what I want is to develop interventions for cardiac ICU patients like what Dr. Meneses has done for breast cancer survivors.”

} Traditional route to the PhD Even as a child, Timiya Nolan, MSN, CRNP, ANPBC, was already so sure of what she wanted to do with her life that she put it down on paper. “My grandmother found something that I had written in like the seventh grade that said I wanted to be a nurse practitioner or a teacher,” she said. “It’s so funny because I said nurse practitioner or teacher, and I ended up being both.” Nolan is taking the traditional pathway to her PhD after completing her BSN in 2008 and her MSN in 2011, while simultaneously serving as a graduate teaching assistant and working as an RN in the Hematology/Oncology Unit at UAB Hospital. It was in the midst of teaching students at one of the nation’s leading schools of nursing and instructing new hires in a critical-care unit that Nolan, who recently received the Outstanding Young Investigator Award from the Susan G. Komen Foundation of North Central Alabama, found her life’s work.

LEVERAGING DOLLARS, RELATIONSHIPS MEANS MORE PhDs “At any level you can always leverage grant or donor funding if you think beyond getting there and stopping. Figure out how to take those funds and open other doors or opportunities,” Associate Dean for Research Professor Karen Meneses, PhD, RN, FAAN, said. In 2015, the School was selected for The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Future of Nursing Scholars Program and the Susan G. Komen Training Program in Breast Cancer Survivorship Grant. Also, one of the doctoral students received an American Cancer Society Doctoral Scholarship in Nursing. Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Professor Linda Moneyham, PhD, RN, FAAN, worked with Meneses and capitalized on existing funding of more than $500,000 in fellowships, stipends and other financial support to doctoral students from generous philanthropic donors and others. Leveraging these funds, along with relationships and research expertise, helped garner these three prestigious grants. For the Komen grant there was an existing relationship with the local Susan G. Komen chapter and a consistent record of volunteering. The same can be said for the ACS scholarship for both the School and the student. A relationship and funding existed for the RWJF Scholars — two faculty members were selected in 2014 by the foundation as a Nurse Faculty Scholar and Executive Nurse Fellow.

“I just fell in love with my patients that I was able to take care of and, as I progressed in my nursing career, with being able to precept and teach other nurses that were coming behind me,” she said. “It’s a natural fit, and I’m rolling with it.”

And the work is not over. Meneses and Moneyham and PhD Program Director, Associate Professor Karen Heaton, PhD, CRNP, FNP-BC, FAAN, are working to leverage the two RWJF Scholar awards to obtain two more.

} For more pathways, go to uab.edu/nursing/home/pathways

To read the detailed story, go to uab.edu/nursing/news. FALL 2015 / UAB NURSING

Research

Student’s Doctoral Research Is U.S. Army's Patient CaringTouch System WRITTEN BY DEBORAH LUCAS // PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROB CULPEPPER

AB School of Nursing PhD student Pauline Swiger was inspired by her research experience while deployed to the Middle East and is now part of a team evaluating an Army initiative that could impact the care of U.S. servicemen and women around the world.

Swiger, a U.S. Army major, is one year into her studies and has joined a team working on an evaluation of the Army’s innovative Patient CaringTouch System, which was initiated by Lt. Gen. Patricia Horoho, who is now the U.S. Army Surgeon General. This new framework for nursing care is expected to decrease variance in patient care across military hospitals and clinics by adopting evidence-based strategies that improve quality care. In addition, a major component of the Patient CaringTouch System is the accountability of nurses and other personnel who provide direct care to patients from injury through recovery. “Because of their continuous 24-hour presence, nurses tend to have the most contact and develop the strongest bonds with patients, whether the care is delivered in theater, overseas or within the United States,” Swiger said. “They are best able to evaluate care at the micro-system level and identify processes that will improve patient outcomes. The Patient CaringTouch System provides a framework for identifying areas needing improvement, as well as the structure to implement change across the enterprise.” Data from military hospitals around the world is being evaluated to identify top-performing hospitals in hopes of capitalizing on their successes. Spreading best practices and decreasing variance across the enterprise has the potential to impact not only patient care, but also the job satisfaction and work environments of 12,000 military and civilian nurses who deliver that care in the U.S. Army. Swiger, MSN, RN, CMSRN, CNL, has been deployed twice, most recently to Baghdad, Iraq, as part of a Deployed Combat Casualty Research Team, collecting trauma data in the ER. She was inspired by the teamwork she saw in the field — medics, doctors, nurses and other caregivers working in close concert to provide care. “When you are in the field, everyone is 100 percent concentrated on the most important component of their job, caring 22

UAB NURSING / FALL 2015

U.S. Army Major Pauline Swiger (left) came to UAB to study with Dr. Pat Patrician (center), who has extensive military health experience. Also pictured are team members Apryl Lewis and Marcia Lowe.

for the patient. Every decision is made by first considering what is best for the patient,” she said. “You can see positive impact of teamwork and communication. In my opinion, the Patient CaringTouch System is a way to build that sharp patient focus into all aspects of the military healthcare system.” The U.S. Army Nurse Corps is a highly educated workforce. All Army nurses must have at least a BSN to join, and 35 percent have master’s degrees. In addition, the Army selects two to four nurses annually to obtain a doctoral degree. As one of the Army nurses selected, Swiger is putting her experience to work with the help of her mentor and Donna Brown Banton Endowed Professor at the UAB School of Nursing, Patricia A. Patrician, PhD, RN, FAAN. Patrician is an internationally renowned scholar and researcher in the areas of nurse staffing, the nurse practice environment, and patient and nurse outcomes. “I’ve known of Dr. Patrician’s work for many years, and I was thrilled to come to UAB and learn from her,” Swiger said. “This is a very unique opportunity to partner with the U.S. military and for Maj. Swiger to work with Dr. Patricia Patrician, who has extensive experience with the military and has

been acknowledged for her work with students with the 2015 AcademyHealth Interdisciplinary Research Group on Nursing Issues (IRGNI) Mentorship Award,” said Associate Professor Karen Heaton, PhD, CRNP, FNP-BC, FAAN, Director of the PhD Program. “This project is evaluating and analyzing large data sets, translating them for analysis and scholarly use. The results will be used at the point of care and provide policy change recommendations that could translate into the civilian world.” Patrician, herself a 26-year veteran of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps, said she has been most impressed with Swiger’s ability to take information provided in differing formats and prepare a single analytic data set. “Suggestions made by Pauline and our team may one day lead to a more uniform data collection and extraction methods throughout the military health system,” Patrician said. “Preliminary results have demonstrated positive changes over time in the work environments within the study hospitals. Changes recommended by the research team include more directly measuring patient satisfaction with aspects of nursing care; exploring the validity of the current measures of nurse staffing; and adapting the instruments to nursing care in the military.”

Patrician continued: “The Patient CaringTouch System is about listening to the people who provide care and interact with patients and providing a framework for them to work as a team in which the voice of every member is not just valued, but vital. The teamwork and camaraderie in the military extends from the providers to the patients and helps caregivers along the line of recovery provide the best care, counseling and guidance to both the patient and their families.” The program evaluation team has applied for a one-year extension to the $300,000 TriService Nursing Research Program grant to continue the evaluation into the next year. The value of this team’s work is already proving itself through the feedback gathered from participants. Identifying aspects of the system that work well and those that need improvement are vital to the success and sustainment of this system of care. It is expected that when the evaluation is complete, it will help improve the Patient CaringTouch System so that it may serve as an exemplar for other large hospital systems that aim to improve patient care. “Our whole motivation is finding ways to make nursing care the best it can be,” Patrician said.

PATRICIAN RECEIVES 2015 ACADEMYHEALTH MENTORSHIP AWARD Donna Brown Banton Endowed Professor Patricia A. Patrician, PhD, RN, FAAN, has received the AcademyHealth Interdisciplinary Research Group on Nursing Issues (IRGNI) Research’s 2015 Mentorship Award, which recognizes the contributions of a senior scientist to the career development of young investigators who are engaged in research focused on interdisciplinary health services research on nursing issues. To be considered for this award, mentors must engage with their mentee in a variety of ways: including the mentee as a participant on a research team; assisting the mentee with developing scholarly publications in peer-reviewed journals, co-authoring with mentee, and/or recommending mentee as a reviewer for journals; sharing information about and serving as consultant or sponsor for training and research grants; and consulting and guiding mentee on development of career plans, decision-making about potential opportunities, setting priorities; and participating in service opportunities.

The nomination letter submitted by her mentees said, in part, “A preeminent educator and researcher, Dr. Patrician conveys the discipline, zeal, and excitement, and yes, even the toil and frustration of scientific inquiry to her DNP and PhD students...she has diligently mentored nurses and professional colleagues resulting in the publication of 20 papers, submission of five federal grant proposals, and presentation of over 20 poster and podium scholarly products at local, national and international venues.” The letter closes by saying, “Dr. Patrician genuinely cares about people, their career goals, and aspirations; she is relentless in her efforts to make a difference and to help others do the same. She epitomizes the roles of educator, researcher, and mentor.” AcademyHealth was established in June 2000 following a merger between the Alpha Center and the Association for Health Services Research (AHSR).

Founded in 1976, the Alpha Center grew to be recognized as one of the nation’s leading health policy resource centers providing research analysis, facilitation, education and training, strategic planning and program management. AHSR was formed in 1981 as a non-profit professional society for individuals and organizations with a commitment to health services research. Drawing upon the strengths of its two predecessor organizations, AcademyHealth is advancing the fields of health services research and health policy through the transfer of relevant information across the research and policy arenas.

FALL 2015 / UAB NURSING

The Assessment LEADERSHIP

COLLABORATION Meneses, School named partner in Gulf South Young Breast Cancer Survivors Network

Deupree named to governor’s health care task force Assistant Professor and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Executive Nurse Fellow Joy Deupree, PhD, MSN, RN, WHNP-BC, has been appointed to the Alabama Health Care Improvement Task Force by Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley. Deupree joins 37 other members appointed by the governor to study how the state can increase access to and affordability of health care in rural areas throughout the state. “I am humbled to receive this appointment from Governor Bentley,” said Deupree. “This task force will help provide quality, affordable health care to Alabama’s most underserved communities.” The newly formed task force is focusing on opportunities for telemedicine, broadening the scope of practice for advanced practice nurses and improving existing medical resources to help rural and impoverished communities.

“I am humbled to receive this appointment from Governor Bentley.”

-Dr. Joy Deupree

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Karen Meneses, PhD, RN, FAAN, Associate Dean for Research and Professor, and the UAB School of Nursing has been named a partner in a five-year, $2.24 million Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant creating the Gulf South Young Breast Cancer Survivors Network to help young survivors receive the support they need. UAB joins the Louisiana Cancer Prevention and Control Programs at the Louisiana State University Health New Orleans School of Public Health and the University of Mississippi Medical Center in the project. Part of the Network’s mission is to provide targeted online resources to women in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, building on the UAB School of Nursing’s Young Breast Cancer Survivorship Network in central Alabama and LCP’s successful SurviveDAT project in south Louisiana. The new websites for each state — surviveAL.org, surviveDAT. org and survivemiss.org — debuted July 31 and address these issues, while providing support as well as national and local resources that young women need and want. And providing this information and support online, in the form of websites and social media, makes sense in the Gulf States, as much of Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi are rural and many women are unable to travel to in-person support groups. “Resources like surviveAL provide answers to every-day questions that face young survivors and their families,” said Meneses, and Alabama’s director of the project. “What young women do have is digital access, with young women, especially among the African-American population, owning a smartphone and using social media platforms, surviveAL.org enables young women to find many things — from health advice and the latest news on breast cancer, to where they find a makeup artist skilled in recreating eyebrows lost to chemotherapy.” Meneses said in addition to the state and local resources, there are videos and interactive opportunities for these women to share their stories, provide advice and more, along with helpful information for the people surrounding young breast cancer survivors, including providers, family members and caretakers.

The Assessment SUSTAINABLE SCHOLARSHIP Dionne-Odom earns career development award from NPCRC Post-Doctoral Fellow J. Nicholas DionneOdom, PhD, RN, has received a two-year, $154,000 Junior Faculty Career Development Award from the National Palliative Care Research Center. As part of the award Dionne-Odom will develop a culturally relevant intervention to promote self-efficacy, competency and decision-making in family caregivers of patients with advanced cancer in the rural South. He will conduct interviews of patients with advanced cancer, their family caregivers and lay health care navigators who regularly work with this population in order to learn about their needs and feelings about potential interventions. “Family caregivers often provide as much as eight hours of care each day for patients with advanced cancer, frequently exacting a physical and emotional toll on themselves,” he said. “The stress on family caretakers has been recognized as a public health crisis and is a priority focus in palliative care. However, rural populations, patients and caregivers suffer from marked disparities in access to palliative care.” Dionne-Odom’s mentors are UAB School of Nursing Professor and Marie L. O’Koren Endowed Chair Marie Bakitas, DNSc, CRNP, NP-C, AOCN, ACHPN, FAAN, and UAB School of Medicine, Division of Preventive Medicine, Associate Professor Michelle Martin, PhD.

LEGACY OF LEADERSHIP Honoring the life Dr. Rachel Z. Booth Rachel Z. Booth, PhD, Professor and Dean Emerita of the UAB School of Nursing, passed away June 24, 2015, and was honored with a “Royal Blue Celebration” of her life at the School on Sept. 21, 2015. Booth was the third dean, serving in that position from 1987 until her retirement in 2005. “Dr. Booth left an indelible mark on the nursing profession and the UAB School of Nursing,” said Dean and Fay B. Ireland Endowed Chair in Nursing Doreen C. Harper, PhD, RN, FAAN. “It is wonderful that her family, along with many of her colleagues from across the country, were able to come together to celebrate her life in a place she called home for many years and where she will always be considered a beloved member of the UAB family.” Booth’s family suggests that memorial gifts be made to The Rachel Z. Booth Endowed Nursing Scholarship, UAB School of Nursing, c/o Office of Development and Alumni Relations, 1720 2nd Avenue South, NB 1010, Birmingham, AL 35294-1210.

INNOVATION BSN students hone teamwork, leadership skills Health care professionals must work together to improve patient care and outcomes. To ensure bachelor’s of science in nursing (BSN) students learn effective teamwork and leadership skills a new leadership course is now included in the students’ second semester. “From the beginning of nursing school, students are expected to use teamwork, delegation and many other basic leadership skills to succeed in their courses,” said Instructor Sharon Hamilton, MSN, RN, who taught the course. “To ensure they master these skills, we are stressing teamwork and leadership earlier in the curriculum.” Hamilton said for a number of years students have been required to take a leadership and management course during their last semester. This new course, “NUR 336: Leadership,” was first taught in Spring 2014. It focuses on supplying students with a personal leadership toolkit. In Spring 2015 the faculty added a service-learning project, allowing the students to experience the teamwork and leadership concepts they learned throughout the semester. Groups selected a community partner and planned a project to serve the needs of that organization. “It takes a whole team to ensure positive outcomes for our patients,” said second-semester BSN student Amanda Scott, whose group worked with Alabama Wildlife. “This project made me realize the fundamental importance of communication and teamwork in any workplace.”

FALL 2015 / UAB NURSING

BIO

FIVE QUESTIONS WITH

{ Kristi Henderson } UAB DNP Alumna has created the nation’s top telehealth program

Kristi Henderson, DNP, NP-BC, FAEN, Chief Telehealth & Innovation Officer, Professor, School of Nursing, RWJF Executive Nurse Fellow, University of Mississippi Medical Center. Henderson holds dual appointments in the School of Medicine and School of Nursing at UMMC. She has led the development of a statewide telehealth program, which is recognized as a top program in the U.S. Henderson has given numerous presentations nationwide including testifying to Congress and delivering a TEDx talk. She earned her Doctor of Nursing Practice from UAB, her master’s in nursing from the Mississippi University for Women, and her bachelor’s in nursing from Mississippi College. She maintains national certification as a family and acute care nurse practitioner.

INTERVIEW JENNIFER LOLLAR // PHOTO PROVIDED BY UMMC

Q: You have been the driving force for telehealth in Mississippi, and the state is a national leader in telehealth initiatives. How did your interest in telehealth evolve? A: When I was the clinical director of nursing for the emergency

department at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC), we were receiving patients from small community hospitals from around the state who had outcomes that I thought could be better if we had been able to intervene sooner. Since I was also a nurse practitioner, the idea came to address the problem by forming collaborative relationships between emergency physicians and our nurse practitioners, who are often the ones staffing emergency departments in small community hospitals. Using technology to connect them to a board-certified emergency medicine physician for real-time audio and visual collaboration was the foundation for addressing the problem in rural communities. So it all started as a response to patients not getting the prompt intervention during that golden hour of an emergency and the desire to change the patient outcomes.

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Q: What were some of your early projects, and were they difficult to implement? A: The major obstacles in the early years were

funding, technology and policy/regulations. Regulations and health policies were written well before telehealth was even a concept; so we had to work to update those in order to even start the program. At that time of implementation in 2003, I had no idea that starting telemedicine in emergency medicine would be so difficult, because it is 24 hours a day and not scheduled. The program was difficult to staff due to episodic visits and surges in patient volume, and then there were the technology needs. When we started our program the technology was very expensive and lacked mobility.

Being able to implement this program and train everyone involved on the technology took a lot of time. I think we all underestimated the time it would take.

Q: Are there any things you wish you could have done differently or any difficult lessons that were learned? A: I wish we had been able to centralize our telehealth efforts

sooner. It took over a decade to get us where we are today, but we needed that time to allow people to trust us, to see the benefit of it and to want to invest in it. I wish it could have happened sooner, but I don’t think that would have been possible. I think that was part of the evolution of a new model of care that was necessary. Even if some of the lessons we learned were painful I don’t think I would change anything.

Q: What does the telehealth landscape look like today in Mississippi, and how has it impacted people around the state? A: It is thriving to the extent that we are building a new build-

ing that we will move into next year. The demand is so great that

we now have five project managers divided among all the projects to assist in planning and implementation. UMMC now has 194 telehealth locations around the state. The influx is coming from all sectors, including health insurance companies. I think we are seeing this huge influx of interest because we have had great outcomes, and positive patient engagement, and we are a trusted partner with an extensive history in telemedicine. Being able to demonstrate that not only are we bringing a new service to rural America, but we are also increasing their quality of care to the level of an academic medical center is powerful.

Q: What do you believe is the future of telehealth nationally? A: I think health care is being pushed more and more to the

home and to the community. I think we are going to start using more and more caregivers, community health workers, and emerging health care workforce (i.e. community paramedics), so I believe technology will become an even more critical piece of the care continuum. Telehealth will continue to expand as we demonstrate its impact on lowering the total cost of care and improving the quality of outcomes.

CAN I GET A WITNESS? The first time Kristi Henderson was asked to testify before a United States Senate committee on telehealth she was pleasantly surprised to have been asked but will be the first to tell you it was a little intimidating. This year she has testified twice to two different Senate committees. “I went to the University to get permission to speak on our institution’s behalf, and I thought that surely other people must have done this but to find out that they had not was even more pressure,” she said.

more, that they had a bigger footprint and were in multiple states. But what we found is that the adoption and utilization rates weren’t as high as ours.” It was a huge opportunity to testify to Congress and one she wouldn’t pass up, though the thought of being live on C-SPAN was nerve-wracking.

She also had a hard time believing Mississippi was so far ahead of other states in telehealth implementation.

“But it’s our responsibility to share our story and give concrete evidence of why policy needs to change and why regulations need to change to allow telehealth to happen on a bigger scale.

“I see so much that we can do and should be doing in the health care system around telehealth it was mindboggling to me that Mississippi was a leader in this area,” she said. “I thought surely more people had to be doing

“It was exciting to tell the story of how Mississippi was a leader and how we were going to do something different with our health care delivery model,” she said. “And I tried not to think about being live on C-SPAN even though the

camera was embedded in the desk in front of me.” At the end of the day, Henderson said, there is more at stake working with state legislators than national. “At the national level it was about broad, sweeping policy change and what telehealth could offer from a health care reform perspective and the total cost of care,” she said. “When you do it at the state level there is a lot of history and relationships that muddy the water so it wasn’t just about the issues.”

FALL 2015 / UAB NURSING

Resources

Welcome to the new

UAB School of Nursing

The UAB School of Nursing has announced plans for a

major expansion of its building — an expansion that Dean and Fay B. Ireland Endowed Chair in Nursing Doreen C. Harper, PhD, RN, FAAN, hails as a pivotal step in “unveiling the future of nursing at UAB.”

To see all the renderings, go to uab.edu/nursing/home/building To be centered by a light-filled atrium, the expansion will connect with the School’s existing building and will face University Boulevard. A futuristic design will extend the footprint of the building by making the most of collaborative approaches and high-technology tools for educating students to be nurse leaders of tomorrow. As part of the School’s participation in UAB’s current Capital Campaign, a $15 million fundraising effort is under way to help fund the expansion. “By providing our students and faculty with advanced learning spaces and tools, generous donors are helping to prepare future generations of health care leaders,” Harper said. 28

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Highlights of expansion plans include: • With a focus on collaboration, the expansion will provide “team space” to bring together and connect activities of nursing students, faculty, practitioners and scientists. • With a goal of benefiting from the latest technology, a state-of-the-art Nursing Competencies Suite will utilize progressive models of high-fidelity simulation, preparing students to excel as expert caregivers. • With an emphasis on student-centered learning and interactive group learning experiences, plans include a type of classroom often termed the “flipped classroom.”

Alacare Chairman/ President John G. Beard is establishing the Alacare Home Health & Hospice Nursing Skills Suite in honor of his younger sister, Susan B. Brouillette, Alacare’s Chief Executive Officer.

“With health care reform, the home health care industry faces more pressure to keep patients out of the hospital as best we can."

ALACARE INVESTS IN THE FUTURE

Alacare Home Health & Hospice has pledged $100,000 to the UAB School of Nursing Building Fund, earmarked for a room in a laboratory for simulating home health care visits in the School’s planned new building. The Building Fund is part of the School’s participation in the current UAB Capital Campaign.

- John Beard

WRITTEN BY ANITA SMITH // PHOTO BY CALEB CHANCEY

• Equipped with features such as videoconferencing, this model enables students to learn extensively from not only faculty but also from one another and from those in other locales and often in other health professions. • With the realization that valuable learning often occurs in environments outside the classroom, there will be a student common space. In this space, students will have unprecedented opportunities to connect and collaborate, thereby sharing ideas to enhance their learning opportunities.

Alacare Chairman/President John G. Beard, MBA, JD — a member of the School’s Board of Visitors — said this gift is an investment in Alacare’s belief in the School’s ability to educate home health nurses with unprecedented high skill sets. “The UAB School of Nursing recognizes that we are in a health care reform era in which home health is dependent upon nurses who possess even higher skill sets than in the past,” said Beard. The gift will establish the Alacare Home Heath & Hospice Nursing Skills Suite in honor of Beard’s younger sister, Susan B. Brouillette, MPH, MBA, Alacare’s Chief Executive Officer. The Brouillette Suite will be part of a home visits simulation laboratory representing the School’s most progressive setting to date to teach home health skills. Beard said that BROUILLETTE has a love for Alacare’s nurses and other staff and “has done a great job” at Alacare. He believes it’s fitting she be honored at UAB, where she earned master’s degrees in public health and in business administration. Beard views Alacare’s gift as promoting high standards set by his late parents. His father, Major Charles D. Beard, Jr. (USAF retired), was strongly supported by his wife, Mary Sue Graham Beard, when, in 1970, he founded Alacare, now Alabama’s oldest and largest family-owned, Medicare-certified home health agency. “With health care reform, the home health care industry faces more pressure to keep patients out of the hospital as best we can,” said Beard. “We believe UAB knows how to educate nurses to help us do that and in the process provide patients and their families the level of home health services they deserve.”

FALL 2015 / UAB NURSING

Resources

Alexis Mitchell on helo pad at UAB Hospital

Gifts

T H AT C H A N G E D E V E R Y T H I N G WRITTEN BY ANITA SMITH // PHOTOGRAPHY BY CATIE ETKA AND CALEB CHANCEY

lexis Mitchell, BSN, RN, badly wanted to become a nurse. A few years ago, the former Mobile resident was on her way as a UAB School of Nursing baccalaureate student. Nursing school was expensive, and Alexis felt fortunate to have government tuition support related to benefits granted to her father, a retired Army veteran who became disabled near the Vietnam War’s end.

"With my funding ending, I felt that I had nowhere to turn." - Alexis Mitchell

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“However, my financial support covered eight semesters, and, as it turned out, nine semesters were required to complete my UAB baccalaureate nursing studies,” recalled Alexis. “With my funding ending, I felt that I had nowhere to turn.”

Welcomed help came to Alexis, on what she calls “a magnificent day,” from the Dean’s Emergency Fund for Student Success at the School. This fund was established in 2009 with a lead gift from the Florida-based Gertrude E. Skelly Charitable Foundation. Additional contributions have been made by the School’s Board of Visitors, individual donors and the Skelly Foundation. All 27 students who have received the Fund’s help have done so while facing pressing financial emergencies and after having their eligibility reviewed at the faculty level and approved by Dean and Fay B. Ireland Endowed Chair in Nursing Doreen C. Harper, PhD, RN,

FAAN. Each applicant’s first stop is meeting with Stephanie Hamberger, MPA, the School’s Director of Student Evaluations and Scholarships in the Student Affairs Office. She explained, “I feel that all awards from this Fund have involved such serious financial crises that, without help, impacted students could not have continued to be successful in their nursing studies. For example, two recipients had lost everything — one to a flooded apartment and another to a fire.” The Fund’s help enabled Mitchell to complete studies to receive her baccalaureate in nursing degree in 2011. Today she is a nurse in UAB Hospital’s Emergency Department and works

ecent UAB School of Nursing baccalaureate graduate Abby Vinson, BSN, RN, said that wherever her nursing career takes her, she will strive to be a nurse leader. “I will absolutely pursue best practice — regardless of whether I’m working a hospital shift now or teaching in the future.”

To come to this way of thinking, Abby credits her overall BSN education at the UAB School of Nursing. She gives a special salute to her experiences as one of the carefully selected students going through the School’s Nursing Honors Program. “Through Nursing Honors, I was exposed to leaders in nursing and other health professions. This opened my eyes to limitless possibilities in the health care field,” said Abby. Giving a boost to UAB Nursing Honors experiences is The Endowed Fund for Nursing Undergraduate Honors — created in 2005 by Celia A. Wallace, a member of the School’s Board of Visitors. This Fund honors the daughter and son of Celia and her late husband, Dr. Gerald Leon Wallace – Kristen Celia Wallace Rudolph, and Gerald Leon Wallace, Jr., PhD. The faculty coordinator for the School’s Nursing Honors Program is Assistant Professor Shannon Morrison, PhD, CRNP, FNP-BC. Explaining that the Wallace Fund at any given time touches some 30 Nursing Honors students, she said this Fund supports events featuring experts in health fields, promotes schol-

shifts with the UAB Critical Care Team that transports seriously ill patients to UAB via land or air. She is currently enrolled in the UAB School of Nursing master’s-level family nurse practitioner curriculum and plans to take additional studies to earn nurse educator certification. “This is exactly the type of student we want to reach,” said Erik E. Joh, Co-Trustee of the Gertrude E. Skelly Charitable Foundation. He noted that the Skelly Foundation has pioneered nationally in helping hard-working nursing students in financial crisis. “With this kind of help, they can graduate and go on to serve the public.”

arship such as through students’ research posters and abstracts and helps recruit future honors students. “Hearing of this makes me smile from ear to ear,” said Celia Wallace, Chairman of the Board of Mobile-based Southern Medical Health Systems, Inc. She said this means so much to her and her son and daughter. “This is wonderful for us. In starting this Fund, our goal was to stimulate thinking among these honors students. I’m glad our goal is being fulfilled.” She said the Fund’s role in opening Abby Vinson’s eyes to “limitless possibilities” matches her own views about learning. “I view learning as being a ladder without rungs — that there’s no limit to how high you can go.”

Dr. Shannon Morrison with Abby Vinson

As Abby Vinson approaches her 23rd birthday, she is embarking on her first job since completing BSN requirements this summer — as a staff nurse in the St. Vincent’s Birmingham cardiovascular intensive care unit. She plans to pursue more education in her future. “I’m interested in applying for nurse anesthesia studies. Also, I come from a family of educators, and I plan to seek additional education to prepare me to teach.”

“I will absolutely pursue best practice— regardless of whether I'm working a hospital shift now or teaching in the future.” -Abby Vinson

FALL 2015 / UAB NURSING

Resources

Future Plans will Aid Undergraduates WRITTEN BY ANITA SMITH

UAB School of Nursing alumna Joselyn Bacon has made a generous planned gift to create a scholarship to aid a number of UAB undergraduate nursing students each year. Joselyn Bacon

A Selma native and a 1971 BSN graduate of the UAB School of Nursing, Bacon is a retired certified nurse midwife residing in Jackson, Miss. She once considered becoming a missionary nurse, and, although her career took other turns, she views her nursing career as a mission in helping patients. In committing a portion of her estate to establish the Joselyn Bacon Endowed Scholarship in Nursing, she wants to help future UAB nursing students who view nursing as a mission. “I want to help students

who enter nursing for reasons I went into nursing – to take care of people, to be strong patient advocates.” After earning her UAB baccalaureate nursing degree, Bacon studied at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., and earned a master’s in maternal and child health nursing at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC). She taught at the University of Alabama in Huntsville College of Nursing before returning to UMMC for

nurse midwifery studies. She worked as a certified nurse midwife in various parts of the South, retiring in 2011 from the Mississippi State Department of Health. Having worked her way through nursing school as an undergraduate, Bacon knows what it’s like to be a student who struggles financially. For some mission-driven future UAB nursing students facing financial challenges, she said, “I want this scholarship to make a difference.”

Scholarship Initiative Launched by Nurse Educators Several donors with decades of experience in teaching UAB nursing students are taking the lead in an initiative to establish a scholarship to help future UAB nursing students. This will be known as the UAB School of Nursing Retired Faculty and Friends Endowed Nursing Scholarship. Coordinating the initiative is Judy Taylor, a retired UAB School of Nursing faculty member. Taylor says that she and others launching this scholarship have taught many UAB nursing students and understand up-close the pressing financial struggles that some face. “We all know what it is to be a student who is looking for, and grateful for, any amount of money to help toward his or her nursing education.” Joining Taylor in being among the first

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contributors are Sylvia Britt, a current UAB School of Nursing faculty member, and the following who formerly taught at the School: Pat Cleveland, Pam Daugherty, Mardell Davis, Velma Denson, Maxine Jones, Alberta McCaleb, Ayda Nambayan and Ann Sirles. Taylor said their inspiration is the slogan “Give Something, Change Everything” that accompanies the current Campaign for UAB, which has the goal of raising $1 billion to increase resources for UAB’s multi-missions. “We wanted to be a part of that — to make a difference,” said Taylor. Taylor emphasizes that donations are welcome from anyone who wants to help. “That’s why we’re naming this scholarship for ‘Retired Faculty and Friends,’ ” she said. To inquire about

Judy Taylor

donating, contact UAB School of Nursing Director of Development Eve Rhea at 205-975-9425 or at erhea@uab.edu.

INNOVATIVE ALUMNI LEADING NATIONALLY The UAB School of Nursing is proud to count dozens of national and international leaders among its alumni who are working to shape the future of health and improve the nursing profession.

Among these leaders are: Cindy Cooke, DNP, FNP-C, FAANP, President of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners; Shelia Melander, PhD, APRN, ACNP-BC, FCCM, FAANP, President of the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties; and Cathy Ward, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, Chief Nursing Officer for Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.

Eliminating Scope of Practice Barriers

Dr. Cindy Cooke

Dr. Shelia Melander

As President of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP), Cindy Cooke said her top priority is to advance the nurse practitioner profession by working to eliminate health policy barriers keeping nurses from practicing to their fullest educational scope. “Our patients are at the center of what we do, and being able to advocate for patients is my greatest joy,” she said. Cooke is a DNP graduate of the UAB School of Nursing and said the program increased professional development and leadership skills in her roles as both a family nurse practitioner and AANP President.

Providing Resources to Transform Health Shelia Melander, a PhD graduate of the UAB School of Nursing, is President of the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties. She works to ensure that nurse practitioner faculty across the nation have the resources they need to provide, maintain and establish nurse practitioner programs that meet the highest quality standards and supply our nation with nurse practitioners that impact and transform the health care system. “Nurses can be the change agent responsible for transforming a health care agenda for an organi-

zation or an institution,” Melander said. “We must be prepared and ready for that task at every entry level and across all practice settings.”

Influencing Health Care Through Nurse Leadership In her role as Chief Nursing Officer at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, Calif., Cathy Ward is responsible for nursing care in the facility’s inpatient and observation areas, which is composed of 24 nursing units, 455 licensed beds and more than 2,500 employees, including approximately 1,800 registered nurses. Also serving as Assistant Clinical Professor in the UCLA School of Nursing, Ward has provided leadership at UCLA for the past 26 years in various management roles. A UAB School of Nursing BSN graduate, she said her experience as an undergraduate student at UAB was “tremendously formative” in the success of her career. “Having that solid foundation enabled me to easily adapt to many different roles in nursing, including academic, clinical and research roles,” Ward said. Believing that nurse leaders are needed now more than ever, she said, “A nurse’s unique ability to rapidly synthesize a large amount of information yields the perfect candidate for a leadership role.”

Dr. Cathy Ward FALL 2015 / UAB NURSING

Alumni Making a Difference GLOBAL LEADERS IN INNOVATION

Joanne M. Disch, PhD, RN, FAAN Joanne M. Disch, a UAB School of Nursing MSN graduate, currently serves as professor ad honorem at the University of Minnesota School of Nursing. Throughout her 45-year career, she has distinguished herself as a bedside clinician, manager, clinical director, chief nursing officer, hospital vice president and educator. Committed to furthering the nursing profession through service, Disch has served as President of both the American Academy of Nursing and the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN); chaired many boards and councils, including the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) board; and directed an international center for nursing leadership.

“What I appreciated most about UAB in my day—and what is still true today—is that its programs are really distinctive, and the faculty are 100 percent behind their students.” -Dr. Joanne M. Disch

UAB NURSING / FALL 2015

This year, the AACN honored Disch with the 2015 Marguerite Rodgers Kinney Award for a Distinguished Career in recognition of her exceptional contributions to furthering the organization’s mission and vision of enhancing the care of critically ill patients. The award’s namesake, Margie Kinney Handlin, is a former AACN president and UAB School of Nursing faculty member — and she actually counted Disch among her students for a time. Crediting her influence, Disch said, “Dr. Handlin got me involved on my first national committee within the AACN.” She added, “What I appreciated most about UAB in my day — and what is still true today — is that its programs are really distinctive, and the faculty are 100 percent behind their students.” Today, Disch supports her alma mater in an advisory role as an inaugural member of the UAB School of Nursing National Advisory Council. “UAB started me on my leadership journey,” she said. “After a number of schools turned me down for graduate school after enjoying my undergraduate days a little too much, UAB took a chance and admitted me on probation.” In 1994, she received the UAB School of Nursing Distinguished Alumni Award, and she has received numerous other national and international awards for her work.

Diane Von Ah, PhD, RN, FAAN Diane Von Ah is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Nurse Faculty Scholar Alumna (2008-2011) and Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Community and Health Systems at the Indiana University School of Nursing. She earned her doctorate from the UAB School of Nursing in 2003 and has made significant, sustained contributions to knowledge discovery, dissemination and translation to improve the care of individuals negatively affected by cognitive impairment resulting from cancer and cancer treatment. Von Ah credits her PhD in Nursing with being instrumental in her development as a nurse scientist, saying, “It has provided me the foundation to develop and test new interventions to improve the quality of nursing care and ultimately, the lives of cancer survivors.” Her research has been recognized locally and nationally, and she serves as the leader of an Oncology Nursing Society national task force to assist in establishing clinical guidelines for oncology nurses.

Jean Bates, RN, BSN, MPPM As Senior Vice President for Claims at Professional Risk Management Services, Inc., Jean Bates said she uses the decision-making and clinical skills she learned in the UAB School of Nursing’s BSN program on a daily basis. In her role as an experienced medical malpractice claims manager and negotiator, she manages a large professional liability claims department, working to resolve claims brought against health care providers by patients filing lawsuits. Bates has worked in medical malpractice for the past 26 years. “The lessons I learned at UAB have proven to be invaluable in more ways than one,” she said. In 2008, Bates and her husband, Steve, established the Violet Terrell Clark Nursing Scholarship at the UAB School of Nursing, named in memory of her mother, to support pre-licensure students wanting to work with underprivileged patient populations upon graduation.

Myra Aultman, CRNA, MNA, MSHA Myra Aultman is Chief Nursing Officer for UAB Callahan Eye Hospital and a two-time graduate of the UAB School of Nursing. Starting nursing school at UAB in 1975, she worked after graduation at UAB as an RN with renowned cardiac surgeon Dr. John Kirklin for a decade, later transitioning to working in cardiovascular and neurological intensive care units. After graduating from UAB’s Nurse Anesthesia Program in 1995, she accepted an opportunity to restructure UAB Callahan’s Nurse Anesthesia Program. Now responsible for all patient-care services as its CNO, Aultman has played an integral role in UAB Callahan’s growth and success. She notes that her clinical experience taught her how to handle crises, make quick decisions and adapt to different styles of communication. “Being a CRNA allows me to bridge gaps between all levels of clinical care,” she added. “I did not always know my career would take this path, but I’m forever grateful that it has.”

FALL 2015 / UAB NURSING

The Review: Leadership Books that are shaping the careers of UAB School of Nursing alumni, faculty and graduate students

LORI LOAN, PhD, RN, FAAN

Associate Professor, UAB School of Nursing, PhD program faculty member

The Heart of a Leader Insights on the Art of Influence Second Edition, 2007 By Ken Blanchard THE BOOK: Explores leadership as a higher calling and achieving results while maintaining personal integrity. LORI’S TAKE: “The book helped me realize that the main job of a leader is to have positive beliefs, strong vision and the courage and commitment to act on them; communicate core values, and help people succeed in accomplishing their goals. When these happen, we all win.” 36

UAB NURSING / FALL 2015

CHRIS RHODES, BSN, RN Master’s student in the Nursing and Health Systems Administration track. President of the Nursing Graduate Student Association. Staff nurse in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit at UAB.

Lead, Drive & Thrive in the System By Jennifer Mensik THE BOOK: This book is the how-to guide for any nurse who is new to a health system or has been working in the system and feels unable to make a change. CHRIS’ TAKE: “Health care systems can be complex entities and can cause great adversity for nurse leaders. This book provides information on how systems came to be and that we can leverage unique aspects of systems to improve patient care.”

JAMES HARRIS, PhD, RN-BC, MBA, CNL, FAAN

MARTHA LOVELAND, RN, MSN, MSHHA

Professor of Nursing at the University of South Alabama College of Nursing, including doctoral students, and coordinator of the graduate Clinical Nurse Leader track.

Taught at Ida V. Moffett School of Nursing. Executive Director and Emeritus Director of the VNA of Birmingham. Chief Clinical and Compliance Officer of Alacare Home Health & Hospice.

Quantum Leadership: Building Better Partnerships for Sustainable Health 4th Edition By Tim Porter-O’Grady and Kathy Malloch

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People By Stephen R. Covey

THE BOOK: This book provides significant new techniques to model and instill a predictive and adaptive capacity into an organization, skills of staff and learning opportunities for graduate students. JAMES’ TAKE: “While the content is framed toward effective organizational leadership, I have used it in challenging life situations as new patterns of behavior and situations transpired.”

THE BOOK: The first principle relates to vision, or to “begin with the end in mind.” The last skill is to “sharpen the saw,” or keep learning and evolving. Between these two “bookends” are practical leadership insights that promote interdependent results. MARTHA’S TAKE: “These behaviors have become habits, and they continue to improve my discernment and decisiveness in many environments that require leadership, especially to achieve group results.”

UAB School of Nursing alumni can be found all over the world and want to share with their friends and colleagues what they love to do in their cities.

Reykjavik, Iceland

What to see and do in Reykjavik:

AUDNA AGUSTSDOTTIR DSN graduate 1995 Landspitali, University Hospital in Iceland, Division of Research and Development

Go horseback riding in the Red Hills, that are actually pseudocrater. A pseudocrater looks like a true volcanic crater, but is not. The Icelandic Horse, a rental company, offers great riding tours in the outskirts of Reykjavik with professional guides. Horseback riding is like a meditation to me. Attend a concert, e.g. in the concert hall Harpa by the harbor. There should be something exciting on

classic, jazz, country or even Of Monsters and Men, fabulous Icelandic indie/ folk music. A visit without a concert is well worth it. Dine at a fish restaurant. Three Coats on Baldursgata is my favorite. Word of warning: Whale and puffins may be on the menu. Go to the Einar Jónsson Museum, which is dedicated to Iceland’s first sculptor. I find his work very special, full of myths. Behind

the museum there is a garden, open all year round, that exhibits many beautiful sculptures. I often go there to get a quiet moment in the center of town. Float in a geothermal pool. There are many of these public swimming pools in Reykjavik, cheap and open from early morning till late at night. I like to go at the end of a long, cold winterday, relax in the hot tub and look at city lights in the dark.

FALL 2015 / UAB NURSING

INNOVATIVE HEALTH CARE LEADERS 2015

JOINING

FAAN INDUCTEES

(Fellows in the American Academy of Nursing)

Charles A. Downs, PhD, ACNP-BC

Cristina C. Hendrix, DNS, APRN, GNP BC

Eileen R. Chasens, PhD, RN

+ FACULTY & ALUMNI FAANs Among the top 5 percent of nursing schools, 13th nationally, 3 master’s specialty tracks highly ranked, 1 in the top 10, ranked BSN, PhD and DNP programs

Karen L. Heaton, PhD, CRNP, FNP-BC

Martha G. Lavender, PhD, RN

2015 FAANPs

Inductees Susan B. Patton, DNSc, RN, PPCNP-BC, AFN-BC, FAANP

Linda A. Roussel, PhD, RN, CNL, CCRN, NEA-BC

Susanne Fogger, DNP, CRNP, CARN-AP PMHNP-BC Julie Adkins, DNP, APN, FNP-BC

Jane H. White, PhD, PMH-CNS, BC

Kelly A. Wolgast, DNP, MSS, RN, FACHE

2015 Jennan Phillips, PhD, RN

UAB NURSING / FALL 2015

FAAOHN Inductee

In Their Own Words { Real life experiences as told by the clinicians, researchers, faculty and students who lived them } AS TOLD BY KATHY HENRICKS, CHARGE NURSE, OUTPATIENT CARDIOLOGY, EAST ALABAMA MEDICAL CENTER

’ve had on occasion a patient that sent flowers or baked a cake and brought it to me at work to say thank you, and I always felt like that was going over and above. I was amazed that someone would like to say thank you for their care. Never in a million years did I expect anything like what happened in March 2015. In 1973 I was a student nurse at UAB, but also worked at UAB Hospital as a nurse’s aide on a couple of different units, including the cardiac intensive care unit, and on its step down unit. That is where I took care of Gary Bentley. He was 10 and recovering from surgery to fix a hole in his heart. Fast-forward more than 40 years. My roommate from nursing school sent me an email message in early March 2015 that said “Have you seen this?,” and it was an al.com article with a picture. I remember opening her message and saying “Oh my gosh, that’s me.” And I didn’t think anything past that. I was at my daughter’s house and showed her the picture. She asked if I had read the article, and I told her I had not. She insisted I read it. Tears came to my eyes. It touched my soul to know that after all of those years I had made that kind of impact on someone. I couldn’t believe it. Gary Bentley and his wife, Gwen, had been using Facebook to try to find me. He wanted to meet me again and thank me. His story was sad. Gary and his six siblings had been taken from their father and placed into foster care. That is when a hole that was supposed to have

closed over time was found to still be in Gary’s left ventricle. He was sent to UAB Hospital to have it repaired. My daughter helped me respond to the reporter at al.com, and he gave my daughter Gary’s email address. She emailed him and told him it was her mom in the picture. We arranged to meet the following Sunday afternoon at Vulcan Park in Birmingham. I honestly don’t remember helping take care of him. But he remembers. Gary told me I was the first person to show him any kindness. To think about being 10 years old and that to be the first time anyone had ever been kind to him was just heart-wrenching for me. He talked about his background — how they would go from house to house, being kicked out of one place or another, and sometimes eating from garbage cans because it was better than what they had in their home. I had no clue about the life of the little boy I helped care for in 1973. When we met again that March afternoon it was like we had known each other forever. He had yellow roses and the picture from the article had been enlarged and framed for me. I am humbled by this experience. It is remarkable that Gary has been able to live through all that he has and come out on the other side, and is supporting groups that helped him as s child, like the Court-Appointed Special Advocates (CASA). This experience has helped me be a better nurse. Every time I interact with a person, not just a patient, I know I need to be kind because we never know what people may be going through. We don’t walk in their shoes. I took that picture he gave me and it is sitting on my desk. It reminds me every day that you never know when you are going to do what you think is the smallest most insignificant thing when you’re in nursing caring for someone that can make the most difference for them.

FALL 2015 / UAB NURSING

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