On+Call Nursing Magazine 2023

2023

a publication of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga School of Nursing

This image captures the conceptual design for the Dorothy and Jim Kennedy Health Sciences Building— the first building on the UTC campus to highlight a woman and alumna—and future home of the School of Nursing.

UTC.EDU/NURSING

contents

Department News 4 6 8

8

Advanced Practice, Advanced Degrees

‘Breaking Down Barriers to Care' ROAD MAP—Care for Rural Seniors

Features 14 16

COVER STORY: Building the Future

Accelerated Bachelor’s Degree Program

Community Partnerships 18 20

Selected for ‘Power of We’ Nursing Grant Success

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COVER STORY

director

creative director

Christine Benz Smith

Stephen Rumbaugh

editor

graphic designer

Gina Stafford

Amy Devan Barker

writers

photographer

Shawn Ryan

Angela Foster

Chuck Wasserstrom

contact

Charlie Reed

Chris-Smith@utc.edu

Sam Lennon

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letter from the director

"Our faculty and students are engaged in our community in many di�erent areas."

UTC is a comprehensive, community-engaged campus of the University of Tennessee System.

UTC is an EEO/AA/Titles VI & IX/Section 504/ ADA/ADEA institution. E040950-002-24

IN THIS ISSUE OF ON+CALL, we get to share news that has been years in the making and promises a transformational impact on this campus and in our community for years to come: A brand-new building will be constructed to house the School of Nursing, and groundbreaking is planned for fall 2024.

We are proud to have the Dorothy and Jim Kennedy Health Sciences Building on campus. A generous gift of $8 million from the Kennedy Foundation, Inc. names the building after a female (a �rst) and alumna. Dorothy graduated from UTC in 1982. The gift means that the necessary private funds have been secured to permit moving forward with the $77-million building, of which $56 million is being funded by the state of Tennessee. Additional private funding will be obtained through an ongoing capital campaign.

The building will be 90,000 square feet in size, situated at the corner of Third and Palmetto streets. It will have state-of-the-art, technology-enabled classrooms; a cutting-edge simulation lab; o�ces and student collaboration and study spaces. This facility will enable us to expand our enrollment capacity by more than 150%, critically important given our role in preparing practice-ready nurses.

The need is great because Chattanooga is considered medically underserved and is in need of 27% more providers immediately.

In response to the shortage of nursing providers, we launched an accelerated BSN (ABSN) program with its �rst cohort in August. The second cohort will start in January. These students have already earned bachelor’s degrees in other �elds when they enroll in this three-semester program. Twelve months after beginning their accelerated studies, graduates will be able to take the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) toward qualifying to work as a licensed RN. We will enroll students every semester, including summers!

Three substantial grant awards landed by our faculty will further enable our e�orts to meet community provider and care needs. I invite you to read in this issue about three faculty members who have just secured signi�cant external funding. Dr. Amber Roache’s new, $2.6-million grant from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) continues her work to prepare future Family Nurse Practitioners to �ll care gaps in rural and underserved communities in the Chattanooga area.

Dr. Kristi Wick also secured a $2.6-million grant—from the Tennessee Department of Health—for outreach in rural, aging and underserved populations, including in multiple southeastern Tennessee communities that have no local emergency medicine or hospital access.

Finally, Dr. Brooke Epperson was awarded a $1.4-million HRSA grant to prepare undergraduate students to meet the needs of rural and medically underserved populations through clinical and simulation.

As you can see, our faculty and students are engaged in our community in many di�erent areas. We look forward to keeping you up to date on our progress and to increasing our program of simulation and the number of students who enter the School of Nursing. Exciting times here on campus and beyond!

Christine Benz Smith, Ph.D., APRN, FNP-BC Director, School of Nursing Chief Health Affairs Officer

department news

Advanced Practice, Advanced Degrees

By Shawn Ryan

In nursing, doing things the way they’ve been done up to now—even if now was yesterday—is not a viable choice.

Expanding knowledge of human physiology, new technology that leads to new procedures and advances in drugs and drug therapy are ongoing realities. Nursing schools must keep up.

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga School of Nursing is no exception. UTC started a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program in 2010 and graduated its first class in 2012.

“The DNP is designed for nurses seeking a terminal degree in nursing practice and offers an alternative to research-focused doctoral programs,” says Chris Smith, director of the UTC School of Nursing. “DNP education allows for further specialization required for academic, clinical and executive leadership.”

The DNP credential is a requirement in several advanced-practice nursing fields and, as is the case at multiple universities, a master’s degree is not a pre-requisite at UTC. UTC offers four BSN-to-DNP degree programs—family nurse practitioner, nurse anesthesia, adult gerontology acute-care nurse practitioner and nursing administration systems.

Currently, only the nurse anesthesia specialty requires the DNP. It is expected that the nurse practitioner specialties will require the degree in 2025.

Doctorates are required to practice as a physical therapist or pharmacist,

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so the DNP requirement for many advancedpractice nursing fields is, “putting us level with those other professions,” says Amber Roaché, coordinator of the University’s DNP-Family Nurse Practitioner program.

“It really looks at making our students not only practice-ready when they graduate, but being able to go into clinics and start taking care of patients,” she says. “It provides them with the knowledge and the skills at a leadership level as well and being able to implement change within practice.”

UTC awarded its last master’s degrees in these areas of nursing in May 2023.

The DNP curriculum incorporates much of what was offered in the master’s program, but students also have extensive leadershipand administrative-focused courses, work many more clinical hours and must develop an evidence-based final project.

The BSN-to-DNP program in nurse anesthesia began in January 2022 in response to requirement for the DNP credential by the Council on Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Educational Programs, says Linda Hill, concentration coordinator of the UTC nurse anesthesia concentration since 2005. Its first DNP class will graduate in 2025, she says.

“The council put into place some additional types of things that we needed or depth of knowledge that we needed for our practice,” she says. “There are new things, new skills that we need to have as nurse anesthetists, and we're being developed as nurse leaders as well.”

Achieving certi�cation as an adult gerontology acute-care nurse practitioner also

In 2019—less than 10 years after its inception, the UTC DNP program was ranked 40th in the United States by Study.com, an educational website intended to serve as an information resource for students from high school to college to their careers.

requires a DNP, says Christi Denton, who is both an adult gerontology acute care nurse practitioner and a School of Nursing assistant professor.

“Our program has always been designed to create the most proficient and competent entrylevel providers in the market,” she says.

“As the profession works toward changes in legislation regarding scope of practice and practice authority, we believe that it is paramount to create an educational curriculum that produces professional leaders as well,” Denton says.

While working in nursing administration systems doesn’t require a DNP, says Bernadette DePrez, associate professor and School of Nursing DNP coordinator, earning a DNP provides knowledge about health policy, leadership and epidemiology, all of which are important for a well-rounded DNP leader.

Family nurse practitioners aren’t currently required to have a DNP, but there is serious discussion in that direction, Smith says.

Regardless, the advantages of earning a DNP are a boon to the most important area of nursing—taking care of people, she says.

“DNP programs, such as the one at UTC, prepare nurse leaders at the highest level of nursing practice,” Smith says, “which ultimately results in improved patient outcomes.”

UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE AT CHATTANOOGA SCHOOL OF NURSING

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DEPARTMENT NEWS

Grant funds work on ‘Breaking Down Barriers to Care’

By Chuck Wasserstrom

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Tonya Morgan has been a nurse since 1997 but returned to school to give back.

Alexa Allen works in a children’s emergency room and has seen the stress on parents. She wants to go out into rural communities and help alleviate some of the anxiety.

Logan Zumbrun has been a labor and delivery nurse since receiving her BSN and wants to ensure women in underserved communities get proper medical care.

Morgan, Allen and Zumbrun are among the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga DNP students in the Family Nurse PractitionerLifespan concentration directly bene�ting from a $2.6-million grant awarded to the UTC School of Nursing from the Health Resources and Services Administration—the primary federal agency for improving access to health care services for people who are uninsured, geographically isolated and economically or medically vulnerable.

The four-year “Clinical-Academic Partnerships: Breaking Down Barriers to Care” (CAP) grant will help prepare advanced practice nurses to meet the needs of rural and underserved communities in the Chattanooga region.

An essential component of the grant is that FNP students are o�ered funding for traineeships. Each semester of their program, the students will receive approximately $8,500.

Recipients “are all dedicated to providing care to the uninsured and underinsured and have a passion for nursing,” says Dr. Amber Roaché, assistant professor and coordinator of the UTC Nurse Practitioner concentration and the grant’s principal investigator.

Morgan, Allen and Zumbrun are part of a cohort that started in fall 2022 and will graduate in May 2025.

Morgan (BSN ’21) has spent her career as a

bedside nurse, mostly at nursing homes, “because I love little old people,” she says with a laugh, “but there’s more that I want to do. That’s why I want to be an FNP, just to give back.”

Morgan, who received an RN associate degree from Cleveland (Tennessee) State Community College, says landing the CAP grant will allow her to decrease work time and volunteer more.

“To venture out into underserved communities is the focus of what I want to go into when I graduate,” says Morgan, who works approximately 36 hours weekly at Tennova Healthcare in Cleveland. “I have plans for what I want to do—like going into homes of bedbound patients that can’t get to a clinic.”

Allen (BSN ’20), who works at Erlanger Children’s Emergency Room in Chattanooga, wants to become an FNP so she can go into rural communities and have parents feel comfortable that their children are getting the care they need.

“In my experience in the hospital, I’ve seen families that have to drive an hour and a half, two hours. Once they get admitted to the hospital, they face challenges because they can’t leave their children,” Allen says, “and they often have other children at home with nobody to take care of them.

“Being out in the community would be really important to help these families and alleviate the burden on them.”

For Zumbrun (BSN ’18), working in labor and delivery at Erlanger’s downtown campus has allowed her to see “a ton of people who are transferred from Alabama, North Carolina, all of these rural areas that don’t have hospitals that can provide the care that we can,” she says.

FNPs have long been in demand, but a recent shortage of family practice physicians has increased the number of primary care positions that FNPs are �lling, particularly in rural and underserved southeast Tennessee populations.

“If we can �ood the community with FNPs,” Morgan says, “I think it would be a big relief for the hospitals and the emergency rooms, too. They can actually take care of real emergencies.”

UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE AT CHATTANOOGA SCHOOL OF NURSING

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DEPARTMENT NEWS

ROAD MAP to Health Care for Rural Seniors

By Chuck Wasserstrom

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According to a June 2023 Tennessee Rural Health Care Task Force report, 22 Tennessee counties do not have local hospitals and 13 rural hospitals have closed since 2010.

Meanwhile, Tennessee placed 40th in a ranking of healthiest states for older adults in the United Health Foundation’s 2023 Senior Report, which provides a portrait of the health and well-being of older adults across the U.S. Christin McWhorter has spent her professional career working in community outreach capacities in southeast Tennessee, so she has seen first-hand how dire access to health care is for aging members of the population living in rural and underserved areas.

“We have communities in southeast Tennessee where there is no hospital; for example, in Polk County, there is no hospital system there, so people have to drive upwards of two hours to access health care,” says McWhorter, rural health clinic network director with the Rural Health Association of Tennessee.

“It’s not just older adults. For those who don’t drive or transportation is an issue, getting to primary medical care appointments is a challenge.”

A recent grant awarded to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga School of Nursing aims to remedy those challenges.

The $2.6-million grant from the Tennessee Department of Health is for a project titled ROAD MAP, an acronym for Rural Health and Older ADult Interprofessional Mobile HeAlth Program. ROAD MAP funding will enable purchasing a mobile health vehicle to regularly visit and bring health care and social services professionals to older adults in rural Southern Tennessee communities.

The mission: Road trips offering education, health promotion, health screening, primary care and social services to those who don’t have easy access.

Dr. Kristi Wick, UC Foundation assistant professor and Vicky B. Gregg Chair in Gerontology, and UTC Vice Provost and Professor Shewanee Howard-Baptiste are coprincipal investigators on the project—leading an interdisciplinary ROAD MAP team that

includes School of Nursing assistant professors Latisha Toney and Sarah Treat and members of the UTC Master of Public Health, Occupational Therapy and Social Work departments.

“When Kristi Wick and UTC were putting in the application for this grant, it was really exciting to me to hear about it and to know that there will be health resources and supportive resources right inside of the communities,” McWhorter says.

“For me, the most innovative part is that it’s bringing multidisciplinary groups together.

Not only are they sending nurses doing blood pressure checks or talking about medication reconciliation, but they’ll be bringing all of the different disciplines to provide a holistic viewpoint to older adults’ health and wellbeing.”

After the mobile health vehicle is acquired, it will serve older adults and caregivers in the Southeast Tennessee Area Agency on Aging and Disability (STAAAD) district, comprised of Bledsoe, Bradley, Grundy, Hamilton, Marion, McMinn, Meigs, Polk, Rhea and Sequatchie counties.

“We do have community health centers inside of our rural counties—and I don’t want to minimize what those health centers do and the services they provide—but for older adults who have special needs as they age, it will be very bene�cial to have experts and specialists who understand the health conditions of older adults,” says McWhorter, who received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from UTC in 2005.

Before moving into her current role with the Rural Health Association of Tennessee, McWhorter spent 18 years at STAAAD. “This mobile health unit is going to make a huge difference,” she says. “It’s going to remove some of the barriers for people to be able to access health care services and it will help people to have a more regular touchpoint in regards to their health care—such as not having to rely on family members who work to take them to medical appointments.

Having something that comes right to their communities will be huge.”

UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE AT CHATTANOOGA SCHOOL OF NURSING

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50-year history

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of the School of Nursing

A History of the School of Nursing at the 1990- in Clinical Specialist 1991 Nurse in Adult Health Master's degree

1974 1972 in nurse

Certificate

1968 starts about Discussion

1888 Erlanger

Baroness

anesthesia established at Erlanger Hospital

Grant for LPN/ADN/DPL/ BSN Upward Mobility Program approved, faculty hired, 85 students declared nursing as their major

needing nurses prepared at the baccalaureate and master's levels

1918

1969

1978 Honor Society

Beta Sigma Nu

1976 Board of

Tennessee Nursing gives full approval to SON

Hospital founded

Baroness Erlanger Hospital forms one of state’s first nursing schools

1983

Proposal for a BSN program at UC/UTC approved by THEC and UT Board of Trustees

1973

recognized as a student organization; NLN awarded initial accreditation.

Department of Nursing becomes the School of Nursing

class of 1977 First 28 graduates Department of Nursing established– Mary B. Jackson founding director; NLN recognizes “new” program; director’s office is a broom closet in Race Hall

1975

First gift for simulation received

Curriculum approved, first clinical course offered; Marjorie Sczekan becomes director and then dean, SON moves to homes on Oak Street and eventually Brock Hall

1982

1988

Sigma Theta Tau chapter established; Dr. Pat Haase becomes dean; Guerry Hall becomes home for the school

1985

Baroness Erlanger program closes, Margaret Trimpey coordinates the RN-BSN Gateway program

approved and first students admitted; later Master of Science in Nursing Education and Nursing Administration approved

Dr. Kay Chitty

1989 becomes director

1992

2002 Lindgren Dr. Kay

in 1994 MSN Family

named d

Nurse Practitioner added

Erlanger certificate program in nurse anesthesia transitions to the MSN in the School

1993

1998 to College of

School moves

1996 Professor

First Kay Chitty named

Dr. Pamela Holder becomes director as Dr. Chitty becomes acting dean of College of Health and Human Services

Baroness Erlanger students informed their program will close

1995

2001 1997 NLN awards 10-year accreditation; first nurse anesthesia cohort graduates

2

Health, Education and Professional Studies under Dean Mary Tanner; Dana Wertenberger becomes director

First FNP cohort graduates

Jack Lupton donates $25 million to UTC, SON starts the emphasis on simulation

2003

e University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

SPRING Anesthesia 2022 concentration starts, DNP: Nurse

2012 graduates; first First DNP:PM

n director

2010 DNP post

Approval for

2005

School of Nursing relocates to Metropolitan Building

BSN to DNP in Nursing Administration Systems students enroll

2014

Dr. Christine Smith named director

master’s received from CCNE

SPRING in-person, hybrid, 2021 20% 54% online and

Classes are 25%

2018 NightinGala to First

support simulation

FALL 3% in-person, hybrid and 2020 35% 62% online Classes are

1% hy-flex.

SON students administer Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines on campus and at pop-up clinics in the county

restrictions removed for COVID

FALL Groundbreaking the new 2024 for building SPRING anniversary at 2023 celebrated NightinGala SON 50th

2026

Occupancy of the new School of Nursing building

Dr. Christine Smith named interim director

Mary B. Jackson Professorship

2009 established

2013

Work begins on DNP program

2011

Vicky B. Gregg Chair of Gerontology established

First DNP:PM enrolls

2016

2017 Adult Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner concentration starts with 15 FNPs

Discussion starts, and ultimately stalls, on new School of Nursing building

SPRING 2020

University dismisses students from campus on March 23 for the remainder of Spring semester due to COVID 19. University has an increased online presence due to COVID. NightinGala was virtual.

FALL 2021

2022 Classes were in-person, 72 percent hybrid and 22 percent online; SON students had in-person class and were in hospitals for clinicals; 21,473 COVID tests administered

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee adds $56 million in funds for a new Health Sciences Building at UTC to house School of Nursing

FALL 2022

DNP: Family NP and Adult Gerontology Acute Care NP concentrations start

FALL 2023

16 students enroll in the Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing; Last APRN students graduate MSN program; architectural renderings in development, fundraising underway

FEATURES

features

Building the Future of the UTC School of Nursing

By Gina Stafford

Conceptual rendering of future nursing building.

Long an aspiration, a new building for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga School of Nursing has become a reality.

An $8-million gift—the single-largest in UTC School of Nursing history—is being made by the Kennedy Foundation, Inc. In honor of that gift, the facility will be named the Dorothy and Jim Kennedy Health Sciences Building—the first building on campus to highlight a woman and alumna.

An October celebration thanked family members and officials associated with the

From left to right, Tennessee Sen. Bo Watson, Tennessee Rep. Yusuf Hakeem, Jim Kennedy III, Molly Kennedy, Tennessee Rep. Patsy Hazlewood and Kim White.

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Kennedy Foundation. At that event, spokesman Wayne Peters cited the importance of health and education—including nursing—to the foundation, inspired by pivotal personal experiences Jim Kennedy Jr. had described to Peters. In World War II, Kennedy was nursed back to health after being wounded in combat.

Years later, two nurses intervened in a close call involving his daughter, Molly Kennedy, born prematurely. Jim Kennedy Jr. put the baby on his shoulder to burp her and realized something was wrong.

As Peters recalls, “He said Little Molly was turning blue, and ‘as soon as we got to the hospital, Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Stubbs took over there.’ … Everything turned out all right.”

Kennedy never forgot the nurses’ names nor the care his daughter received. Given the opportunity to make a gift that would help support education, especially nurses and other health care professionals in a manner that would honor their parents, the three siblings who oversee the foundation said, ‘Let’s do it.’”

Jim Kennedy III says his father left his estate to the Kennedy Foundation to be used to give to his hometown, “We knew there was no better way to honor his wishes than giving to UTC.” UTC Chancellor Steven R. Angle says the gift’s legacy has a generational impact.

“Thank you to the Kennedy Family and the Kennedy Foundation. We really appreciate this,” Angle says. “You’ll make a difference in the lives of so many people in this community.”

“We are grateful to the Kennedy Foundation and family for their commitment to UTC and the health of our city and region with their generous gift,” says Vice Chancellor of Advancement and UC Foundation Executive Director Kim White. “This gift will have an incredible impact on our students for generations to come.”

The 90,000-square-foot building will be situated at the corner of 3rd and Palmetto streets. It will have state-of-the-art, technology-enabled classrooms; cuttingedge simulation spaces; offices and student collaboration and study spaces.

The new building is vital to expanding enrollment, particularly important given Chattanooga’s medically underserved status and immediate need of 27% more providers, says School of Nursing Director and UTC Chief Health Affairs Officer Chris Smith.

“Moving forward with this new building is a significant event in the life of the School of Nursing," Smith says. “This facility will enable us to expand our enrollment capacity by more than 150%, which is critically important given our role in preparing practice-ready nurses.

“Consequently, this is a transformational development in the Chattanooga and Hamilton County community because this will allow us to educate and prepare students using the most current technology that, in turn, impacts their readiness to provide care for patients at the highest level.”

“And it’s really exciting to see a building that is being developed from the ground up to meet our needs—our current and future needs,” she says, “and it's exciting to be a part of the process that helps determine what that building will look like.”

Plans call for groundbreaking in fall 2024 and move-in sometime in 2026.

Invest in the classroom of the future.

Give to Nursing's New Home —Today!

give.utc.edu/nursingbuilding

UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE AT CHATTANOOGA SCHOOL OF NURSING

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FEATURES

Quick Study

School of Nursing Launches Accelerated Bachelor’s Degree Program

by Charlie Reed

Prof. Kristen Carroll is uniquely suited to teach in the accelerated nursing program at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Like her students, she went back to school for a second bachelor’s degree to break into nursing.

“I wish I could have done an accelerated program like ours” says the attorney-turned-nurse practitioner and professor who earned several advanced degrees, including a doctorate at UTC. “I’m a second-career nurse like many of our students in this program.”

UTC launched the accelerated Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree program in August with 16 students—full capacity. Some came with a background in health care, while others are pursuing 180-degree career changes like Carroll, who earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology, then graduated from law school—with a juris doctorate—before switching �elds.

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“I’m super-passionate about this type of student because this is the type of student I was,” she says.

The course work and clinical patient hours are similar for both the ABSN and traditional BSN nursing programs at UTC. The pace is the difference.

“They’re eating, sleeping and breathing nursing,” Carroll says.

“Our traditional nursing curriculum is immersive but the accelerated program takes it even further. This is like learning a new language by being dropped o� in the country where you’re learning it.”

Of the 59 credit hours required for the ABSN, more than a third—21 credit hours— are to be completed in clinical settings, giving

students the essential hands-on experience needed to care for patients.

“They’re getting a lot of attention and support,” she says.

Increasingly, U.S. colleges and universities are o�ering accelerated undergraduate nursing programs because of both the demand for nursing professionals and the needs and circumstances of prospective students.

Kaylea-Beth Ware and Katelyn Nash applied to the UTC accelerated nursing program for di�erent reasons but with the same ultimate goal.

An Idaho native, Ware originally planned on going to medical school before deciding to become a nurse. She earned an undergraduate degree in biology and a master’s in public health from Idaho State University and has worked closely with physicians as a medical scribe.

The experience gives her a unique perspective and will be especially useful in developing rapport with patients.

“Being patient-focused as a nurse vs. diseasefocused as a doctor is something I’m looking forward to in nursing,” Ware says.

For Nash, originally from Chickamauga, Georgia, the journey to nursing started in pre-med at Grand Canyon University in Arizona, where she played on the Division I women’s basketball team.

She went on to earn a master’s degree in industrial psychology.

“I’ve always been fascinated by psychology and wanted to be a doctor since I was a kid, so for

my thesis, I decided why not study physicians,” Nash says.

She studied physician burnout during the pandemic, interviewing dozens of doctors and learning more than she had anticipated.

“It played a role in me not wanting to go to medical school. It de�nitely paused the rush,” Nash says. “I had a shift in perspective. I did some soul searching and asked myself what I want out of life.”

Medical school didn’t align with that, she explains. Nash went on to work in patient care technology positions at CHI Memorial and Unum Insurance in Chattanooga before deciding nursing school was the logical next step.

“I decided nursing has a lot more freedom and balance and that’s why I went for it,” she says.

The students, faculty and sta� all agree the accelerated nursing program isn’t easy. It’s not supposed to be.

“The program is designed for those individuals who have the right skills to be successful,” says Dr. Chris Smith, director of the nursing school and the University’s chief health a�airs o�cer.

“They are highly motivated; have an intense desire to learn and become competent as a BSN-prepared nurse; understand and appreciate time management; and are able to handle rigor and stress.”

The program will accept a new cohort each semester—fall, spring and summer.

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community partnerships

Two UTC Nursing Students Among Just Six Selected for ‘Power of We’

By Sam Lennon

Two students in the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s School of Nursing each have been awarded a $10,000 BlueCross Power of We Scholarship.

Kendrick Cox and Emmanuella Ingabire are among just six students selected by the BlueCross Blue Shield of Tennessee Foundation to receive the scholarships this year. Since the scholarship program’s inception in 2013, the foundation has awarded $415,000 to outstanding minority students to address underrepresentation of minorities in the medical field.

Both Cox and Ingabire had personal experiences with health care which led them to pursue nursing.

Ingabire was born with a congenital heart disease which led her and her family to immigrate to the U.S. from the Democratic Republic of Congo when she was eight months old.

“That experience played a big role in me going into nursing because I couldn’t imagine what it was like for my parents to have a child who is sick and how much of teamwork it takes to be able to successfully go through what they went through. Nursing was the most hands-on, health care profession that I could see myself doing,” says Ingabire.

Through seeing his family receive medical care, Cox was inspired to become a health care professional.

“My dad currently has heart failure and stage two kidney disease. All my grandparents passed away young between cancer and heart problems. I’ve grown up around people always in and out of the hospital needing care, and it sparked an interest in me from a young age.

I always had it in my head, that this is what I was

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going to do, and I made it happen,” Cox says.

Both students see the value of this scholarship for themselves and in its intended impact on the health care field.

“I love the scholarship because [the BlueCross Foundation] knows the health care disparities that lie within marginalized communities, and to minimize that gap, we have to start with the providers who are taking care of them,” says Ingabire.

Cox also speaks on the value of representation in health care.

“[Some minorities] have a mistrust of the health care system and part of it is because there are so few minority workers. There’s a history of [minorities] being mistreated in the past, so employing more health care workers that are minorities will help patient outcomes.”

For Cox, receiving the scholarship is a sign that his hard work has been worth it.

“My dad is a single father. He raised me and my sister on his own. He never went to college, but he made things work before he got sick, he was working seven days a week, no days off. He made sure my sister and I never wanted for anything, and he had this drive to get us through school. That motivated me to push myself and do more than I thought I could, and it’s paid off so far,” he says.

The scholarship has inspired Ingabire. “[Receiving the scholarship] has elevated me and motivated me to focus. It gives me one more reason to be great,” she says.

Photos by Eric Lisica, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee

UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE AT CHATTANOOGA SCHOOL OF NURSING

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COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS

Epperson Achieves Undergraduate Nursing Grant Funding Success on First Try

By Chuck Wasserstrom

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As a �rst-time project director applying for her �rst federal grant, Dr. Brooke Epperson knew the odds were against her.

Epperson, an assistant professor and undergraduate coordinator in the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga School of Nursing, had applied for a U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration grant via the agency’s Nursing Education, Practice, Quality and Retention Simulation Education Training program.

Although con�dent in the application materials submitted, Epperson was advised by UTC O�ce of Research and Sponsored Programs (ORSP) sta� to hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

“They were like, ‘Don’t be disappointed if you don’t get it the �rst time. Grant writing is an art,’” Epperson recalls. “I was fully under the impression that I would probably not get it. And then we got the email and I just about fell out of my chair.”

In late September, Epperson learned that the School of Nursing received a three-year, $1,388,439 grant for AHEAD-RN—which stands for Addressing Health Equity, Access and Diversity through nursing simulation experiences and partnerships.

Through AHEAD-RN, UTC and clinical partners will increase the availability and capacity of nurses by concentrating on the health care needs and improving patient outcomes of rural and/or medically underserved populations.

They will use innovative academic-practice partnerships to prepare undergraduate nursing students for the workforce through clinical and simulation experiences that combine academic and clinical learning.

Landing the award is especially noteworthy, according to ORSP, because it is the �rst grant funding received for the UTC undergraduate BSN program in many years.

“The premise of this grant is to have practiceready graduates,” says Epperson, a member of the UTC faculty since 2016 and a nurse at Tennova Healthcare Cleveland in nearby Bradley County.

“We have new BSN essentials that came out from the (American Association of Colleges of Nursing)—a part of our accrediting body—with a really big focus on end-of-life and palliative care.

“So we were thinking of how can we step up our game from a simulation perspective to be able to meet the needs of our students and to be able to care for individuals with certain behavioral health issues, end of life, palliative, the aging population and homelessness.”

The grant will increase training opportunities for BSN students through the use of simulation-based technology—including equipment—to increase their readiness to practice upon graduation.

“I always feel like we graduate practice-ready students, but there are some situations they’re not going to see as often or be a part of in the clinical setting as often,” she continues. “Not every student is going to get that experience of being able to see someone transition at the end of life or be in palliative care. What does that mean? Di�cult conversations.

“Every student will be exposed to it, and we’re also looking at creating a homeless sim. So again, providing care in di�erent areas the students aren’t necessarily in regularly and ensuring that everybody has that experience and feels con�dent in the material.”

Epperson, a registered nurse since 2006 and recipient of three UTC degrees (BSN 2010, DNP 2020, MBA 2021), says the BSN program typically has around 200 students at any given time—estimating that 350 to 400 students will be impacted during the grant period.

The ultimate objectives, she says, are for current students to be practice-ready and to develop a sustainable curriculum for students joining the program after the grant funding expires.

“Being able to help these students have reallife scenarios, the equipment to be able to learn in a safe space here at the School of Nursing and be able to take those skills out to the community and our practice partners and—upon graduation— feel more prepared to be able to care for these populations is huge,” Epperson explains.

“It’s something that we feel passionate about: That our students have already been exposed to certain experiences here at the School of Nursing so that they are ready to take care of that patient population and hit the ground running when they pass the NCLEX (examination).”

UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE AT CHATTANOOGA SCHOOL OF NURSING

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Dept 1051 615 McCallie Avenue Chattanooga,TN 37403

SAV E T H E DAT E

NightinGala 2024

Join us as we celebrate the profound impact nurses have on the lives of patients and the future home of the UTC School of Nursing, the Dorothy and Jim Kennedy Health Sciences Building.

Friday, April 26, 2024 | 6:30 PM The Westin Chattanooga 801 Pine Street, Chattanooga, TN 37402