FALL 2017 $2.3M TRANSFORMS STUDENT-PROFESSOR RESEARCH TEAMS IMPROVING PALLIATIVE CARE, WORLDWIDE CHARLOTTESVILLE UNREST: CALM AND FURY
BEING PRESIDENT At the table with UVA’s four national nursing organization presidents
8.25.17 / After their community health orientation in two of Charlottesville's public housing health clinics, fourth year nursing students walked the two blocks from Crescent Hall and Friendship Square to the site where, on August 12, violence at a Unite the Right rally claimed the life of counterprotester Heather Heyer. Since the start of classes August 22, nursing students and professors have discussed the events and their impact as well as the way nurses can be leaders in the community’s path toward healing. The orientation group, one of two mentored by instructor and nurse practitioner Patricia Higgins, also trekked to the Robert E. Lee statue in Emancipation Park and to the Lewis and Clark memorial statue nearby. “I felt it was important to take the opportunity to bear witness,” said Higgins. “If ever there was a teaching moment for nurses, this is it.”
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FROM THE DE AN
Leading with Moral Courage: Why It Matters
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SADIE HEATH CABANISS PROFESSOR & DEAN Dorrie K. Fontaine, RN, PhD, FAAN EDITOR Christine Phelan Kueter CONTRIBUTORS Jenny Abel Andrea Ceniceros Jessica Eustace Karol Kozak Kelly Williams McCaskill Nicole Thomas Cate Tillack PHOTOGRAPHY Dan Addison Christine Phelan Kueter Jackson Smith Coe Sweet DESIGN Communication Design Inc. ALUMNI COUNCIL COMMUNICATIONS COORDINATOR Matt Lemieux (CNL ’11, PNP ’15) UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA SCHOOL OF NURSING Established in 1901 nursing.virginia.edu Virginia Nursing Legacy is published twice a year by the University of Virginia School of Nursing and Nursing Alumni Association with private funds. Read it online: issuu.com/virginianursinglegacy
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very university says it prepares leaders. So do most schools of nursing. At the University of Virginia and our School of Nursing, though, we have an even greater mandate to nurture leaders with moral courage. The world and our community watched in horror as racial and religious hatred arrived on our doorstep last August in the form of white supremacists carrying torches and firearms. Because of this, we're doubling down on our mission. In Charlottesville, across the country, and around the world, never has there been a greater need for leaders with the moral courage to stand up to racism, and for nurses who stand for compassion and respect for all. It was just after the 2016 election that we posted a banner on the brick façade of our building declaring that we are a community of compassion and respect, and that we stand together against racism and social injustice of any kind. Little did we know that the banner and its message would prove so timely, and so necessary, marking the beginning of our movement to match eye-catching slogans with action. We demonstrate moral courage when we support faculty leaders who model this principle every day and who commit to an intentional process to act on what University of Southern California professor Shaun Harper1, the nation’s foremost expert on diversity and inclusion, recommends: “Stop graduating racists.” Harsh? Perhaps. Attention getting? Absolutely. But the shock value of Harper’s admonishment has purpose. We all need to get better at addressing issues of race, racism, and white privilege. It matters, especially to nurses, because of the overwhelming evidence of health disparities and healthcare inequities that continue to widen. No nurse should graduate from UVA without the ability—and desire—
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to sensitively and appropriately care for people across difference. Lives depend on it. We’re fiercely proud of the voices and carry of our four national nursing organization presidents (p. 7), and thrilled to be the home of emerging leaders like Tomeka Dowling (p. 29), president-elect of the Virginia League for Nursing. Each of them exhibits moral courage when they advocate for the vulnerable, fight for the well-being of the nursing workforce, rally against burnout, and keep alive our profession’s history of caring and compassionate action for citizens in need. Our students learn first-hand from these types of faculty leaders who bring national concerns into class and clinical settings with passion and persistence. We don’t shelter students from the hard realities of our nation’s historically tortured relationship with healthcare, but advocate wise action not to repeat the wrongs of the past and secure hope and thoughtful strategies for the future. For the past two years, the School’s Inclusion, Diversity, and Excellence Achievement initiative— IDEA—has helped us live our values more fully. But it is not enough. In light of what happened in Charlottesville in August, we’re responding with urgency to build capacity for racial literacy by taking a deep dive into every aspect of our School, identifying structures and practices that inadvertently privilege one group over another, and hoping to move from “unconscious incompetence” to “reflective competence” by trying to become racially literate. Our desire is to build awareness through bias training and develop, in both ourselves and our students, the skills needed to talk about race and white privilege in a frank way. This effort begins with me and my leadership team and will ultimately include every single one of our faculty, staff members, and students. Our long-term aspiration is to become the most racially literate school of nursing in the nation. This value is at the core of our UVA School of Nursing. At this moment of profound division, what could be more important than that?
Dorrie Fontaine, RN, PhD, FAAN Sadie Heath Cabaniss Professor of Nursing and Dean 1 Harper, S. (forthcoming). Race Matters in College. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press.
WOR TH N OTING
$2.3M Transforms Student-Professor Research BY CHRISTINE PHEL AN KUE TER
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nearly $2.3 million infusion into the School of Nursing earlier this summer will spur scholarly productivity, overhaul graduate students’ research experience, and expand nursing professors’ competence in high-tech course content and delivery. The transformative grant—from the University of Virginia’s Strategic Investment Fund (SIF), administered through a rigorous application process and overseen by the Board of Visitors— “pushes us to innovate by moving learning beyond the classroom walls,” explains associate dean for academic programs Christine Kennedy, who wrote the grant application. The reimagined student-faculty research team model will first be rolled out in the School’s newest master’s tracks, the Pediatric Nurse Practitioner– Acute Care (PNP-AC) and Neonatal Nurse Practitioner (NNP) programs. By developing these research team prototypes, professors with active grants
will receive much-needed help while their nursing student partners will enjoy a prime view of the inner workings of National Institutes of Health– and other federally–funded grant projects, bolstering scholarly know-how and assisting projects’ forward momentum. After an initial three-year pilot of this novel research immersion model, the program will be formally expanded to the School’s additional five master’s tracks, which collectively enroll more than 250 students each semester. The SIF grant, which also offers two scholarships each year for full-time NNP and PNP-AC students, deepens the School’s commitment to high-tech courses and labs by offering learning in mobile health, health information technology and bioinformatics, wearable devices, telehealth, and big data approaches to genomics and personalized health. Professors spent the latter part of the summer and the early fall sharpening their understanding of these critical concepts and integrating them into the courses they teach.
It’s just the kind of experience that incoming student Casey Oot (NNP ’19), of Austin, Texas, believes will be a “huge motivator.” “You become part of a medical team, have a stronger influence in the practice, and make decisions in your specialty,” says Oot. “As a bedside nurse, you’re part of research so far as its implementation, but to be a nurse practitioner means you get to investigate and be involved in the decision making and opportunities you’re researching. I’m thrilled to be a part.” +
Faculty professional development
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$2.3M Scholarships
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IN BRIEF 2017 3.18 A School-sponsored screening of PBS’s Being Mortal, based on Atul Gawande’s best-selling book, drew more than 700 to the Paramount Theater in Charlottesville. An expert panel—including School of Medicine professor Tim Short, nursing school faculty members Kenneth White (CERTI-ACNP ’13) and Cathy Campbell, and peers from Hospice of the Piedmont—took dozens of questions from attendees. 1 3.22 The first annual Barbara J. Parker Research Symposium gathered student and faculty scholars around topics from firearm violence and caregiver burden to nature’s role in managing mental health. 4.7 Hundreds gathered to hear Mavis Ford Claytor (BSN ’70, MSN ’85), the School’s first African-American graduate and the 2017 Catherine Strader McGehee Lecturer, share her story and graciously accept an apology for ill treatment from the University, issued by Dean Dorrie Fontaine. Claytor shared the stage with PhD student Tori Tucker (BSN ’12), whose dissertation research focused on the elder nurse’s early experiences and distinguished career. 2 4.12 “GivingToHoosDay” rallied thousands of UVA alumni, including 119 School of Nursing alumni, parents, and friends, who together raised more than $82,000—three times more than last year. 4.25 Seventeen former Beta Kappa presidents who held office between 1974 and 2017 joined Sigma Theta Tau International president Cathy Catrambone and dozens of students, faculty, and alumni, to honor American Nurses Association president and UVA professor Pamela Cipriano, who received Beta Kappa’s Distinguished Nurse Award for 2017. 3 5.9 More than 250 nurse preceptors at UVA Medical Center enjoyed a breakfast and sincere thanks from the nursing faculty and staff for their incredible work mentoring students of all levels at the now-annual Preceptor Appreciation Day.
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UVA Nursing partners with nearly 400 preceptors around the state who closely mentor nursing students during their early clinical rotations. 4 5.21 UVA’s 188th Final Exercises included 250 nursing graduates (118 undergraduate and 132 graduate degree recipients). A multitude of nursing professors of nursing professors donned NURSE SCIENTIST and NURSE RESEARCHER T-shirts under their academic regalia in tribute to their participation in the April 22 March for Science in Washington, D.C., and Charlottesville. 5 6.1 “The Future of Nursing” podcast bookends the popular National Public Radio series Resilient Nurses. Listen anytime: www.nursing.virginia.edu/news /resilient-nurses. 6.24 to 6.28 Associate professor Emily Drake (BSN ’85, MSN ’93) was the opening speaker at the 2017 conference of the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nurses (of which she is president), where Dean Dorrie Fontaine delivered the keynote address, “Creating a Healthy Work Environment through Compassionate Care.” 7.28 With 23 peers from around the world, associate dean for academic programs Christine Kennedy was inducted into the Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame at Sigma Theta Tau International’s 28th annual nursing research conference in Dublin. 8.4 Assistant professor Tim Cunningham (CNL ’09), who also directs the Compassionate Care Initiative, engaged the School in UVA’s 2017 Heritage Theatre Festival, hosting discussions on hospital and international clowning, and overseeing a Clown Camp open to the community. 8.10 Associate professor Elizabeth Epstein (BSN ’94, PhD ’07) was elected to the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities’ board of directors. 8.11 to 8.14 After a calamitous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville that grabbed national headlines and resulted in three deaths and multiple injuries, Dean Dorrie Fontaine and associate dean for diversity and inclusion Susan Kools hosted a series of events at the School to allay student, parent, faculty, and staff fears, and to
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chart a path forward. In one of several missives to the community, they stated: “It is important to be explicit in our rejection of [these groups’] racial hatred and to take a clear stance for our humanitarian and democratic values, especially the values of equality and diversity … we will continue to create a culture of respect and compassion for all in our School of Nursing, the University, and the great community of Charlottesville in which we are privileged to work.” 6 8.18 Associate dean Kenneth White was elected to the American Academy of Nursing’s board of directors. 8.20 For the third year running, American Nurses Association president Pamela Cipriano, research associate professor, was named to Modern Healthcare’s list of the 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare. 8.22 An even 800 students—395 undergraduate and 405 graduate—began classes. With 1,041 applications for 67 undergraduate seats, the School again posted its most competitive year in history. 9.25 Anna Maria Siega-Riz—a scholar in nutrition, maternal and child health—joined the School of Nursing as associate dean for research, succeeding Linda F. C. Bullock, who retired in June. Siega-Riz was formerly a professor in UVA School of Medicine’s Department of Public Health Sciences, Obstetrics, and Gynecology, associate dean for academic affairs of UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, and leader of the Reproductive, Perinatal, and Pediatric Program in its Department of Epidemiology. 7 10.5 Eleanor Crowder Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry director Barbra Mann Wall, who coauthored Through the Eyes of Nursing: Educational Reform at University of Texas School of Nursing, 1890–1989, was named the University of Texas at Austin School of Nursing’s 2017 Outstanding Alumna. 10.7 Three nursing faculty—Jann Balmer, Elizabeth Epstein (PhD ’07), and Richard Westphal (PhD ’04)—were inducted as Fellows of the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN), bringing the School’s total number of FAANs to 30 and its tally of national academy fellowships to 43. 8 +
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Serving in Sync Elizabeth Cox and Nicole Jefferson, BSN Class of 2018 BY NICOLE THOMAS
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lizabeth (Liz) Cox, a Nashville, Tennessee, native, and Nicole Jefferson, originally from Cumberland, Virginia, may be equally passionate about their service to the School of Nursing, but each of these members of the BSN Class of 2018 is uniquely inspired. Cox pursued nursing after the example set by her mother—a pediatric nurse—and grandfather—a medical missionary in the former Congo. While she stayed focused on academics her first year, in her second, she was determined to give back to the School for which she’d developed a deep and early love. After serving as the BSN Class of 2018 president both her second and third years, Cox ran for Nursing Student Council (NSC) president, a role that fosters student/ faculty relations, strengthens student identity within the School, solidifies relationships between the School and its alumni, and assists in the professional development of students. In 2016, Cox won the election by the vote of her peers, the same year she was asked to be the student representative for the School’s Advisory Board, a role she also accepted. Like Cox, Nicole Jefferson knew early on that she wanted to become a nurse to help others. She chose nursing over medicine because it offered greater patient interaction, and was spurred on in her pursuit by a certified nurse aide program she took part in during high school. Alongside Cox, Jefferson leads the NSC as vice president, in tandem with
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Nicole Jefferson
her role as co-president of Diversity in Nursing for a Better Community and as Nursing Alumni Council student representative. “I wanted to get involved early to start networking and gaining new skills,” says Jefferson, “and I felt the best way to accomplish both of those
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Liz Cox
goals was to join organizations within the School.” Cox echoes this sentiment: “The School quickly became a huge part of who I was as a person at UVA, and I found I wanted to give back to it so it could influence others in the same way it did me.” +
BEING PRESIDENT
At the table with UVA’s four national nursing organization presidents
BY CHRISTINE PHEL AN KUE TER PHOTOS BY JACKSON SMITH
If leaders are born, not made, then what’s the secret of the UVA School of Nursing’s tremendous leadership success? Perhaps it’s our 116-year-old reputation for excellence. Our close affiliations with world-class medical and research centers. Our before-it-was-fashionable devotion to interprofessional learning and purposeful instruction in resilience. Or perhaps it’s our frank approach to meaningful, compassionate change in a complex national healthcare environment. Or maybe it’s more straightforward. Maybe it’s simply that we nurture leaders who are passionate in their advocacy and change-making because they’re supported back home by colleagues and a dean who cheer them on, emphatically and without pause. Meet four of our most visible.
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Walk with me a minute down a long, dark hall. A [newly graduated] nurse is working the night shift, a few months out of orientation, on a large cardiac monitoring unit. A high-level alarm sounds, and the nurse runs down the hallway to enter her patient’s room to find him in full arrest. The bedside monitor shows “VFib.” Watch as this new graduate and the other night-shift nurse—a veteran of 30 years—defibrillate the patient as the code team arrives. At first, you hear the noise and commotion of the code team in full action. Then, the room becomes quiet. The resuscitation attempt fails and the team leader calls the code. The next day, the new graduate hears that the other nurse believes her inexperience as a new graduate contributed to the unsuccessful resuscitation. She is devastated. But she does not use her voice to talk to her coworker, or anyone else, to gain insight into what she did wrong—or right. She remains silent. That nurse was me.
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o began my first column as AACN president, written to the group’s 104,000 members. Of all the miles I’ve traveled, all the hospitals I’ve toured, all the places I’ve been, that early story of my nursing career is the one people remember about me. Why? Every nurse relates to being a new graduate, to feeling unsure and afraid. Every nurse relates to being vulnerable. That happened a long time ago. So why tell it? To make the point about voice: Nursing has this rich core. We focus on people, not their diseases. But if we don’t use our voices, none of that matters. That idea has informed much of my term as president. When I met nurses at chapter events, and as I toured hospitals, I asked them, “What gives you joy?” I asked them to write down on an index card a time they felt they knew they mattered. Some offered stories of resuscitation (“You saved my life!”) and others thank-you
stories, but the vast majority talked about a patient at the end of life, a theme I found affirming, if not surprising. That’s an intense moment, and one that causes a lot of moral distress, too. Much of what I saw in the field I brought back to the board table, sharing what I’d heard with senior leadership staff. The challenges we face in nursing and medicine are real. It’s not all doom and gloom, but I really feel it is my role as a leader to inspire, and when people start to circle the drain, I want to bring them back. My leadership has definitely flavored my teaching. I’m well informed about national initiatives, and being part of very big, national discussions really broadens your perspective. I say this to my students: The return on investment of being a leader is an incredible one. I remember attending early AACN meetings, feeling like I would never be as good as those around me. But what kept me going was the great education I received and the fact that the group provided me with a shared identity. We critical-care nurses were all facing the same challenges, and there was camaraderie and understanding in that. Now the question you may be wondering: Has my voice changed? I’m an introvert, but I’ve developed a much clearer idea of the need for nurses to be at the table, playing central parts in certain high-stakes discussions. So although the AACN cannot take political stances because of its nonprofit status, we do advocate. When asked for an opinion or to serve, I almost always say yes, whether it’s joining an American Nurses Association initiative, the Critical Care Societies Collaborative with physician colleagues, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Joy in Work initiative, or the Nurses on Boards Coalition. If we want to effect true change, we must have nurses on boards of influence. We nurses contribute bold voices to these groups. Did being AACN president change me? I don’t know that this role [which ended in mid-2017] changed me fundamentally, but I will hold on to what I’ve seen and heard and felt during my tenure as president for a long, long time. I’m left with the thought that while the challenges are very real in healthcare, there are a lot of very, very good people working very, very hard for all the right reasons. +
CLAREEN WIENCEK PRESIDENT (2015–17) AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF CRITICAL-CARE NURSES (AACN)
born: Dayton, Ohio, the youngest of seven children
education: BSN, University of Cincinnati; MSN and PhD, Case Western Reserve University last read: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking (by Susan Cain) little-known fact: Wiencek didn’t speak until age five, in kindergarten. “My mom wanted me tested; my father refused. I had six brothers and sisters and just pointed to what I wanted.”
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ven if she knows her way around kitchens, sickrooms, and hemlines, Pamela Cipriano is not what you’d call traditional. Never has been. As a youngster, her outspokenness was a response, she says, to growing up in a “typical traditional Italian-American household where the firstborn son got all the privileges, the men were the ones who drove everything, and women were in extremely conventional roles and not allowed to work outside the home.” “That was just not the path I was going to take,” Cipriano explains. After finding academic success in high school—she was her local Rotary Club’s “Girl of the Year” in 1970—she attended nursing school, and early on she got involved with the American Nurses Association's (ANA) Breakthrough to Nursing project, which focuses on minority recruitment. That service brought her to the National Student Nurses’ Association’s convention hall, where, inspired by the moment, she nominated herself from the floor to be vice president (after a flurry of pay-phone calls to secure the required permission for nomination from the head of her school), and won. “I wanted to be involved in making decisions, and I was unafraid to confront issues,” she says. “You need to be bold sometimes to excel in a leadership position.” After a year as vice president, she was elected president of the organization, a role that allowed Cipriano, by then in her early twenties, to rub elbows with national nursing leaders who recognized her spark and encouraged her forward momentum. Since then, even when working in increasingly high-octane jobs—as chief nursing officer at the UVA Health System, as editor-in-chief for American Nurse Today, and as administrator for clinical services and chief operating officer for the Medical University of South Carolina—she has always gone beyond the 9-to-5 workday, serving on state and national nursing association boards, volunteering
for national committees, making her voice heard. And today, millions are listening. As president of the nation’s largest nursing organization, representing the interests of 3.6 million nurses, Cipriano’s voice continues its carry. She demystified Ebola before a national audience, discussed the Zika virus in detail during prime time, decried the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, argued against cuts to Planned Parenthood, and issued position statements against capital punishment. In a lesser-known victory, she allied the ANA with a US Navy nurse who faced disciplinary action when he refused born: to force-feed a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, which education: ultimately led the armed services to declare force feeding unethical, and cleared the still-unnamed Navy nurse of all wrongdoing. last read: For Cipriano, that stance is well aligned with her personal mantra. little-known fact: “Never, ever be held hostage to your job, or the salary in that job, if you feel like your principles and values, ethics or morals, are being compromised,” she asserts. “You’ll land on your feet.” Cipriano also tells the many students who solicit her advice to let people know they’re willing to volunteer, to not be afraid to ask for help, and to remember that no one—not even close friends—will look out for their interests better than they will. She also advises nurses to be self-aware enough to understand their strong and weak spots. Oh, and to be sure to join a professional nursing association. “The ANA is 121 years old and has always worked on nurses’ behalf, represented their interests, and served the public,” Cipriano says. “It’s so important that every nurse understand ANA’s (and similar organizations’) importance, and be a part. That’s how we stay strong and represent all voices.” +
Never, ever be held hostage to your job, or the salary in that job, if you feel like your principles and values, ethics or morals, are being compromised. You’ll land on your feet.
PAMELA CIPRIANO PRESIDENT (2014–18) AMERICAN NURSES ASSOCIATION (ANA)
Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, the youngest of three children
Diploma, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania; BSN, American University; MSN, University of Washington; PhD in executive nursing administration, University of Utah
Sisters in Law: How Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World (by Linda Hirshman)
“My grandmother, Santina, taught me how to sew and tailor my own clothes, and to cook. I consider myself a gourmet cook. I like to make desserts best, like a double-chocolate pistachio pâté and a white chocolate bread pudding.”
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Before being president of AWHONN, what other leadership roles did you occupy? I was a safety patrol in elementary school [laughs] … and I’ve held leadership positions along the way, at various organizations and at various levels. But I never, never imagined myself as national president of AWHONN, no way. But there is a natural progression; you don’t just suddenly become president. I started first as a member, back in the 1980s, because my obstetrics teacher said I should join AWHONN. At work, my boss was a member; some of the unit leaders were members. I remember they would come back from the national conferences so jazzed, and with new ideas about how to provide care. And once I went, I was hooked. I went to a state conference. The next year, I presented a poster, which won me $75. After that, I presented at a couple state conferences and then started presenting at the national conference. From there, I got asked to be on some committees, including AWHONN’s National Research Advisory Panel, and worked my way up. You have to show up, and show you’re engaged and capable. When I applied to be on AWHONN’s board the first time, they turned me down. I applied again, and they took me. It’s a hard process. Just to PRESIDENT (2016–18) get in the running, you have to go through ASSOCIATION OF WOMEN’S HEALTH, OBSTETRIC, all these hoops … and then you have to AND NEONATAL NURSES (AWHONN) hope people—most of whom don’t even born: Alexandria, Virginia, eldest of three children know you—vote for you. I served one term on the board of directors, applied again, education: BSN and MSN, University of Virginia; PhD, Virginia Commonwealth University and got rejected. last read: All the Light We Cannot See (by Anthony Doerr)
EMILY DRAKE
Wow, that’s kind of a hit. You really persevered.
favorite way to unwind: Skiing, kayaking, napping. “I love a good nap! I’m also a big fan of the ocean.”
Right—and when I applied again, they put me on for president. I didn’t think I was going to win the election, because I was running against someone really exceptional, but I did. Probably by one vote! Or a clerical error [laughs].
You’ve got to be nice to everybody. All those relationships, connections—they help you.
Leadership 101 At every level, leadership topics are woven into the content of nursing courses. Following are a few. NURS 3003: Leadership in Action What’s the job like? You’re representing the organization at all these events, state meetings, partner meetings, building relationships with like-minded organizations, like ACOG [the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists]. One thing I’ve learned: You’ve got to be nice to everybody. All kinds of people I’ve had interactions with in the past—on committees, state task forces, research projects—all those relationships, connections—they help you. I tell my students this. Is your job a political one? As a nonprofit organization we can’t support a particular candidate or endorse a particular party, but we can advocate. Sometimes there are issues we can’t get our members to agree on, so we have to remain silent on those. Like supporting Planned Parenthood, when it was defunded by the federal government: Some members objected to the use of the word “abortion” in a letter we were preparing, so we signed other letters instead that were more general. The American Nurses Association (ANA) is different. It has a political arm, which can support (or not support) political candidates. It’s Democratic leaning, and some people don’t join because of that. But AWHONN is very mixed. We have plenty of Republicans. And there’s plenty for us to agree on. We all care deeply about the health of women and newborns. Has the role changed you, or the way you teach? I’m more patient. I know change takes longer than you think. I’m also more forward thinking than I was: How can we leave AWHONN in good shape for the people coming 5 to 10 years after us? It has made me a better speaker and traveler. You have to have a great suitcase! That’s what [Dean] Dorrie [Fontaine] told me: You need those special wheels. It has also really mobilized me on the issues. As AWHONN president, I went to the March for Moms last spring and spoke on the stairs of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., about maternal mortality. The Clinical Nurse Leader students I’m teaching now will focus all their projects on maternal mortality because I want their brains working on this problem. In the United States, maternal mortality is rising. And the rate is three times higher among African-Americans. Nurses need to help figure this out. We may not fully understand why rates are rising, but there are definitely things we can do to promote safer and better care. And at the very least, we can be alert to these issues. Some nurses who come from low-mortality ZIP codes have no idea there is a problem. People most often join organizations because someone has tapped them on the shoulder. We do a lot of that, person-to-person recruiting. We took a bunch of UVA students to the state AWHONN meeting in D.C., and they got all excited. AWHONN has an emerging leaders program, too, and UVA has had students, like Chandra Burnside (CNL ’15), who have been involved in that. Being president is also an opportunity to mentor students and show them how they can get in similar positions of influence. One young woman I once taught is now in charge of ethics at ANA. I like it when my students surpass me. “You might see me up here now,” I tell students, “but I need you to get up here next!” +
Enhances critical thinking, communication, and leadership with academic credit for active involvement in local, state, and national organizations REAL I, II, III, and IV: Research, Ethics, Advocacy, and Leadership An every-semester undergraduate course using readings, case studies, and simulations to teach the latest in leadership concepts NURS 4006: Practicum in Leadership Development Graduate students learn to teach and mentor undergraduates on clinical rotation GNCL 5240 Leadership Seminar: Microsystem Analysis and Capstone Development Students create a professional portfolio and leadership project proposal while diving into career, leadership, legal, and practice-environment issues NUIP 4610: Leadership and Management in Healthcare Systems Develops nurses’ appreciation of their role in organizational resource consumption and functional success GCNL 5210: Introduction to Nursing Leadership and the Healthcare System Covers nursing leadership fundamentals, including selfassessment and application in real-time and simulated scenarios, with exposure to theories of change, complexity, horizontal leadership, microsystems, and decision making
Leaders’ Required Reading A few of our favorites: • Boost Your Nursing Leadership Career: 50 Lessons That Drive Success (by Kenneth R. White and Dorrie K. Fontaine) • The Leadership Challenge: How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations, 5th ed. (by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner) • Harvard Business Review article “Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail” (by John P. Kotter) • Nursing Management article “The Mindful Nurse Leader: Improving Processes and Outcomes; Restoring Joy to Nursing” (by Pipe, FitzPatrick, Doucette, Cotton and Arnow; September 2016) • American Nurse Today article “The Mindful Nurse” (by Howland and Bauer-Wu; September 2015) • From the American Nurses Association: • Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements • Nursing: Scope and Standards of Practice • Nursing’s Social Policy Statement, 2nd ed.
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Listen when people tap you on the shoulder.
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hile it’s tempting to be charmed by archival items, like old-fashioned nurses’ clothing and historical healthcare memorabilia and equipment, associate professor and AAHN president Mary Gibson (BSN ’75, MSN ’86) says it’s the collections that impart the deepest lessons and have the greatest stories to tell. “Nursing history is really the story of the healthcare profession, of women’s issues, women’s rights, of social justice, and much else,” she says. “In order to look at the current state of nursing, we need to see the context of how we became what we are.” And with immigration, public health, poverty, and healthcare access issues constantly in the headlines, never have lessons from nursing’s past had more bearing on its present. Gibson loves drawing parallels. “Ethel Smith, who worked in Norfolk, Virginia, was instrumental in the establishment of children’s care as a specialty,” she explains. “Jane Ranson led the first Virginia state survey of public health nursing in Virginia, while 1960s-era nurse Nancy Milio, who established a community-run mom-and-tots clinic in urban Detroit, taught us a great deal about community organizing. The issues they faced are the same ones we face today: race, education, access, poverty. These nurses were thinking on their feet, all the time. It astounds me to think about how much knowledge and ingenuity they had in them. They didn’t have the props we have today, but they figured it out.” Gibson’s passion for nursing history was sparked when she took a course on the topic from UVA professor Barbara Brodie in the late PRESIDENT (2016–18) 1990s. At that point, Gibson was AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE HISTORY OF NURSING (AAHN) considering a nursing doctorate. With praise and encouragement from Brodie born: Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the third of four children and another UVA nursing professor, education: BSN and MSN, University of Virginia; PhD, University of Pennsylvania Arlene Keeling (BSN ’74, MSN ’87, PhD ’92), Gibson submitted a class paper for last read: Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America’s Most Storied Hospital (by David Oshinsky) presentation at the AAHN’s fall 2001 conference—and the rest, as they say, favorite way to unwind: An avid gardener, Gibson also brews her own beer. is history. Before assuming the AAHN presidency in 2016, Gibson—an AAHN member since 2001— past, as well as the scholarly and leadership roles they might not served as its program chair and was a frequent presenter at its have otherwise, as Brodie and Keeling did for her. conferences. As its top leader, Gibson navigates logistics for “I never thought, when I sat in those chairs in McLeod Hall, I’d the group’s domestic and international meetings, which attract have a PhD in nursing, or be president of this organization,” says hundreds of devoted nurses and history buffs from around the Gibson. “So I say to my students: Listen when people tap you on the globe, oversees the group’s two publications, and populates shoulder. Take time to do things that really build your leadership. committees with appointees, among other administrative Students need to leave here not just thinking about their work from functions. The roughly 500-member association supports historical 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., but considering problems and processes, and how research, offers funding for exceptional projects, and gives annual they’ve been dealt with over time. If they do that, they’ll be leaders.” awards for significant publications authored by members. Most of all, leadership is really “all about stepping up, saying, Gibson’s presidency has also become a pulpit from which ‘I’m curious, I’m interested, and I care,’” Gibson adds. “I want our to urge students to consider seriously the lessons from nursing’s students to know they can do this.” +
MARY GIBSON
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ALUMNI PROFILE
Cool Tech, Warm Heart Mark Adams (BSN ’97) BY JE S SIC A EUS TACE
A
lthough Mark Adams’ path to nursing wasn’t always clear, looking back, he sees clues in each twist and turn along the way. His mother, a nurse for 35 years, shared stories of her work, and Adams, rapt, spent hours poring over her nursing manuals. “I was always interested in CPR and first aid as a Boy Scout and lifeguard, and later as a volunteer paramedic and a teacher,” Adams says. “With each step, I gained a new skill that led me to where I am today.” After earning a degree from UVA’s Curry School of Education in 1984, Adams worked as a special education teacher for several years before becoming the executive director of Central Shenandoah Emergency Medical Services Council. A certified paramedic, Adams also volunteered for the Western Albemarle Rescue Squad for 15 years. “Medical service was always in the background of my life,” even before enrolling in the School of Nursing’s second-degree program in 1995, Adams recalls. After graduating from the program in 1997, he began working in the Coronary Care Unit (CCU) at UVA, where he’d done clinical rotations as a student. Today, Adams is nurse manager of the CCU and program coordinator of UVA’s Therapeutic Temperature Management Program, which offers high-tech cooling by catheter for patients who have experienced a cardiac arrest. Now nearly a decade running, the program transitioned from using strategically placed bags of ice to lower the body temperature to, today,
“Cooling the patient stops the deterioration of brain function. Without it, between 2 and 10 percent of patients survive. Now, up to a full third do.” using refrigerated saline, delivered by catheters, to carefully lower patients’ body temperature and thereby stabilize body and brain function. The results, says Adams, are nothing short of dramatic. “[Before this technology], in my first nine years, I recall only one person leaving the CCU alive, with normal brain function, after being resuscitated from cardiac arrest,” Adams recalls. “We started cooling patients with ice packs and cold blankets and got much better results; now we use intravascular cooling catheters. Cooling the patient stops the deterioration of brain function. Without it, between 2 and 10 percent of patients survive. Now, up to a full third do.”
Adams, who formed the Therapeutic Hypothermia Task Force to research available cooling equipment, guided UVA Medical Center’s equipment purchase in late 2007. Since then, patients who have a cardiac arrest outside the hospital who arrive at UVA have a much greater chance of leaving the hospital and resuming normal life. Adams’ favorite part of his work is what he calls the “who’s in there” moment, when his team, after rewarming the patient, weaning them off medication following the cooling process and removing the breathing tube, finally has the chance to talk to the individual in their care. “I love it when we get to find out who’s in there,” says Adams. +
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IMPAC T: NURSING RE SE ARC H
Nurses at the Big Data Table BY C ATE TILL ACK
T
he use of big data—referring to the use of computational programs to generate statistics—is pervasive in medicine and technology, but nurses are a growing part of this movement to translate data into protocols that profoundly benefit patient care and outcomes. And while assistant professor Jessica Keim-Malpass (CNL ’08, PhD ’11) holds two previous grants—$119,177 from the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health, and $30,000 from the American Cancer Society—her most recent award from the Translational Health Research Institute of Virginia will enable her to integrate information that nurses collect from patients that is central to creating predictive models from big data. Because they are constantly at the bedside, nurses are perfectly positioned to contribute real-time information to these predictive models. Nurses are the “eyes and ears and first responders,” explains Keim-Malpass, as well as the “gatekeepers of patients’ safety.” She’ll work with UVA’s Surgical Trauma Intensive Care Unit (STICU), where a program called Continuous Monitoring of Event Trajectories, or CoMET—created by School of
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Medicine professor J. Randall Moorman—calculates an overall picture of a STICU patient’s risk level, yielding an illustration of risk that looks like a comet shooting across the sky. With the addition of vital sign data that nurses collect, including respiratory rate, oxygen saturation, heart rate, and blood pressure, the picture on CoMET of a patient’s overall health will be more complete, providing a consistent image of a patient’s status. Although the focus for a patient in intensive care is rehabilitation, these patients are also at great risk for decompensation, unplanned-for complications, and long hospital stays. When nurses’ observations are included in analyses like those by CoMET, the protocol improves, complications decrease, and patients’ quality of life increases. Over the study’s three years, Keim-Malpass will use nurse involvement in clinical trials and protocols to develop models to improve patient-centered outcomes. So when a nurse observes that a patient is experiencing an increased heart rate, for example, and the information is included in a computational system like CoMET, the result is evidencebased care and a wider portrait of a patient’s status, prognosis, and risk, which informs protocols that drive treatment plans. When nurses finally have a seat at the big data table, the benefit to patients will be immense, says Keim-Malpass, because the picture cast will be richer and more detailed in scope, reflecting what is happening in real time. “We [nurses] are central to moving this technology forward,” she says. +
BY CHRISTINE PHEL AN KUE TER
W
MARY K AY O’BRIEN (CNL ’17)
hile palliative care has become part of America’s cultural lexicon, the same cannot be said for places beyond our borders. In the world’s poorest, most rural regions—where chronic illness and death from diseases like HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis are tragically common— palliative care is spotty at best, if not entirely absent. In many developing nations, palliative care is anemic due to a dearth of providers trained to give it. In South Africa, for instance, the patient-to-nurse ratio is 417:1, a reality that forces community health workers (CHWs) to take on a majority of nursing tasks, especially in rural areas. Most CHWs have basic training in patient care, an understanding of disease transmission, and possibly knowledge on how to take vital signs like blood pressure and a pulse. But palliative care, says associate professor and Fulbright Scholar Cathy Campbell, is “learned on the fly,” even as it’s an increasingly robust part of these workers’ jobs. Gaps in knowledge also exist because palliative care concepts haven’t yet been fully integrated into overseas’ nursing curricula. It all adds up to a perfect storm, says Campbell, even in this era when the World Health Organization has declared access to palliative care “a human right.” Given these realities, Campbell says a movement to buttress CHWs’ education, skills, and reach is afoot—and she is in the thick of the march. In 2016, she received a
A contemplative moment for associate professor Cathy Campbell in rural South Africa
MARY K AY O’BRIEN (CNL ’17)
Improving Palliative Care Worldwide
two-year Fulbright Global Scholar Award to augment what little palliative care exists in two rural provinces of South Africa and Thailand, and explore how best to broaden this type of care, with CHWs’ support. In the summer of 2017, Campbell—a longtime UVA Center for Global Health fellow and researcher—collaborated with colleagues at the University of Venda and Prince of Songkla University for a fourth year of longitudinal research on CHWs’ engagement in community care. She’ll continue the work in the summer of 2018. With the Fulbright, Campbell and her team conducted focus groups with rural CHWs across Thailand and South Africa to discuss the palliative care cases they encounter, document how they handle them, and ultimately determine what types of educational and training programs make the most sense for these contexts. The ultimate aim is to expand palliative care practices in places where it has existed only informally, and to train 48 CHWs in palliative care concepts. Campbell has already observed CHWs’ appetite for training in palliative care—“they’re eager for it,” she reports— and in many cases, strong CHWs are likely to receive training and education and then return to their peers to train them. “We can train CHWs to do more, because they’re really the ones doing the work,” says Campbell. “They’re a community treasure.” +
In some of the world’s most rural areas, the ratio of patients to nurses is more than 400 to 1, leaving many of the nursing tasks to community health workers who often learn palliative care practices on the fly. With a small group of nursing student research assistants, Fulbright Scholar Cathy Campbell is assessing these workers’ competencies and preferred modalities of learning, and by summer 2018 she will have trained 48 individuals in palliative care techniques. Those 48, in turn, will take what they’ve learned back to their communities and colleagues.
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PHIL AN THROP Y
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Giving Voice to Research BY JE S SIC A EUS TACE
F
GIVE
rom palliative care to intimate-partner violence, diabetes care to breast cancer, UVA nursing faculty members are passionate about their connectivity to scholarship. But research can only impart change when it’s shared—and spread. When powerful findings are given voice, they improve care in real and meaningful ways. This is why the School of Nursing’s Scholarly Dissemination Award (SDA)—established with an anonymous $10,000 gift in 2015 and infused with $30,000 in additional contributions over the next two years—has proven so critical. When faculty members have the opportunity to travel and present their discoveries, to attend conferences and learn from fellow scholars, and to bring back ideas for the lab and classroom, they enliven and enrich nursing scholarship. In doing so, they raise the profile of the School both nationally and internationally. For professor Pamela Kulbok, an SDA offered the chance to travel to Denmark to present at the International Global Network of Public Health Nursing Conference and subsequent connection to the Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, where her work was published. For Cathy Campbell,
Scholarly Dissemination Awardees in 2016–17
To learn more about making a gift that impacts nursing research and scholarship, contact: Kelly McCaskill, executive director of development (434) 924-0097 kmw4y@virginia.edu nursing.virginia.edu/alumni/give/
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a Fulbright Scholar and associate professor, the award funded her trip to London to receive the Joanna Mugridge Research Award for “An Approach to Recruitment in Hospice Research: Engaging Patients, Close People, and Healthcare Professionals.” Associate professor Randy Jones (BSN ’00, MSN ’02, PhD ’05), who traveled with SDA funds to Australia to present the results of his National Institutes of Health– funded study on decision aids for cancer patients, got to rub elbows with researchers from national and international cancer organizations. And for assistant professor Bethany Coyne, the SDA offered a chance to take the School’s undergraduate research approach on the road, presenting at the American Nurses Association’s annual meeting. “It really offered me a wonderful opportunity to meet key people doing healthcare transition research,” says Coyne. “It led to opportunities to collaborate with other researchers and faculty across the country doing just what I do.” Given its scope, the highly sought-after award is competitive, and only those nursing faculty members who meet specific criteria may apply for SDA funding: they must have been accepted to present scholarly activities in either a poster or podium presentation; asked to attend a conference to meet a targeted need in School of Nursing academic programs; or involved in the leadership of a professional nursing organization. Priority is given to full-time faculty applicants who have not previously received SDA support. +
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Associate professor Cathy Campbell 1 Assistant professor Bethany Coyne 2 Professor Pamela Kulbok 3 Assistant professor Pamela DeGuzman 4 Associate professor Randy Jones 5 Assistant professor Tomeka Dowling 6
250 Newest nursing
ALUMNI
from the class of 2017
BY THE NUMBERS Alumni Engagement
77
T
he School of Nursing’s more than 11,600 graduates are an active and growing bunch. And the School’s Alumni and Development Office works hard to keep nursing alumni connected throughout the year, from events like Homecomings Weekend, Black Alumni Weekend, and Reunions Weekends to regional receptions in Richmond and Atlanta and special conference events. There is a plethora of ways to stay engaged. If you have time to help us in our work, we have a place for you! To volunteer, simply email us: nursing-alumni@virginia.edu. +
Number of
THOMAS JEFFERSON SOCIETY INDUCTEES, who celebrated, in June, the 50th anniversary of their graduation
SPR ING 201 7 A TRIB UTE TO DR. BRA SHE RS STA NDA RDI ZED PAT IEN TS MAR ROW -MIN DED HON ORI NG CAN CER WAR RIO RS
Bett Togeetr her
901 Number of PARTICIPANTS who called into Dean Dorrie Fontaine’s first-ever phonecast Missed it? nursing.virginia.edu/alumni /get-connected/phonecast/
379
20,345 Number of
Virginia Nursing Legacy magazines distributed around the world, annually
5
44
Number of open committees for which we need
ALUMNI VOLUNTEERS. Can you help? Please contact nursing-alumni @virginia.edu.
Number of EVENTS hosted by the School’s Alumni and Development Office (2016–17)
LUMNI number of A
Total icipated in who’ve part 6–17 events, 201 ns io nursing reun
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NURSING ALUMNI A S S O C I ATION
From the President
of 2018: Nicole Jefferson and Liz Cox, student representatives on the Nursing Alumni Council and School of Nursing Advisory Board, respectively (page 6).
W
e all have different stories, but what binds us together is the common experience of being a Virginia Nurse. This became apparent to me as I celebrated my 20-year reunion with classmates last June. Each of us had different life stories to share, but what struck me were the contributions of leadership and care we, collectively, have demonstrated in so many areas— nursing, our communities, our families. And so I came away from that weekend prouder than ever to be a Virginia Nurse. Our education, chosen profession, and experiences in the field connect us in special ways.
As you leaf through the pages of this beautiful magazine, enjoy the recap of some of the many alumni events we held this past spring, including a Black Alumni Weekend lecture and reception, and the diploma graduate event at the School’s history center. This year’s Alumni (page 22) and Faculty Award recipients (page 21) are also highlighted. Thank you to the Nursing Alumni Council Awards Committee, led by Sara Wassel (BSN ’09, MSN-FNP ’14), for its work in choosing from so many qualified candidates. Virginia Nurse: This descriptor brings me great pride, as I hope it does for you!
CHUAN DING
Speaking of contributions of leadership and care, I would like to thank Judy Bilicki (BSN ’81), outgoing president, for her leadership of the School of Nursing Alumni Association. For the past three years, Judy has worked tirelessly to lead us, and we are grateful for her dedication, wisdom, and contributions. Our cover story could speak no better to this legacy of leadership, as it highlights four national nursing organization leaders whom we claim as our own. What a visible testimony to the quality of faculty at our School! Enjoy, too, our alumni profile highlighting 1997 BSN graduate Mark Adams (page 15), and the student profile section, featuring two members of the BSN Class
Visit our new website: nursing.virginia.edu
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Sincerely,
Christa Hartch (BSN ’97) President, School of Nursing Alumni Association Greenwich, Connecticut UVANursing groups/4248973 uvason uvaschoolofnursing
2017 Faculty Award Winners
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he Nursing Alumni Association recognizes three faculty leaders annually for their contributions to the School and the nursing profession.
DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR AWARD Susan Kools Madge M. Jones Professor in Nursing and Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion
Nursing Alumni Gather for Two Special Events
D
uring the spring of 2017, the School of Nursing hosted an event to honor nursing diploma graduates at the Eleanor Crowder Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry. Twenty people attended, including diploma nurses from Virginia and West Virginia and their guests, and heard remarks from center director Barbra Mann Wall and associate dean and professor Kenneth R. White. This was the first reception held in honor of diploma nurses (1968 was the final year the School graduated a diploma class, nearly 20 years after enrolling its first BSN students in 1950), and several alumni noted that it helped them feel more connected to
EXCELLENCE IN TEACHING AWARD Emma Mitchell (MSN ’08, PhD ’11) Assistant Professor of Nursing
the UVA nursing community. A week later, in early April, Black Alumni Weekend kicked off with the Catherine Strader McGehee Lecture, honoring Mavis Claytor (BSN ’70, MSN ’85), the School’s first African-American graduate. That evening, Dean Dorrie Fontaine welcomed alumni, students, faculty, and staff to celebrate Black Alumni Weekend, reconnect with classmates, network, and catch up with the dean and faculty members. Make sure you’re on the invitation list! Send your current contact info and email address to us: nursing-alumni@virginia.edu. +
FACULTY LEADERSHIP AWARD Jeanne Alhusen Associate Professor of Nursing and Assistant Dean for Research
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NURSING ALUMNI A S S O C I ATION
Recognizing Extraordinary Alumni
E
ach year, the School of Nursing Alumni Association (SONAA) honors individual alumni for their contributions and service to the nursing profession. Nominations for the 2018 awards may be made by email, phone, or done online: nursing-alumni@virginia.edu (434) 924-0138 www.nursing.virginia.edu/alumni /stay-engaged DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI AWARD Honoring the alumna/us who has made outstanding contributions to the profession of nursing Debra Barksdale (BSN ’83) Nationally recognized for her research on stress and cardiovascular disease in Black Americans, Debra Barksdale joined the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Nursing in 2016 as the associate dean of academic programs. Before this role, she’d been an associate professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, and director of that university’s DNP program. She is the only nurse appointed to the Board of Governors of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, which was established seven years ago by the Affordable Care Act. Barksdale is the immediate past president of the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties and an alumna of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Executive Nurse Fellows program. She holds an MSN from Howard University and a PhD from the University of Michigan. In October 2017, she was elected as a board member of the American Academy of Nursing.
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DECADE AWARD
ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Recognizing outstanding efforts early in a graduate’s nursing career.
Honoring an alumna/us who has shown superior achievement in a field other than nursing since graduating from the School
Jerimie Batac (BSN ’10, MSN-FNP ’14) Jerimie Batac wasn’t satisfied with only serving patients as a family nurse practitioner (FNP) by day, so she channeled her passion and created a nonprofit to empower her patients and others in her community to establish wellness plans for themselves. After earned a BSN, Batac worked in the Medical-Surgical ICU of the UVA Health System. Although she loved working in acute care, she realized she was equally passionate about preventative medicine and began pursuing an FNP at the School, too. Today, as an FNP at Benchmark Health Systems in Herndon, Virginia, Batac is dedicated to creating a personalized approach for each patient, acknowledging that every patient she encounters is unique and individual needs should shape his or her healthcare. In 2016, Batac took a life-changing trip to Honduras to serve those in crucial need of healthcare. Upon her return, Batac decided to use her skills and education to fight the rise of preventable chronic diseases linked to obesity, one of the biggest drivers of healthcare costs in the United States. She founded My Health Matters Inc., a charitable organization focused on inspiring and empowering people to understand the health risks of obesity and the importance of embracing a sustainable, healthy lifestyle. In between serving patients in northern Virginia and running a nonprofit, Batac makes medical mission trips overseas.
nursing.virginia.edu
Shelley Boyce (BSN ’83) Shelley Boyce may run her own multimillion-dollar company, but she is always a “nurse first.” After graduating from the School of Nursing, Boyce worked as a pediatric nurse before going into medical sales. The medical sales company expanded into the medical practice–consolidation business, and her experience in this arena led her to pursue her MBA. Boyce graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business in 1994, and she founded MedRisk the next year. MedRisk is a provider network of physical and occupational therapists as well as chiropractors aimed at helping injured workers to get back on their feet (figuratively and sometimes literally). Boyce’s visionary thinking and innovative approach has influenced how the industry views traditionally managed care and claims service offerings. Boyce says that being a nurse first contributed to her knowledge and understanding of business, and also to her own leadership style, which includes a recognition that everyone has a role to play, and all of those roles are critical to success. Joining the School’s Advisory Board in 2006, Boyce brought her skill set back to her alma mater to support and promote Dean Dorrie Fontaine’s vision and objectives for the School in the areas of education, research, and service. She served in that role until 2014. For the past two years, Boyce has served on the UVA Health Foundation’s board of trustees and on the School’s Compassionate Care Initiative’s advisory board. +
REUNIONS 2018
1958 1963 1968 1973 1978 1983 1988 1993 1998 To register for Reunions Weekend events, contact the UVA Alumni Association at (434) 243-9000, or visit www.virginiareunions.com. For information on nursing alumni events, contact the Alumni and Development Office at (434) 924-0138.
35-, 40-, 45-, 50-, 55-, and 60-Year Reunion Classes and the Thomas Jefferson Society Classes of 1983, 1978, 1973, 1968, 1963, and 1958 Celebrating reunions May 31–June 3, 2018 School of Nursing Building Tours McKim Hall, McLeod Hall, Claude Moore Nursing Education Building Friday, June 1 10 a.m.–11:30 a.m. Meet in the McLeod Hall lobby at 10 a.m. Faculty and students will lead tours. 50-Year Reunion and Thomas Jefferson Society Luncheon Saturday, June 2 Noon–1:30 p.m. Newcomb Hall Ballroom Nursing Alumni Reception Saturday, June 2 4 p.m.–6 p.m. Pavilion IX Garden, West Lawn
5-, 10-, 15-, 20-, 25-, and 30-Year Reunion Classes Classes of 2013, 2008, 2003, 1998, 1993, and 1988 Celebrating reunions June 8–10, 2018 School of Nursing Open House Friday, June 8 2 p.m.–3:30 p.m. McLeod Hall, Claude Moore Nursing Education Building Meet in the McLeod Hall lobby for a self-guided tour of McLeod Hall and the Claude Moore Education Building. Stop by the Clinical Simulation Learning Center and the Resilience Rooms to talk with students and faculty.
Do you have photographs, letters, or other memorabilia from your time as a UVA School of Nursing student or from the early days of your nursing career?
Nursing Alumni Picnic Lunch Saturday, June 9 Noon–1:30 p.m. Pavilion IX Garden, West Lawn
Contact us: nurs-hxc@virginia.edu (434) 924-0083
Consider donating them to the Eleanor Crowder Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry.
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C L A S S N OTE S AND NE W S
Class Notes
Modern Healthcare recognized Nancy Howell Agee (BSN ’79)—chair-elect designate of the American Hospital Association—was named one of the Top 25 Women in Healthcare 2017.
1960s The School of Nursing class of 1960 continued its annual tradition of meeting up in the summer. In 2017, the group enjoyed time together in Duck, NC. 1
1980s Assistant professor Vickie Southall (MSN ’85) and her community health students were—along with Louisa County Middle School’s Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) local chapter—lauded by FCCLA’s national organization for their work teaching middle school students CPR, the Heimlich Maneuver, how to use a defibrillator, and basic first aid. 3
1970s On April 29, 2017, Amy Pelleg (BSN ’75), mother of Adam Pelleg (BSN ’12), was awarded the Medallion for Distinguished Leadership in Nursing Practice from the Villanova University College of Nursing by Associate Dean Lesley Perry. 2
1990s
James R. Carnes (MSN ’93, Darden ’93) assumed his role as administrator of radiology and imaging services at the UVA Medical Center in July 2017. Prior to his new position, he spent 20 years as a clinical administrative leader, which earned him the School of Medicine's Outstanding Administrator of the Year award in 2010. The South Carolina Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy appointed Elizabeth Anne “Beth” DeSantis (BSN ’93) as its chief executive officer.
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3
4 2
5
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Beth Quatrara (MSN ’97, DNP ’10) and her research team earned UVA Medical Center’s Nursing Research Mentorship Achievement award for work focused on intramuscular vaccine administration, the results of which were published in the Annals of Nursing Practice. 4
2000s Sara E. Wassel (BSN ’09, MSN ’14) was engaged to Harrison Covall in July 2017. The couple—planning to marry in 2018— resides in Old Greenwich, CT.
2010s Cassie O’Malley (BSN ’11)—currently the nurse manager of the outpatient unit of the University of Maryland Marlene and
In Memoriam 1930s
Hilda H. Frame (DIPLO ’39) Frametown, WV MARCH 26, 2017
1940s
Thelma Weaver Bohn (DIPLO ’44) Forest, VA FEBRUARY 18, 2017 Lugean Harris Boice (DIPLO ’47) Chesapeake, VA JULY 7, 2017
Stewart Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center—received the Daisy Leadership Award. At the Midwest Nursing Research Society's annual conference, Karen Moss (MSN ’12, PhD ’16)—a Jonas Scholar and postdoctoral fellow training in palliative care at Case Western Reserve University’s Bolton School of Nursing—earned the PhD Dissertation Award from the Gerontological Science Research Interest Group. In May 2017, Adam Pelleg (BSN ’12) of Lankenau Medical Center in Wynnewood, PA, received the DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurses. 5
Julie Dennis Howard (DIPLO ’51) Charlottesville, VA AUGUST 24, 2017 Catherine C. Taxiarchis (DIPLO ’58) Buxton, ME JULY 11, 2017 Gwenette H. Wood (DIPLO ’58) Tupelo, MS JULY 30, 2017 Anne Vinson Austin (BSN ’59) Tahlequah, OK MARCH 5, 2017
1960s
Nancy Mayo Knight (DIPLO ’47) AUGUST 14, 2017
JoAnne Sellers Keeley (BSN ’60) Brevard, NC MAY 2, 2017
Sarah W. Wilson (DIPLO ’47) West Lebanon, NH OCTOBER 10, 2012 +
Judith K. Matthews (BSN ’61) Martinsville, VA APRIL 24, 2017
Anna B. Bishop (DIPLO ’48) Earlysville, VA MAY 12, 2017
Susan Buford (BSN ’62) Roanoke, VA JUNE 15, 2017
Alice M. Auciello (DIPLO ’49) Charlottesville, VA JULY26, 2017
Egie G. Heaster (BSN ’64) OCTOBER 10, 2015 +
1950s
Carolyn R. Foster (DIPLO ’51) Richmond, VA FEBRUARY 27, 2017
Carolyn Krauch Braudaway (BSN ’66) Springfield, VA JULY 20, 2017 Sandra D. Fowler (BSN ’67) Madison, VA JULY 12, 2017
+ While the School of Nursing strives to be timely, we were just notified of these alumni deaths since the last publication.
Robin Hills (DNP ’14) began a new job as deputy executive director for the Virginia Department of Health Professions in Henrico, VA, in September. Hannah Kaylor (Curry ’11, ’12, MSN ’16)— who works in the Critical Care Units at UVA Medical Center—was lauded as the hospital’s Beginning Practitioner for 2017. Shannon R. (Darner) Noffsinger (BSN ’16) is currently serving as chapter president of the American Association of CriticalCare Nurses for the Tidewater Chapter of Virginia. She begins the doctor of nurse anesthesia practice program at Virginia Commonwealth University in January 2018. +
1970s
Twila J. Rudge (BSN ’75) Knoxville, TN JUNE 13, 2008 + Joanne M. Phillips (BSN ’79) Charlottesville, VA MARCH 26, 2017
1980s
Betty A. West (BSN ’80) Troutville, VA MAY 1, 2017 Mary H. Edmonds (BSN ’81) Portsmouth, VA MAY 16, 2017 Tamara L. Kerr (MSN ’83) Geneva, OH JANUARY 16, 2017
1990s
Ruth B. Martin (BSN ’90) Locust Grove, VA MARCH 26, 2017 Elizabeth L. Banning (MSN ’91) Barboursville, VA MARCH 19, 2017
2010s
Jessica Alston (BSN ’20) Virginia Beach MAY 30, 2017 +
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ANNUAL REPORT July 1, 2016 – June 30, 2017
$8,507,745
Total of new gifts and commitments
$57,079,808 $513,307
School of Nursing endowment total (as of June 30, 2017)
Nursing Annual Fund giving in fiscal year 2017, a new record; 71% ($364,292) was given by Dean’s Circle members (individuals who give at least $1,000 annually)
Where the Money Goes Scholarships 60%
Faculty Support 6% Programs 3% Compassionate Care Initiative 16%
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Unrestricted 15%
Including
$5,000
to recruit 15 Neonatal Nurse Practitioner and Pediatric Nurse Practitioner-Acute Care students
3X
“
Amount raised on GivingToHoosDay 2017, tripling 2016’s total and bringing in $89,278
547
Your continued support promotes three critical missions: dissemination of faculty scholarship, which is crucial to building research programs and strengthening the School’s reputation; expansion of opportunities for professional development for our faculty, a vital practice in a rapidly changing academic healthcare world; and finally, and perhaps most critically, the ability to attract exceptional students and new faculty into our ranks.”
New donors to the School
$90,000
Richard Westphal (PhD ’04) Professor of Nursing
“
The Nursing Annual Fund is a tremendous resource. ... It provides students with scholarship money and enables us to host events big and small—such as Family Weekend, Pinning, and Final Exercises—for students, faculty, staff, and their families.”
Amount given by parents (approximate)
86%
Theresa Carroll (Curry ’00) Senior Assistant Dean for Academic and Student Services
Proportion of the Class of 2017 that gave
Fall 2017
VIRGINIA NURSING LEGACY
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IN THEIR OWN WORD S
The protests had shifted, taking a deadly turn. We quietly discussed our roles, calmly clearing patients out of the way of what we knew would be the coming frenzy.
Calm and Fury B Y J A NE MUIR (B SN ’16)
T
he dut dut dut dut of Pegasus, UVA’s medevac helicopter, persisted. Before leaving for work, I peered out my apartment window, which overlooks the mountains where Carter’s [Mountain Orchard] and Montalto lie, to spy the familiar gleam of UVA Medical Center’s Emergency Department. Countless nights, through this window, I’ve watched Charlottesville’s twinkle over a 12 a.m. lunch when I wasn’t working nights as an emergency room nurse. I’ve smiled when recognizing familiar figures from this window—a fellow nurse hurrying to clock in, a helmet-clad resident zooming by on his bike, a patient transporter taking a lunch break stroll at the rear of an ambulance—and felt goosebumps rise watching Pegasus gracefully lower her legs to make contact with the helipad. But on this Saturday morning, the Medical Center’s helipad sat empty, even as I continued to hear the beat of the rotors. Men in highlighter-yellow vests stood in front of orange barricades sprinkled across the road. Like my colleagues, I was prepared for this day, this “community event,” as my manager termed it. As I stepped into the muggy August air, working this time in light rather than in darkness, I finally spied what was making the dut dut dut dut: a police helicopter panning over the Downtown Mall, where residents, outsiders, and onlookers were already clashing in protests that would sweep through this city, and roil our nation and the world. I took a deep breath, swiped my RN badge, and walked through the sliding doors to the Emergency Department. Clusters of gray hovered around trauma bays—surgeons, all of them, I realized—while a live feed of the August 12 Unite the Right rally ran on several desk monitors. It was still quiet. Our bays prepped and primed, my colleagues and I went about our
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business, trying to ignore our rising heart rates and the palpable dread and uncertainty looming thick in the air. Mid-afternoon, the charge nurse reported that “a car ran through the crowd.” The protests had shifted, taking a deadly turn. We quietly discussed our roles, calmly clearing patients out of the way of what we knew would be the coming frenzy. I grabbed a blue trauma gown, a mask, a hairnet—all of which we would run out of within the hour—taking my cue from the chief trauma surgeon, who set the tone that each of us would follow. Listen. Speak softly. Don’t interrupt. And stay calm. So it began. When EMS rolled in with the first patient, we moved methodically, calmly around her. I listened to a colleague, holding the patient’s neck stable within a cervical collar, soften her fears with stories of his youngest, spunkiest daughter before whisking her off for a CAT scan. Nearby, my own heart rate steadied. Moments of compassion, despite the chaos. That feeling was fleeting, though, because our teams grew larger, and more frenetic. It wasn’t just our trauma bay, but the trauma bay next-door, and the one next to that, filling with frantic patients and their terrified loved ones who streamed in with their own stories that day. The tempo grew as nurses rolled patients upstairs to make room for the next wave of people victim to what we were already calling a “mass casualty incident.” EMS teams repeatedly arrived, adrenaline-pumped, prepared for the unexpected. The only quieting, I realized later, was the absence of the dut dut dut dut of the state police helicopter that had been watching over our community that day. It had crashed into a nearby forest, killing both its occupants. I’ll take calm where I can find it, but in this emergent setting, energy is harnessed to protect and stabilize. Here, there is no room for hate, discrimination, or judgement. Listening, attentiveness, cooperation, and unity are the only way forward in times of uncertainty and fear. +
Muir, originally from Fairfax, Virginia, works as an emergency nurse in UVA Medical Center’s Emergency Department.
V IRGINI A M OMEN T S
1930 2017
McLEOD PHOTO COUR TE SY OF THE ELE ANOR CROWDER BJORING CENTER FOR NURSING HIS TORIC AL INQUIRY
LEADERSHIP’S LEGACY
T
he UVA School of Nursing has a long history of providing leaders for local, state, and national service, and Josephine Sarah McLeod was one such leader. A graduate of the Johns Hopkins Hospital School of Nursing in Baltimore, Maryland, McLeod was a lifelong educator and administrator. Her professional knowledge and organizational skills as leader of the Graduate Nurses Association of Virginia, the Virginia League for Nursing Education, the Virginia State Board of Nurse Examiners, and the American Nurses Association enhanced her effectiveness as director of the University of Virginia Hospital Nursing Service and superintendent of nursing for the training school between 1924 and 1937. Nearly a century later, nursing faculty like assistant professor Tomeka Dowling continue to teach, mentor, and serve concurrently, much as McLeod did. In May 2018, Dowling assumes the presidency of the Virginia League for Nursing, state constituent league for the 124-year-old National League for Nursing, the nation’s first professional nursing organization. A consultant with the Virginia Board of Nursing from 2010 to 2013 and a member of the Virginia Board of Education’s Career and Technical Education Advisory Committee through 2018, Dowling shares her expertise while teaching courses on community health, health assessment, and leadership to both undergraduate and graduate students at UVA. Her presidency, she says, will “provide a platform to collaborate with higher education leaders and promote excellence in nursing education while meeting the state’s need for a competent and diverse nursing workforce.” +
University of Virginia Health System School of Nursing P.O. Box 801015 2410 Old Ivy Road, Suite 207 Charlottesville, VA 22908-1015 nursing.virginia.edu
Nonprofit Organization U.S. Postage PAID Permit No. 164 Charlottesville, VA
CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED
OCTOBER 2017
DECEMBER
6–7 Cornerstone Bicentennial Weekend
5
9
Continuing Education: 10th annual Teen Culture Conference
7–15 Fall exams
13
CCI Lecture Series: “Wisdom in the Workplace,” with David Mick
17
Nursing History Forum: “Hidden and Forgotten: Being Black in the American Red Cross Town & Country Nursing Service, 1912–48,” with Sandra Lewenson
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31
Nursing History Forum: “Nursing People with HIV and AIDS, 1981–96,” with Tommy Dickinson
NOVEMBER 2
JANUARY 2018 2–12 J-Term 17
CCI Lecture Series: “Zen and the Brain Revisited,” with James Austin
10
CCI: Basic self-defense class
8
Lecture: “One Year Later: Healthcare in the Era of Trump,” with Talbott Visiting Professor Rick Mayes
8–11 Train-the-Trainer Faculty Development Program conference 9
Nursing Alumni Online Engagement Event: “Guide to Grad School,” with Adam Seid
9–12 Virginia Film Festival
Alumni Council winter meeting
MARCH 3–11 Spring Break 7
BEING PRESIDENT 7
Alumni Reception with the Virginia Council for Nurse Practitioners Annual Conference, Reston
APRIL TBD
Catherine Strader McGehee Memorial Lecture
MAY 11
3–5 UVA Family Weekend 8
Spring semester begins
FEBRUARY
Homecomings: Nursing alumni reception and brunch (Pavilion IX)
25–27 Continuing Education: 44th annual Edward Hook Jr., MD, conference: Recent Advancements in Clinical Medicine
Fall courses end
14
15
Continuing Education: 4th Melton D. and Muriel Haney Interprofessional Conference: Compassionate Conversations at End of Life Nursing History Forum: “A History of Professional Nursing in the United States,” panel presentation with Arlene Keeling, Michelle Hehman, and John Kirchgessner Zula Mae Baber Bice/Koppaka Family Foundation Lecture: “Stacking Stones: The Art and Science of Improving the Care of Older Adults,” with University of Pennsylvania professor Mary Naylor
22–26 Thanksgiving recess
uvanursing
3–11 Spring exams 5
6–12 National Nurses Week 19
School of Nursing Pinning and Hooding ceremonies
20
Final Exercises/School of Nursing ceremonies
JUNE 5/31– Reunions: Thomas Jefferson Society 6/3 and Classes of 1958, 1963, 1968, 1973, 1978, and 1983 8–10 Reunions: Classes of 1988, 1993, 1998, 2003, 2008, and 2013
uvason
Alumni Council spring meeting
uvaschoolofnursing