UIC Nursing Around the State

Faculty member wins seed money for wound drain device

After her son’s surgery, Peggi White, MS ’89, FNP-BC, CADC, MAC, who graduated from the Peoria campus, worked to develop an innovative wound drain holder.

After surgery to remove a golf ball-sized tumor from under his tongue, Peggi White’s oldest son, Beau Barber, had a Jackson-Pratt drain inserted in his neck to help remove excess fluid.

Barber noticed whenever his gown moved—a frequent occurrence—it pulled at the drain and caused strain on the insertion point.

“Mom, there has to be a better system for this,” White recalls her son saying.

White agreed. But even though she had ideas for a less cumbersome drain holder, she had “no way to follow up on them,” she says.

Beau Barber recovers in the hospital after a surgery to remove a benign tumor. His experience after surgery inspired Peggi White’s idea for a better wound drain device.

Then, while working as simulation lab coordinator at UIC Nursing in Urbana, a representative from the mechanical engineering department inquired if White had any ideas for capstone senior projects. It was the opportunity she’d been seeking. White soon began working on a design for a wound drain holder with four engineering students:

Faisal AlSayed, Jacey Lambert, Poom Prasopsukh and Amol Rairikar. Together, they developed a protoype of the device.

With assistance from UIC’s Office of Technology Management, White received a provisional patent at the end of last year. She also recently won a grant through the 2021 Chancellor’s Translational Research Initiative to advance her research toward commercialization.

The innovation grant, worth up to $25,000, will allow her to reproduce the prototype and possibly pursue a clinical trial.

Barber’s tumor was benign, and he is now a doctoral student in agricultural and biological engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

“Even though my son has fully recovered, this collaboration will hopefully result in a product that will improve the comfort of wound drains for many more individuals,” White says.

Peggi White, MS ’89, UIC Nursing-Urbana simulation lab coordinator, and her son, Beau Barber, pose for a photo after running a 5K together, one year after Barber’s surgery. Both medaled in their age divisions.

McPherson named director of Springfield Campus

Assistant clinical professor Sara McPherson, PhD, RN, CNE, has taken the helm at the Springfield Campus.

McPherson has been with UIC Nursing since 2016, assuming several informal leadership roles in the college. She has coordinated many courses, including foundations and medical/surgical nursing, helping to orient faculty in the lab and clinical settings, and she brings a substantial amount of expertise in pedagogy and simulation.

“Dr. McPherson’s knowledge of simulation helped [us] develop the curriculum to better prepare our students,” said then-Dean Terri Weaver, PhD, RN, FAAN, ATSF, FAASM, at the time of McPherson’s appointment. “She has been a tremendous asset as we transitioned to more online and lab activities during the pandemic.”

Weaver added: “She consistently mentors faculty… . Her work with both full-time and part-time faculty has helped us recruit and retain some excellent educators on our Springfield campus.”

As a scholar, McPherson has worked with bedside nurses to conduct a study on their comfort with implementing evidence-based practice, and is currently conducting a study on fear of COVID-19 and job satisfaction among rural Magnet hospital nurses.

Named to the Illinois Nurses Foundation 2020 list of “40 Under 40 Emerging Nurse Leaders,” she was also recently named a Nurse Educator Fellow by the Illinois Board of Higher Education. McPherson also serves on the Board of the Illinois League for Nursing.

McPherson succeeds the campus's inaugural director, Cynthia Reese, PhD, RN, CNE, who retired in August 2021.

During her tenure, Reese led the recruitment of UIC Nursing-Springfield faculty, the initiation of new clinical placements, and the procurement of office and classroom space. She was instrumental in securing more than $188,000 over three years to help build the nursing simulation lab in Springfield. All along, she was a key player in forging and maintaining the campus’s critical relationships with the University of Illinois Springfield and Memorial Health System.

“Dr. Reese’s contributions to the Springfield campus, to the college and to the university, as well as to the discipline of nursing, have been exemplary,” Weaver noted in announcing Reese’s retirement. “I am thankful to have had her as a leader on our faculty.”

Peoria campus goes virtual

The UIC Nursing campus in Peoria has become fully virtual in accord with changes to the college’s doctor of nursing practice program and as the successes of remote operations during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic become clear. The transition was effective in August 2021.

Throughout the pandemic, UIC Nursing faculty members’ competency in online educational delivery has risen from proficient to expert, says Susan Corbridge, PhD ’09, APRN, executive associate dean and interim director of the Peoria campus, who notes that the college prides itself on a strong focus on community building and student engagement in online education.

Corbridge adds that all DNP students enrolled at the virtual campus continue to have access to the library and study rooms at the UIC campus in Peoria, and also still receive academic advising, tutoring services, faculty access, and personalized support from the campus director and their DNP focus area director—all delivered virtually.

“We’re embracing new technologies in education and healthcare, and the virtual campus model is a forward-thinking part of that evolution,” says Corbridge. “Brick-and-mortar is no longer a mission-critical investment for us in Peoria. Instead, we plan to invest in collaborations with alumni, preceptors, community partners, and the U of I College of Medicine in Peoria to grow our presence in the region.”

Moreover, UIC Nursing students in Peoria will still enjoy high-quality clinical placements in the area.

“Those relationships with preceptors mean we’re still very much in Peoria,” Corbridge notes. “We’re just not tying students to a physical location for classes.”

“The pandemic showed us how much we can do, and do efficiently, in virtual environments,” says Sarah Overton, MS ’17, BSN ’10, an alumna of UIC Nursing’s Peoria campus and now vice president/chief nursing officer of clinical services at OSF Multispecialty Services. “I’ll always have great affection for the physical place where I got my [master’s] degree, but I’m proud to see my alma mater looking forward, adapting to current realities, and being a good steward of resources.”

Cheers to Kathleen Sparbel

Director of the UIC Nursing-Quad Cities campus, Kathleen Sparbel, PhD, MS ‘96, FNP-BC, has assumed an additional leadership role as interim head of the college’s Department of Population Health Nursing Science.

A clinical associate professor, Sparbel is in her 26th year on the faculty at UIC Nursing. She joined the Quad Cities Campus in 1995 and was named director there in 2012.

Rural Nursing program honored

Kelly Rosenberger, DNP ’12, CNM, WHNP-BC, FAANP, director of the UIC Nursing-Rockford campus, was recognized for her work on the interprofessional Rural Health Professions Program with one of only two I-TEAM Awards from UIC’s Office of the Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs. Rosenberger was among an interdisciplinary team from the University of Illinois Health Sciences Campus in Rockford to garner the award, which honors faculty and staff who have demonstrated excellence in interprofessional practice and education through teaching innovation.

“The mission [of the program] is clear and specific: to meet the healthcare needs of rural Illinois residents through collaborative projects involving multiple health professions,” wrote Alex Stagnaro-Green, MD, MHPE, Rockford Regional Dean of the College of Medicine, when he nominated the program for the award.

Field trip! Nursing, pharmacy and medical students in the Rural Health Professions Program observe first responders training for farm-accident rescues in Freeport, Illinois.

Rosenberger is the founding director of the “RNURSING” concentration, which helps advanced practice nursing students develop the specialized skills for practicing in rural settings. It was first offered to DNP students at the Rockford campus in 2016 and was made available to DNP students at all six UIC Nursing campuses a year later.

In early 2021, Rosenberger and counterparts in the Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy conducted a mixed-methods program evaluation—collecting quantitative and qualitative data—and found that students from the three colleges benefitted from, and were satisfied with, the interprofessional education and collaborative practice offered in the program. The study findings were published in May in the Journal of Nursing Education and Practice.