Dr. Salmon will guide school into the next century 

A new leader is at the helm of the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing. On June 1, 1999, Marla Salmon, ScD, RN, FAAN, began work as dean and professor of nursing.

Before coming to Emory, Salmon served as professor and associate dean for graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Nursing. From 1991 to 1997, while on leave from her position as professor at the University of North Carolina School of Public Health, she served as director of the

US Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Nursing and worked with First Lady Hillary Clinton’s task force on health care reform.

Salmon is an internationally known investigator whose research focuses on nursing workforce issues, health care policy, and public health nursing.

She is a frequent presenter at national meetings from Chicago to San Diego and at international conferences from Geneva to Barcelona.

“Marla Salmon is a gifted leader who arrives

at an important time in

the nursing school’s history, as it begins offering a doctoral degree program and prepares to move into a new building suitable

to its ambitious strategic plan,” says Dr. Michael M.E. Johns, executive vice president for health affairs at Emory. “Her internationally recognized expertise will enhance the Woodruff Health Sciences Center’s growing movement toward interdisciplinary collaboration in research, education, and clinical practice.”

A profile of Dr. Salmon appears on page 6.


The September groundbreaking for the new nursing building was celebrated by (l to r): Dr. Michael Johns, Dr. William Chace, Nell Woodruff Hodgson Watt, and Dean Marla Salmon.

At the September groundbreaking, university administrators unveiled plans for a new nursing school building that will integrate high-tech learning and research capabilities with spaces that encourage informal interaction and collaboration among faculty and students.

“The School of Nursing has long been a pillar of Emory’s Health Sciences Center,” said Dr. Michael M.E. Johns, executive vice president for health affairs at Emory. “With these bold changes we are fortifying the school’s strong educational programs and adding resources to further position it as a leader in nursing education and research. We are opening doors to the future.”

The $22-million structure will enhance the assimilation of the nursing school’s multiple missions of teaching, scholarship, and social responsibility. Slated to open in early spring 2001, it will be the first building completed under the university’s ambitious master plan.

“The new building will have high-tech teaching devices such as simulation labs and ready access to the Internet,” says Emory University President William Chace. “This space, with a leader and faculty adept at merging students’ interests with the needs of the marketplace, will keep Emory nursing at the forefront of teaching and research.”

The five-story marble and stucco structure will reflect the traditional Hornbostel architecture showcased in the buildings on the university quadrangle. Located on the corner of Clifton and Houston Mill roads, it will comprise approximately 100,000 square feet of classrooms, faculty offices, and research space.

A special feature of the building is a distinctive student lounge designed for informal student gatherings and access to classroom, computer, and simulation labs. Offices for research teams, including doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows, will be located near faculty offices to foster collaboration. The building’s 150-seat auditorium and large, state-of-the-art classrooms will be available for joint programs with other university schools and programs. 

 

 
Master teachers honored for excellence

Two of the School of Nursing’s most innovative and dedicated faculty members were recognized this year with Teaching Scholar Awards: Associate Professor (Clinical) Darla Ura, RN, ANP-CS, MN, and Assistant Professor Patricia Clark, RN, MSN, PhD. Based on nominations by students and faculty colleagues, these awards come with modest financial remuneration and a tremendous amount of prestige at a school that has acknowledged, in its strategic planning efforts, the central role of teaching to success.

Darla Ura, a veteran teacher for more than 20 years, came to Emory in 1987 from Florida State University to instruct undergraduates. After completing a postmaster’s program at Emory in 1996, she began teaching graduate students as well. In addition to her classroom work, Ura has run a clinical practice at AID Atlanta for the past three years.

Patricia Clark joined the School of Nursing in the spring of 1998, coming from Lenoir-Rhyne College School of Nursing in Hickory, N.C. Clark earned her PhD in 1998 from the University of Rochester, New York.

Her dissertation focused on the “effects of individual and family hardiness on the stress of caregivers of older adults.” Geriatrics is still her area of focus. This year she was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the Robert Woodruff Foundation to support her interdisciplinary research in geriatrics at Emory’s Wesley Woods Center. 


Darla Ura


Dr. Patricia Clark 

 

 


Emory experts offer advice on national debate

Should graduates of two-year associate-degree nursing programs be eligible for the same registered nurse license as four-year baccalaureate graduates, or should a distinction be made between the two? The nursing profession has long posed those controversial questions, but now the old debate is turning for answers to a new source: the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing. Led by Dean Marla Salmon, an authority on nursing workforce issues, Emory’s faculty and student experts are becoming national commentators on this topic, and others.

For example, in a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (Sept. 24, 1999), Emory graduate nursing student Maryam Haddad lent her expertise. Haddad, like roughly 65% of the nation’s 2.5 million nurses, is a graduate of a two-year program —although she has gone on to earn a BA and is now pursing an MSN. The fact that the associate degree is a less expensive route to the same license hasn’t been lost on the nation’s students, as enrollments in four-year programs have declined by 17% during the past five years.

Recent recommendations to stem this drop include reserving the RN license for BSN graduates. That would leave associate-degree nurses with the choice of practicing as an LPN—at a lower salary and with less responsibility—or going on to earn an advanced degree.

According to Haddad, community college grads have been known to scoff at the extra training four-year nurses receive with the line: “The only difference between an ADN and a BSN is the BS.”

Salmon also lent her expertise to the Chronicle article. More cooperation between two- and four-year institutions, Salmon says, would make it easier for students who desire additional degrees to attain them.

“I know superb associate-degree nurses,” she says, “and I know superb nurses who have baccalaureate degrees. I’m tired of the arguments, and want to work to find solutions that make sense.” 

 
For a role model of someone who really practices what he preaches, look no further than Associate Professor of Nursing James Pace.

A nurse for 20 years, an Episcopal priest for 10, and an Emory faculty member for four, Pace has melded those three roles into a career focused on both physical and spiritual care for his patients, many of whom have HIV/AIDS.

Nursing the spirit is critical to caring for the body, said Pace to the Emory community on Sept. 16, when he opened the 1999– 2000 Great Teacher’s Lecture Series on campus with a talk on “Spirituality and Advanced Nursing Practice.” Using his clinical and ministerial activities with HIV/AIDS patients as a springboard, he discussed the role of nurses in providing spiritual care to terminally ill patients and those patients’ loved ones.

Pace holds BSN, MSN, and DSN degrees in nursing as well as an MDiv. His appointment at Emory includes a faculty practice position where he serves as an adult nurse practitioner for Mercy Mobile Health Care Services at AID Atlanta, the largest AIDS service organization in the Southeast. Pace takes graduate nursing students to his practice at AID Atlanta so they can learn to put theory into practice.

Pace has authored many publications on HIV and AIDS, chronic and palliative care, and spirituality. He has served as a tireless advocate for a patient population that is often marginalized. His priestly duties take him to Canton, Ga., to St. Clement’s Episcopal Church, where he has served as interim priest for the past three years.

In spring 1999, Pace delivered the nursing school’s prestigious David Jowers Lecture on AIDS and Infectious Disease. A few months later he was named an Atlanta Health Care Hero by the Atlanta Business Chronicle in recognition of his service to the community.

 

 

James Curran, MD, MPH, dean of the Rollins School of Public Health, and Dean Marla Salmon are swapping hats and trading expertise as they accept joint appointments on each other’s faculty. “Both appointments represent the commitment and promise of the two schools to work together to fulfill our teaching and research missions,” says Dr. Curran. “We will be neighbors not only in physical proximity but also intellectually.”

 
Dr. Parsons receives the university’s highest honor 

Quiet, consistent dedication to the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing has been the career hallmark of Margaret Parsons, 75MN, 85PhD. For example when Dean Dyanne Affonso decided to devote herself to full-time scholarship, Dr. Parsons delayed her planned retirement to serve as interim dean for 1998–1999.

That unselfish dedication was acknowledged this past fall during Alumni Weekend when Bill Fox, Senior Vice President for Institutional Advancement, presented Parsons with the university’s highest alumni honor, the Emory Medal. She is one of just a handful of nurses to be so honored.

Parsons earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Nebraska before joining the Emory community as a nursing graduate student in 1975. In 1976 she joined the faculty. She received tenure and the rank of associate professor in 1985 and was selected as a member of the Luce Seminar in 1995. From 1994 until 1998, she served as associate dean of the School of Nursing.

Over the course of her long career at Emory, Parsons received a number of honors, including the Williams Teaching Award, the School of Nursing’s Outstanding Faculty and Outstanding Undergraduate Faculty awards, and “Honor a Colleague” recognition from the Georgia Nurses Foundation.

 

Sigma Theta Tau awards Emory’s “living legend”

Professional kudos are nothing new to former Interim Dean Mary Woody, MA, FAAN. A charter member of the American Academy of Nursing, she was presented last year with that group’s “Living Legend” award. Also last year, she was named one of 50 “Women Pioneers in Health Care” in Georgia. Twice the Emory Nurses Alumni Association has presented the Nursing Achievement Award to her.

The most recent honor to come her way is the 1999 Marie Hippensteel Lingeman Award for Excellence in Nursing Practice from Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI), the honor society of nursing. In 1977, STTI established the Lingeman award––named after one of its founders––to honor nurses who have achieved exceptional accomplishments in the critical area of nursing practice.

“Mary Woody created innovative practice positions and mentored clinicians to fill them,” says STTI President Eleanor Sullivan. “Her willingness to share ideas and strategies inspired administrators and educators nationwide to build new nursing practice programs. She is an innovative and spirited asset to the profession.”

“Mary Woody’s career exemplifies dedication and excellence in nursing leadership,” says Dean Marla Salmon. “Much of what is good about our profession today is a result of the important work that Mary has done.”

Woody, who came to administration from the patients’ bedside, advocated for new roles in nursing practice, helping to create a market that demanded excellence in nursing care and advanced nursing practice. As director of nursing at Grady Memorial Hospital in the late 1960s, she helped create many nursing practice positions, including a nurse-midwifery service and education program, and she established nurse-run clinics for patients with sickle cell disease, cancer, diabetes, and heart disease.

Earlier, she worked with colleagues at Emory Hospital to invent the prepackaged alcohol sponge, supported the role of a specialist nurse in the first coronary care unit in the Southeast, and contributed to the national cardiopulmonary resuscitation guidelines that clarified the nurses’ role.

She was founding dean of the School of Nursing at Auburn University, where she developed a practice-oriented baccalaureate program that quickly received national accreditation.

In 1984, she returned to Atlanta as director of nursing at Emory Hospital. She served as associate dean in the School of Nursing, and in 1992, as interim dean. 

 


The Office of Research Affairs at the School of Nursing is achieving new prominence as it moves its physical location from the basement to the third floor of the nursing building, and as its director is honored as the first Alberta Dozier Williamson Chair of Nursing Inquiry. The director and new chair, Lynn Lotas, RN, PhD, is a neonatal nurse expert whose own research focuses on premature infants. At the grand re-opening of the office, Dean Marla Salmon surprised Dr. Lotas with a portrait of Alberta Dozier Williamson, who was one of the first directors at the School of Nursing.


The School of Nursing admitted its first class of doctoral candidates this past August (l to r): Carolyn M. Constantin, who holds a BA in zoology and an MSN from the University of Tennessee, will be focusing on the impact of genetics on decision-making.

Laura B. Strange, 81MN, earned a BSN from the Medical College of Georgia and an MSN from Emory. She is interested in perinatal nursing, particularly the intrapartum phase.

Catherine I. Vena holds a BSN from Brenau College and an MSN from Clemson. She is interested in care of the dying patient.

 

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