|
|
N
e w s B r i e f s
|
Dr.
Maureen Kelley is the first nurse midwife to practice at Emory Crawford
Long Hospital.
|
|
Voice
of Experience
Kelley leads family
and community nursing
In the two decades
that Dr. Maureen Kelley has taught and practiced nursing midwifery at
Emory, she has thrived on being part of an academic health center, where
nursing education and practice intersect. Now she is broadening her perspective
on both fronts as the newly appointed chair of the Department of Family
and Community Nursing.
Maureen is a talented nurse and scholar who brings boundless energy
and wisdom to this leadership position, says Dean Marla Salmon.
Kelley has been part of the School of Nursing since 1980 and in 1983 became
the first nurse midwife at Emory Crawford Long Hospital, where she still
practices.
At the start of her career, Kelley was a staff nurse in the NICU at the
University of Minnesota Hospital but opted to attend graduate school to
learn more about obstetrics. Her graduate school adviser in California
pointed her toward nurse midwifery. I fell in love with it,
says Kelley, an associate professor (clinical). Youre doing
what nursing truly is meant to do. Its a gift to be with a family
giving birth.
Today, Kelley shares her knowledge and passion for her specialty as director
of the Nurse-Midwifery Education Program at Emory. She is a consultant
to The Carter Centers Ethiopia Public Health Training Initiative,
led by Dr. Joyce Murray, professor of nursing. This summer, Kelley will
travel to Russia with an international team to develop prenatal and maternal
care guidelines at a district hospital outside of Moscow. She has held
several positions with the American College of Midwives and is one of
the first School of Nursing participants in Emorys Woodruff Leadership
Academy.
As for her department, Kelley is collaborating with faculty on several
initiatives to strengthen research, international nursing, and public
health leadership. The department also hopes to expand preparation of
family-nurse midwives in mental health and substance abuse and offer a
pediatric critical care specialty to meet the growing need for this type
of care. She is likewise enthusiastic about integrating faculty who work
with the Lillian Carter Center for International Nursing into the department.
This is a wonderful opportunity to broaden our concept of community
and learn more about international health issues, she says.
Kelley has one other goal in mind, albeit a fleeting one. If we
could arrange for babies to be born between 8 AM and 8 PM, things would
be perfect.
|
|
|
|
Understanding
the Heart
Schumacher honored for cardiac research
|
|
Dr.
Autumn Schumacher, a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Nursing, is
bridging the gap between nursing and biomedical engineering through research.
Thats why she was named the 2002 Hyundai Motor America/American
Nurses Foundation Scholar. Coupled with support from the National Institute
of Nursing Research, the award supports her study of the nonlinear characteristics
of ventricular fibrillation.
Schumacher is collaborating with Dr. Sandra Dunbar, Charles Howard Candler
Professor of Cardiovascular Nursing, and researchers in the Wallace H.
Coulter Department of Bioengineering at Georgia Tech and Emory. Working
in a Georgia Tech laboratory, Schumacher will study ventricular fibrillation
in an isolated rabbit heart while using various drugs to simulate autonomic
nervous system imbalance. To capture the data, she will photograph fluorescent
images of the hearts electrical activity at 1,000 frames per second
while recording the hearts rhythm via electrocardiogram. Then she
will examine the data using nonlinear mathematics, an engineering method
for analyzing electrical signals that has not been widely used in physiology
studies.
Once we understand the physiological process of ventricular fibrillation,
says Schumacher, then we can develop better technology to monitor
and terminate this deadly rhythm in heart patients.
Eventually, Schumachers research could have implications for researchers
like Dunbar, who is studying depression in patients with internal defibrillation
devices. It also may shed light on why defibrillation works to return
the heart to normal sinus rhythm.
|
|
|
|
The
mission, the quality of the students and faculty, Marla Salmons
leadership as dean, and the fact that the school has accomplished so much
intrigued me.
Kathleen Egan
Director of Development
|
|
New
Directions
Egan
named director of development
Improving the well-being
of others has been a guiding force throughout Kathleen Egans fund-raising
career. Now Egan is adding another dimension to that as director of development
for the School of Nursing.
Last fall, when Egan first learned about the position, she knew the school
was the right place to be. The mission, the quality of the students
and faculty, Marla Salmons leadership as dean, and the fact that
the school has accomplished so much intrigued me, says Egan. The
notion of developing nurse leaders and nurse scholars, along with what
the Lillian Carter Center for International Nursing is doing, was compelling.
Egan has worked in the nonprofit sector and community affairs in Atlanta
for more than 20 years. She has directed fund-raising programs for a local
arts organization and for parks and cultural initiatives with the city.
Prior to joining Emory, Egan directed development efforts in the Southeast
for the Trust for Public Land, which conserves land to protect cultural
and natural resources in US communities. For 11 years, she served as executive
director for UNICEF Atlanta, which operates education, advocacy, and fund-raising
programs in nine southeastern states. During that time, UNICEF Atlanta
and the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games formed Olympic Aid Atlanta.
Together, the partners raised more than $12 million to assist 18 million
children affected by war in 14 nations. Through these efforts, UNICEF
helped broker cease-fires in Afghanistan, northern Iraq, and Sri Lanka
to allow for mass immunization of children.
Egan traveled to Rwanda for an Olympic Aid mission and to the Dominican
Republic and El Salvador on behalf of UNICEF. While in El Salvador, Egan
was part of a delegation that met with community health workers, grassroots
organizations, and political leaders in the aftermath of the nations
12-year civil war.
The health of children was a galvanizing point for both sides of
the conflict, Egan recalls. At the height of the conflict,
90% of the nations children were immunized on 18 separate days when
both sides put down their arms.
Given her experiences, Egan naturally was drawn to the School of Nursings
mission of educating nurses to improve health at home and abroad. The
school has a lot of connection points for people who have a special interest
in supporting our school, says Egan. Among other things, we
want to provide more scholarship funds so that we continue to attract
talented students to the school. Theres a lot for alumni and others
to be excited about, and Im eager to help them find ways to begin
or continue their relationships with the school.
|
|
|
An
Evening to Remember
School
honors nurse-midwives
When the American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNW) came
to Atlanta last year for its annual conference, the School of Nursing
used the occasion to honor its own. The nursing school held a reception
for Associate Professor (Clinical) Jane Mashburn, 78MN, (second from
left) upon being named a fellow of the ACNW, along with Barbara Graves,
86MN (not pictured). Also honored that night was Emily Young-Johnson,
98N, (far right) as the recipient of the first Elizabeth Sharp Scholarship,
specifically for a nurse-midwifery student who is enrolled in the MSN/MPH
program. The scholarship is named for the emerita professor who held
joint appointments in medicine, nursing, and public health, and who
greatly influenced students from each discipline regarding gynecology
and obstetrics. Sharp (far left) was responsible for establishing the
dual-degree master's program in nursing and public health. Also pictured
is Dr. Maureen Kelley (second from right), chair of the Department of
Family and Community Nursing.
top
|
|
|
|
(Top
photo) Katherine Kite (LR), Minette
Coetzee, Pat Riley, and Pamela McQuide are members of an Emory/CDC team
collaborating with nursing leaders and educators in Kenya to assess
its nursing workforce. (Bottom Photo) Kenyan nursing leaders
and LCCIN staff are working to centralize paper records (some of which
are shown in this photo) on a computer database. Grace Kongoro (left)
plays a key role as in-country coordinator for the workforce analysis
project. She is pictured with McQuide and other Nursing Council of Kenya
members.
|
|
Building
Capacity Together
Team assesses Kenya's nursing workforce
Attending two funerals
a week for nurses who have died of AIDS is a routine occurrence for the
director of nursing at a large hospital in Kenya.
The risk for nurses there is grave. More than half of all people hospitalized
in Kenya are HIV positive, and most are very sick. Nurses and nursing
students care for them daily, often without adequate protection. The lack
of basic supplies to protect themselvesrubber gloves, soap, and
wateris only part of the problem. Denial about the disease, also
widespread in the general population, seems to prevent nurses from protecting
themselves and giving the best care to their patients.
In some ways, it is difficult to understand what these nurses face
and the decisions they make, says Dr. Pamela McQuide, a postdoctoral
fellow with the Lillian Carter Center for International Nursing (LCCIN).
McQuide and her colleagues are working to build nurses capacity
by partnering with experts in Kenya to assess its nursing workforce. Collaborators
include the LCCIN and nursing leaders and educators in Kenya, supported
by a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Last June, an LCCIN team traveled to Kenya to evaluate a request to design
a new baccalaureate nursing program at Kenyatta University. Led by Kathryn
Kite, administrative director of the LCCIN, the team included McQuide,
who has operations research experience in maternal and child health in
Kenya; Dr. Minette Coetzee, an Emory postdoctoral fellow who is a nurse
educator and curriculum consultant from South Africa; and Patricia Riley,
a certified nurse midwife with the CDC and an adjunct faculty member in
the School of Nursing.
A
database ... will empower nurses to make changes at the policy level,
giving them the right to safer working conditions and a way to advance
... instead of leaving the country.
Dr. Pamela McQuide
Postdoctoral Fellow
Lillian Carter Center for International Nursing
|
Instead of starting
another baccalaureate program, the LCCIN team recommended conducting an
analysis to evaluate the nations nursing workforce and training
capacity. In turn, this analysis will influence national health policy
and planning of nursing programs while building capacity in Kenyas
nursing community. Now under way, the first task is to build an electronic
database to centralize paper records on the numbers of nurses trained,
registered, and who have migrated out of the country. These records are
housed with various parts of the Nursing Council of Kenya.
Kenyas nursing leaders need good computerized data to make
informed decisions, to determine how many nurses there are, how many are
leaving, and how many are dying of AIDS, says McQuide, the principal
investigator for the project. They also need to know where positions
are open, where there are gaps in supplying nurses or training, and if
nurses are being trained to meet the countrys community-based needs.
A database with this information will empower nurses so that changes can
be made at a policy level, giving them the right to safer working conditions
and a way to advance in Kenya instead of leaving the country.
Many involved in nursing care in Kenya have become stakeholders in the
project. They include the Ministry of Health, the Nursing Council of Kenya,
the National Nurses Association of Kenya, and organizations from the private
and missionary sectors that employ and train nurses. Constituents are
represented on a steering committee that works with the LCCIN to direct
the project.
We owe so much to the groundwork laid by Grace Kongoro as our in-country
coordinator, says McQuide. A leader with the Nursing Council of
Kenya, Kongoro has a broad perspective on the role of nurses and a thorough
understanding of existing structures, protocols, and procedures in her
country.
The Kenyan government is investing staff and resources, adds
McQuide. They also are setting aside money for a national plan to
treat health care workers with AIDS. They have bought computers and are
in the process of establishing a national health database, with the plan
of linking all data on nurses and nursing.
The LCCIN project will continue through 2004. Before then, the team will
share its findings at regional forum. A final report will provide details
on the workforce evaluation and will document the collaboration and consensus-building
process within Kenya. The team is confident that this model will prove
successful and will be adopted in other countries seeking to strengthen
their nursing workforce and training capacity.Carol Pinto
|
|
|
|
Life
Lessons in Caring and Learning
Professor
Emerita Leah Gorman dies
|
|
The
words caring and learning stand out in Dr. Lynda
Naurights mind whenever she thinks of Dr. Leah Gorman. A professor
emerita in the School of Nursing, Gorman died of cancer at Emory University
Hospital on February 22. She was 76.
Leah exemplified caring, says Nauright, professor of nursing
in the Department of Adult and Elder Health. She knew, as we all should,
that the only way to teach students to care for others is to care for them.
And she did. Her students loved her, and she loved them.
I was a colleague of Leahs on the faculty at the School of Nursing,
but I always felt like one of her students, Nauright continues. She
never set out to teach me anything, but I never had a conversation with
Leah that I didnt learn something.
Gorman came to Emory in 1980, when she joined the School of Nursing to coordinate
its graduate education and research programs. Widely respected as a leader
in psychiatric nursing, Gorman previously was chief nurse with the National
Institute of Mental Health and a nursing faculty member at other universities.
She was a master teacher and philosopher, recalls Nauright.
She really made us look a lot closer at nursing theory and philosophy
and our own teaching philosophy.
Gorman served as a military nurse during World War II and earned her doctorate
at Columbia University. At Emory, she introduced nursing students to Rogerian
theory. This theory bears the name of nurse and physicist Martha Rogers,
who believed that the type of care people receive affects their energy.
As Nauright explains, Leah would not wish us to say she has died.
As a Rogerian scholar, she would say she has evolved into an energy field
pattern beyond waking.
Full of spunk and energy, Gorman loved to read, play the harmonica, and
travel. Although Gorman underwent a double hip replacement after retiring
from Emory in 1997, she did not let it stop her from leading a group of
nurses on a research trip to South Africa. She prepared for the trip by
working out in the gym for weeks, says Nauright. In late 2001, Gorman underwent
heart bypass surgery and participated in Emorys HeartWise program
during her recovery.
Nauright was among those who spoke at Gormans memorial service in
Atlanta and called on those present to remember their friend and colleague
this way: As long as we, her students all, are open to new ideas,
as long as we care, as long as we continue to learn, she will be with us.
Memorial gifts for Dr. Leah Gorman may be sent to
the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, 1520 Clifton Road NE, Atlanta,
Georgia 30322. |
|
|
|
Dr. Joyce Murray
|
|
Murray
leads initiative for health educators in Ethiopia
Dr. Joyce Murray has
assumed one her most challenging and exciting roles to date. She is now
director of The Carter Centers Ethiopia Public Health Training Initiative
(EPHTI), which seeks to improve community health education in a nation
where disease is prevalent and resources are scarce.
Murray succeeds Dr. Dennis Carlson, who is reducing his role with the
initiative he began six years ago. She will continue teaching as she divides
her time between the School of Nursing, where she serves as professor
in the Department of Adult and Elder Health, and The Carter Center, whose
programs promote peace and health worldwide.
A consultant to the EPHTI for three years, Murray has worked extensively
with Ethiopian health sciences faculty to develop training modules, lecture
notes, and manuals for educating community health workers. She also has
led annual workshops to assist educators in developing standardized teaching
methods and curricula to educate students. With 500 new health centers
opening across Ethiopia in the next decade, the EPHTI is critical to laying
the groundwork for training the staff who will operate them.
Under Murrays leadership, the EPHTI will continue to work with the
Ethiopian government to create and implement new education programs and
strengthen the nations capacity to improve health care long after
the initiative ends.Jane Devilbiss
|
|
|
|
Drs.
Jeremy Boss and Susan Eckert
wrote their bookto guide young scientists
along the road to promotion and tenure.
|
|
Collaboration
at Work
Co-authors advise aspiring researchers
"So
you want to be an academic scientist. Great choice. Thus begins
a humor-laden book full of practical advice for aspiring researchers,
co-written by Dr. Susan Eckert, associate dean for finance and research
administration in the School of Nursing, and Dr. Jeremy Boss, professor
of microbiology and immunology in the School of Medicine. As the introduction
notes, Academic Scientists at Work: Navigating the Biomedical Research
Career (Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2003) guides readers along
the academic path to promotion and tenure.
The authors came up with the idea for the book five or six years ago when
Eckert was the administrator for the Department of Microbiology and Immunology
in the medical school. By the time she joined the School of Nursing as
assistant dean in 2001, she was a 20-year veteran of the microbiology
department, where she saw Boss work hard to succeed as a teacher and scientist.
The book sprang from their concern for aspiring scientists who sometimes
fail to achieve tenure. Eckert and Boss realized that a book might help
young faculty learn how to thrive in a complex academic environment.
New assistant professors often get generous start-up packages but
lack the skills to manage their finances and staff their labs, explains
Eckert. They need to learn how to build a budget, negotiate the
best deal with lab equipment vendors to make their money last, how to
write grants and how to accept criticism when writing them, and how to
be a good faculty citizen.
Boss decided early on to take a humorous approach, which gave rise to
several colorful book characters, including Dr. Ima Starr and the graduate
student with the curly red hair. The humor offsets the seriousness
of the subject matter and hopefully will keep the readers attention,
says Boss, whose own studies focus on the molecular mechanisms that regulate
immune system genes. No one likes to read a list of guidelines on
how to do something. Anyway, I cant resist a chance to make people
laugh.
Although geared toward biomedical scientists with large laboratories,
the book has useful applications for researchers in other fields. School
of Nursing faculty with research grants often employ people to assist
them, says Eckert. The book covers a lot of topics that would
be helpful to themmanagement of academic life, teaching, manuscript
preparation, faculty citizenship, and more.
Above all, Eckert and Boss hope readers will come away with a better understanding
of how to navigate the academic world. Says Boss, The major tips
for readers are be aware of the traps, seek advice from your senior colleagues,
finish reading the book, and enjoy your science.
|
|
|
|
Heartbreak
in Russia
Spencer
aids Red Cross nurses
Dr.
Linda Spencer has delivered aid and expertise to those in need
throughout the world.
Two
bodyguards accompanied
Spencer while she was in the
Northern Caucasus to assess
the Visiting Nurses Program of the
Russian Red Cross. These nurses
often are the only contact that veterans and other homebound patients
have with the outside world.
|
|
Dr.
Linda Spencer, associate professor (clinical) and director of the Public
Health Nursing Leadership program, has traveled through some of the poorest
and most unstable countries in the world. Whether traveling by helicopter
or on foot accompanied by armed bodyguards, Spencer has been at the forefront
of international nursing for 22 years. Yet nothing prepared her for the
suffering she witnessed last year in the Northern Caucasus.
During the mid-1990s, Spencer spent 18 months in Russia as director of training
for the Visiting Nurses Program of the Russian Red Cross. She returned last
August as an American Red Cross (ARC) delegate working with the International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Her mission was to assess the Visiting
Nurses Program in the Northern Caucasus, a volatile area in southern Russia
bordering Georgia and Azerbaijan and including the war-torn Republic of
Chechnya.
Many of the visiting nurses patients are men who are veterans
of World War II, says Spencer. They have dedicated their lives
to their country but now have been forgotten by their government and treated
as a burden. For many of them, the visits from the Red Cross nurses are
the only contact they have with the outside world. It was heartbreaking.
It is equally difficult for the veterans widows, many of whom are
now in their 80s and 90s. One of the women Spencer met had trained as a
sniper during the war. These women held the country together while
the men were gone, she says. Someone needs to look after them.
Years of civil war in Chechnya have sent thousands of displaced persons
into the Northern Caucasus seeking safety. The region was further inundated
last June after more than 300,000 people were displaced by heavy rainfall
in southern Russia.
There is no health care system to take care of patients, and many
have been left alone by their families, so the Visiting Nurses Program is
the only thing sustaining them, Spencer explains. The nurses
serve the elderly and disabled who are frequently trapped in their apartments
because they cant use the stairs, and there are no elevators. The
nurses deliver food parcels from the ICRC, but that will end when the grant
expires. I dont know how these people will survive.
The visiting nurses face their own difficulties. No one owns a car. In large
cities, the nurses rely on public transportation to take food and medicine
to their clients. In outlying regions, nurses deliver them on foot.
The visiting nurses do what they can, but they have almost nothing
to work with, says Spencer. They need bandages, thermometers,
everything. One nurse told me she would love to have a bicycle.
Despite the conditions, visiting nurses are highly dedicated and grateful
to earn an income in a nation where unemployment is high. But their future
is uncertain. ARC funding to improve Russian Red Cross branches in the Northern
Caucasus and support the Visiting Nurses Program ran out at the end of 2002.
ICRC support continues
but will end soon.
Its really sad. Its such a wonderful program, says
Spencer. Id love to be involved again if the funding becomes
available to support it. It needs to be done.Jane Devilbiss
top
|