First year OT students recently visited Legislative Plaza to talk with legislators, acting as advocates for recipients of TennCare who are at risk for losing services. This follows the OT curricular thread of Faith Based Advocacy. Pictured here is the group of students and Dr. Jeanne Sowers with the First Lady of Tennessee, Andrea Conte.
Monthly Archives: March 2010
Haiti Update #4
Jen Watters Haiti Blog
Sunday, March 28, 2010 at 7:20pm
Bonswa!!! (which is Creole, last week I used the French!)
Wow! This week has gone by so fast! And this Wednesday will mark 4 weeks for me here in Haiti! Wow! I am definitely feeling settled in here, which is nice. While I miss home, I am happy to be staying two more months. I’m just starting to get a little bit of the language and I’m really enjoying getting to know our Haitian staff and my patients. I can tell I am starting to be “long term” here though, because my friends are starting to leave. There have already been a couple in the past week, but beginning next week the group that I came with will all start to leave without me – Sad!! Most people are only staying 4-6 weeks, so it is hard to see them come and go. But there is always a new group and everyone is great!
Haiti Update #3
Jen Watters Haiti Blog
Sunday, March 21, 2010 at 6:00pm
Bonsoir! (Good Afternoon!)
This has been a very bittersweet week for me in Haiti, which so many amazing things and also some big challenges. First, I found out on Tuesday that my grandmother passed away on Monday, her visitation was Wednesday and the funeral mass on Thursday, so there was really no possibility of me to go. It was really hard for me to be here in Haiti, so far away from everyone, but I did get to talk with my family several times – they even called me on my Haiti phone when the skype wasn’t working out, which I am sure they will regret when they see their phone bill – but I definitely appreciated it. Everyone here was great too and I got lots of hugs from my housemates! My grandma loved angels, and even though I am sad that she is not with us here, I know that now she is resting with the angels and I am comforted by the thought =) If you think of it – your prayers for my grandma and for my family will be much appreciated!
Belmont Professor Named President of Tennessee Occupational Therapy Association
Dr. Jeanne Sowers, Assistant Professor of Occupational Therapy at Belmont University, was recently elected as the 2010 President of the Tennessee Occupational Therapy Association (TOTA).
The statewide association supports and encourages the provision and availability of quality occupational therapy services to enhance the occupational performance of consumers in Tennessee through communication, education, professional development, advocacy and legislative involvement. TOTA aims to be a model for state occupational therapy associations in enhancing occupational performance among consumers. There are more than 2300 licensed practitioners of occupational therapy in the state of Tennessee.
Dr. Sowers has practiced as an occupational therapist for more than twenty years and has served in diverse roles within the profession. As a practicing clinician, Dr. Sowers’ experience is in the area of adult physical rehabilitation. She has published and lectured at local, state, and national conferences on various subjects including the provision of occupational therapy in the hospital intensive care unit, ergonomics, and rotator cuff dysfunction.
In addition to her new role as President of TOTA, Dr. Sowers serves the Nashville community as a board member for Homeplace, Inc., a group home sponsored by Belmont United Methodist Church.
PT Professor receives Lifetime Achievement award from APTA
Dr. Mike Voight, Professor of Physical Therapy at Belmont, has been honored by the American Physical Therapy Association as a recipient of the Turner A Blackburn Lifetime Achievement Award from its Sports Physical Therapy Section. The award signifies a lifetime of positive contribution to education at both the university and continuing education levels. Dr. Voight received the award at the recent APTA Combined Sections Meeting in San Diego, CA. Pictured with Dr. Voight (gray suit) are SPTS president Tim Tyler on his right and past president Tab Blackburn on his left.
In addition, Dr. Voight was inducted into APTA’s Sports Physical Therapy Hall of Fame, recognizing his positive impact on the profession of physical therapy for over 25 years.
A Dialogue to Build a Healthier Community
The public is invited to join A Dialogue to Build a Healthier Community, part of the Gordon E. Inman College of Health Sciences & Nursing Diagnosing Our Future speaker series. Admission is free.
Featuring Dr. David Williams, Professor of Public Health at Harvard University School of Public Health and Staff Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Commission to Build a Healthier America.
ALSO PARTICIPATING
– Tom Cigarron – Co-founder and Chairman of Healthways, Inc. and Chairman of Alignment Nashville, a public education support organization
– Dr. Stephanie Bailey – CDC Chief, Office of Public Health Practice
– Juan Canedo – Director of Progreso Community Center
– Helen Moore – Director of Non-discrimination Compliance and Health Care Disparities for the Bureau of TennCare, and an Edgehill community member
– Jacky Akbari – Chairperson of the Middle Tennessee Diversity Forum
– Dr. Eleanor Bright Fleming – Edgehill Dental Collaborations and Policy
– Dr. Alisa Haushalter – Director of the Bureau of Population Health Programs for Metro Public Health Department
– Yvonne Joosten – Executive Director of the Office of Community Engagement at Vanderbilt Institute for Medicine and Public Health
– Winona Yellowhammer – Spokesperson for the Native American Indian Association of Tennessee
– Ann Hatcher – Vice President of Workforce Development Programs at Hospital Corporation of America (HCA)
– Belmont University faculty, staff and students
SCHEDULE
8:30am – Registration
8:45am – Welcome
9:00am – Framework for a Healthier Community – David Williams
9:30am – Dialogue I
11:00am – Dialogue II
12:15pm – Lunch break
1:30pm – Dialogue III with guest panelists
3:15pm – Closing Remarks – David Williams
TOPICS INCLUDE
How Our Neighborhood Affects Our Health
Partnering Together for a Healthier Community
A Community Perspective on Disparities Research
Beyond Health Care: Building a Healthier Community
Click here to get more information and RSVP.
Co-sponsored by:
Belmont University’s Center for Community Health & Health Equity
Presentation Partners Include:
Nashville Health Disparity Coalition
Meharry Medical College
Metro Public Health Department
Haiti Update #2
Jen Watters Haiti Blog
Sunday, March 14, 2010 at 1:40pm
Bon Jour !!!!
First I want to give a disclaimer that I am typing this on a French computer and while I’m getting more used to the different keyboard, I haven’t mastered it yet, so please forgive my typos !!
Wow ! What an amazing week ! I’m not sure if I should write more frequently or just save everything up for Sunday. I’m afraid these « little » updates will turn into novels very quickly ! I guess you can always read them little by little, so I’ll just write and not worry about it ! =)
This week I was stationed at the same antenna as last week (CDTI) ; which was great for getting to know the local staff ; the patients ; and also the Americans at the hospital next door. We’ve really had some nice collaboration where they’re referring pts to us and I’m taking pts up there, which is a nice change from me just running up there 3 or 4 times a day ! We had our busiest week at the clinic yet ; one day we had 54 pts who had come by 12 :30 ! (we are set up to see about 45 a day) so that was little crazy ! We also had the clowns without borders come and do shows at all our hospitals and clinics this week which was SO awesome ! Unfortunately I missed the show at my clinic because that was the day we had so many pts, but I saw some pictures from the other clinics and they were great ! I could definitely hear everyone laughing so, it sounded like they had a great time !
If you put it that way…
Dr. Ruby Dunlap’s Uganda Fulbright Blog
“Newtonian mechanics is satisfactory,” says Polkinghorne, “for largish objects moving at ten miles an hour, unsatisfactory for the same objects moving at a hundred thousand miles a second.” “Kuhn dismisses as an irrelevancy the well-known fact that Newtonian mechanics is the slow-moving limit of Einstein’s mechanics. Yet to physicists this relationship would seem to be important, for it explains why classical mechanics was so long an adequate theory and why it remains so for systems whose velocities are small compared with the velocity of light.” (One World The Interaction of Science and Theology, pp. 14,17)
Probably Newtonian mechanics sufficed for explaining the movements of your vehicles on ice and snow this winter in the U.S. The reports about your winter have been remarkable, especially since, while the Equator crosses southern Uganda, the elevations are high enough to make it balmy most of the time. Some days have been downright chilly, a few hot in the afternoons. Mornings in paradise are almost always perfect mornings of comfortably cool freshness. And the look from our “tree house” apartment is always one of lush rain forest. Here is a photo from the family home in Ohio where I spent my teen years and one from where we are living now to show the difference this winter. We also see monkeys in the trees around our house, unlikely in either Ohio or Tennessee.
Haiti Update #1
Jen Watters Haiti Blog
Sunday, March 7, 2010 at 1:41pm
Hello! Bon jour! (which works in French and Creole)
I hope that this finds everyone doing well!! Today is Sunday, which is our day off every week. It was a very nice surprise since I wasn’t sure if we would work straight through the week or not. Today has already been a very nice day. I got up this morning and went to mass at the main cathedral in Port Au Prince with several of my housemates. Even though the cathedral was completely destroyed, the crucifix is still standing! And there are several other churches like that in the city – amazing! We had mass outside.
PT Professor lends expert analysis to television investigative report
Belmont PT professor, Dr. Kevin Robinson, recently provided expert analysis for an investigative report by WLKY in Louisville, KY about fit shoes. The news report video and story are linked here.