Monthly Archives: September 2011

OT students assist older drivers

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Students and faculty from the School of Occupational Therapy recently participated in a CarFit Technician Training and CarFit Event at the Fifty Forward Center in Nashville.  CarFit is an educational program that offers older adults the opportunity to check how well their personal vehicles “fit” them. This national program is coordinated between the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA), the American Automobile Association (AAA), and the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP).

This CarFit Event was done locally in conjunction with Ollie Jackson from TDOT, Jim Paris from AARP, and Rose Boyd from the Commission Council for Strategic Initiatives.   Participating students were required to become CarFit Technicians through a training conducted by Dr. Ruth Ford, Associate Professor at Belmont and CarFit Event Coordinator.

The CarFit program provides information and materials on community-specific resources that could enhance their safety as drivers, and/or increase their mobility in the community. Older drivers are often the safest drivers in that they are more likely to wear their seatbelts, and less likely to speed or drink and drive. However, older drivers are more likely to be killed or seriously injured when a crash does occur due to the greater fragility of their aging bodies.

Driver safety programs improve adult driver safety by addressing cognitive abilities and skills, however, older drivers can also improve their safety by ensuring their cars are properly adjusted for them. A proper fit in one’s car can greatly increase not only the driver’s safety but also the safety of others. Graduates of Belmont’s OT Programs are learning first hand how to assure driving safety for older drivers through driver assessment and intervention.

PT Professor appointed to national APTA committee

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Dr. Cathy Hinton, School of Physical Therapy Professor, was appointed to the American Physical Therapy Association’s (APTA) Finance and Audit Committee.  The APTA is the national organization that represents physical therapists within the United States.  The appointment is for a four year term, and the committee is tasked with providing the Board of Directors of the APTA with advice and counsel regarding financial commitments in light of the association’s strategic plan.  To provide that overview role, the members of this committee are involved with review of the association’s income, expenditures, and investments.

Faculty from university in Iraq visit Belmont School of Pharmacy

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Belmont University recently hosted faculty from Hawler Medical University in Arbil, capital of Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

Belmont Professor and Chair of Pharmaceutical Science Andy Webster and Director of International Student Services Kathryn Skinner oversaw the training of the four faculty members from Hawler’s College of Pharmacy in health care informatics, pharmacy management and administration, communication, counseling and patient assessment, and didactic and clinical experiential education.Discussions included syllabus design and development, introduction to modern pedagogical principles and practices and an introduction to designing, developing and maintaining contemporary clinical practice environments. The Kurdish faculty became qualified as affiliate faculty members of Belmont’s School of Pharmacy.

Webster visited Kurdish Iraq in 2009 and was appointed to the Kurdistan Regional Government Curriculum Development Project.

“The focus of this project was to modify and update the professional pharmacy curriculum for the colleges of pharmacy in the Kurdish region of Iraq. This newly developed curriculum provides students a broad, solid grounding in the basic and clinical sciences, epistemologies and values that define contemporary pharmacy practice,” Webster said. “This sets a new educational standard for both students and faculty in that area of the world.”

School of Nursing faculty members co-author published article

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Dr. Beth Hallmark and Dr. Sharon Dowdy are co-authors of an article published this month in Nursing Education Perspectives, a bi-monthly journal of the National League for Nursing.  Dr. Hallmark is director of the College of Health Sciences Simulation Center and Dr. Dowdy is an associate professor in the School of Nursing.

The study explored the effects of deliberate practice on the retention of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) psychomotor skills among nursing students. The practice sessions were short, six minutes a session one time a month. Differences in performance between students who had deliberate practice and a control group, with no practice beyond the initial training, were compared every three months for one year. The intervention group performed better than the control over the 12 months. There is a need in nursing education for deliberate practice of relevant and high-use skills for students to improve their performance and gradually develop their expertise.

The article can be viewed at the National League for Nursing website.

Pharmacy Professor Published in Cancer Research Journal

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Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences Assistant Professor Edgar S. Diaz-Cruz had an article on published in the Cancer Research Journal on Aug. 15. The article, titled “Comparison of increased aromatase versus ERa in the generation of mammary hyperplasia and cancer,” discusses whether development of breast cancer caused by over-expression of the receptor results from the same or different aberrant molecular pathways than that induced by increased local estrogen production through mammary-targeted aromatase expression.

Family Celebrates Two Generations of OT Graduates

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Kayla Prince graduated from the School of Occupational Therapy’s Masters of Science in Occupational Therapy program in August, joining her mother, Renee Sims, as a Belmont alumna. Sims, a 2003 graduate of Belmont’s School of Occupational Therapy program, said she has a son and daughter-in-law that also are Occupational Therapy Assistants and considering Belmont’s weekend graduate program in Occupational Therapy as an academic option.