Faculty, staff and students in the College of Pharmacy recently donated school supplies to children of mothers in a recovery program at Renewal House. This non-profit organization provides women and their families with comprehensive treatment services related to alcohol and drug addiction. This is the second year that Belmont’s College of Pharmacy has participated in a back-to-school drive for children receiving services at Renewal House. This year a total of twenty children received backpacks filled with new school supplies to begin the academic year.
Monthly Archives: July 2012
Hutchins presents at two professional nursing conferences this summer
Dr. B.J. Hutchins, Assistant Professor of Nursing, is presenting at two professional conferences this summer. In July she presented a workshop on the Fundamentals of Evidence Based Practice at the National Nurse Staff Development Organization’s annual convention in Boston, Massachusetts. In August, Dr. Hutchins will travel to London, England to present a plenary session at the International Nurse Practitioner/Advanced Practice Nursing Network Conference entitled Frailty in the Older Adult, Implications for Care. She will also have a poster presentation at this same meeting entitled Cardiovascular Effects of Obstructive Sleep Apnea: Implications for Care.
Mission to Haiti – More Photographs
Mission to Haiti – Day 7
Mission to Haiti 2012
from Sara Camp
Our last day in Haiti began with a lovely sunrise and something like a grits and spinach casserole for breakfast. We have so enjoyed the authentic Haitian cuisine we have had.
Then we headed halfway up the mountain for our last clinic day where we saw over 50 people, bringing our total for the week to around 200. Today the people we saw included several with severe hypertension, a 33 year old lady with bilateral pitting edema (swollen feet), and two pregnant women. All the students were thrilled to hear the fetal heart sounds! As we headed back down the mountain we stopped to make a home visit to a lady with severe ascites, who Jenny sees on a regular basis. Despite her extremely poor physical condition, her smile lit up the room. She was one of many we will always remember because of her inner joy.
Mission to Haiti – Photo Album
Mission to Haiti 2012
Photographs from Emily Hawley
Mission to Haiti – Day 6
Mission to Haiti 2012
from Todd Lake and Martha Ezell
Today started off with a bang… Not really a bang, more of a whoosh. We got a flat tire shortly after leaving the place we stay. We napped for two hours on the steps of a church before the tire was replaced and we were off again in our open-backed truck with 27 Haitians and Americans, three trunks of medicine, all our water and food, and several unexplained bags of cement.
We set up the clinic three hours late in a large open cinderblock church with a beautiful view of the mountains. As always, the Haitians were endlessly patient. We had five stations: check-in, vitals, history, assessments, pharmacy, and prayer. We rotate each day, getting to interact with the team and patients in different ways. Late in the afternoon after the last patient was seen, we learned that our truck had yet another flat tire. FYI: we were eight miles up a mountain. The decision was mad that we would begin walking down while the tire was repaired. 3 miles down, the truck rolled by. God is indeed faithful and we made it safely home.
We have all fallen in love with the people we have met here. Each morning before clinic opens, the assembled community gathers with us for a hymn and prayer. This is not, as some of us had been warned, a “dark or godless” place. We see hope everywhere. The faces of children and the smiles of the elderly remind us that God is here and He is working. Continue reading
Mission to Haiti – Day 5
Mission to Haiti 2012
from Martha Ezell and Charly Hood
We apologize for the lack of news last night; we did not have internet. This is information from Sunday:
Post Saturday nights blog, we took a trip to the local smoothie shop for our first Haitian night life experience. We arrived to find a crowd of people, a single light bulb, a woman, and her blender. Our options for the night were: papaya, bread fruit, or potato. The majority of us thought we were playing it safe by choosing papaya, but the mixture of evaporated milk, sugar, and the raw fruit itself made for an interesting taste sensation.
Following a delightful late night thunderstorm, our fifth day in Haiti dawned warm and sunny. Breakfast was a traditional Haitian staple, pumpkin soup with potatoes and carrots. We were honored to attend an outdoor worship service with the group of believers in Grand Goave. Every member of our team was impacted by the passion and authenticity of the worship! We were struck by the realization that those who actually depend on God’s mercy for their “daily bread” do not find it difficult to express gratitude to Him. Continue reading
Mission to Haiti – Day 4
Mission to Haiti 2012
from Julia Jordan-Lake (The baby)
“only one life ’twill soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last”.
The previous line was used in last nights devotion. Each night we have had a chance to debrief and process our day as a group. Waking up, we were greeted with mystery meat or as we later agreed upon, “spicy tuna”. After breakfast, we walked to the market. Sort of like the hip, organic farmers markets, but…not. We learned quickly to make way for various chickens, donkeys, pigs, and children carrying huge bushels of bananas. The “parking lot” at the end of the market held roughly 30 donkeys…and their waste. On the walk back, we stopped to buy cold beverages and were thrilled to hear a karaoke cover of Rhinna and see Reese’s peanut cups. Continue reading
Mission to Haiti – Day 3
Mission to Haiti 2012
from Emily Hawley and Hailey Wickles (pictured)
Picking up from last night we will tell you about our nighttime adventure… We were getting ready for bed and miss Martha startled the room announcing “ohhh my gosh- WE HAVE A CRAB!” of course hostess Jenny came in wondering why the crazy Americans were yelling and found us trying to coax the football size crab (no joke) out from underneath Julia’s bed. We soon settled down for another night of rest and we were glad to “sleep in” until 5am when the rooster (that we have named el diablo- Spanish for the devil) had our wake up call.
Mission to Haiti – Day 2
Mission to Haiti 2012
from Charly Hood & Reiley Heaberlin
Our day started off early as our little rooster friend woke us up at 3am. We ignored him as best we could until breakfast was served at 6am (where we had spicy peanut butter.) We then prepared for the day, loaded up our open cage truck, and headed up the mountain.
We traveled about an hour through rough terrain, holding on for dear life all the while. Thankfully, we had a beautiful view to distract us. The mountains, the trees, the crops, the houses, the animals, the water, and the people were absolutely beautiful to see. Once we made it to our sight for the day, Mt. Sinai, we unloaded the truck and hiked about a quarter of a mile to the church at where we would be setting up our clinic.
Mission to Haiti – Day 1
Mission to Haiti 2012
from Martha Ezell
We arrived safely in port au prince then traveled with our hosts to Grand Goave, we are all settled in at the conscience international house. We have dined on delicious chicken and rice. Tomorrow we will travel “up the mountain” to a small community called Mt. Sinai and help conduct a clinic. We feel God’s presence and faithfulness. Love from Sara, Martha, Cilla, Todd, Julia, Charly, Hailey, Reiley, Julie and Emily.
Ficzere Published in Annals of Pharmacotherapy
Assistant Professor Cathy Ficzere, of the Department of Pharmaceutical, Social & Administrative Sciences, has published “Curriculum and Instructional Methods for Drug Information, Literature Evaluation and Biostatistics: Survey of US Pharmacy Schools” in The Annals of Pharmacotherapy. Ficzere and her team evaluated the state of drug information education in current pharmacy curricula using the specific recommendations regarding drug information education established by the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP) Drug Information Practice and Research Network. Their results show an increased focus on evidence-based medicine, medication safety and informatics.
Olympic Games Become Classroom for Belmont Student
A Belmont student will go to tracks, courts and fields in London this summer to study sport performance as it relates to the world’s best athletes as they compete in the 2012 Summer Olympics.
Last week, Colleen Arends left Nashville for London where she is taking the class Olympic Games: Sport Performance, History and Administrations through the Cooperative Center for Study Abroad (CCSA). Northern Kentucky University clinical exercise scientist Renee Jeffreys is teaching the course, which focuses on training principles and conditioning for elite performance, as well as factors that affect performance in specific sports. Olympic history and what is required to conduct the Olympic Games will also be briefly discussed. The class will visit Olympic venues, various sport governing bodies and sport facilities in and around London.
“The way the course is set up, each of us have to choose a different sport within the Olympics; compile a presentation on anaerobic, vital oxygen intake max for most athletes, average BMI; focus on how athletes train and how their muscle tone and cardiovascular tone are different between sports; and how different sports require different physiological adaptions through the body,” said Arends, a junior from St. Louis, Mo., studying exercise science. She also is required to keep an exercise journal of studios and group exercise classes she visit in London as well as running and walking routes.
Field trips for the Olympic Games classes include touring Olympic venues, taking cricket lessons, watching the Olympic torch relay and volunteering at the Olympics marathon and a cycling event. The students must purchase tickets on their own to the actual Olympic events.
The class is offered through CCSA, a consortium of more than two dozen universities that do study abroad programs together, for which Belmont is the host institution. Seventeen of the 205 students in the CCSA London program are from Belmont and all are staying at Kings College, said CCSA Public Relations Specialist Joe Woolley. Other courses throughout the five-week program include art history, audio engineering, English, creative writing, theater, psychology, education and criminal justice, he said.
Click here to read Jeffreys’ blog on the Olympic Games class.