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.
Category Archives: Inman College of Health Sciences
PT’s Voight speaks in Dublin, Ireland
PT Professor Mike Voight recently gave a keynote address to over 100 medical clinicians in Dublin, Ireland on the topic of Golf Fitness. Pictured with Dr. Voight are Lance Gill, Head Athletic Trainer for Titleist Golf Company, and Padraigh Harrington, three time major champion and past PGA player of the year and currently ranked in the top 10 players in the world.
From third-year PT student Ann Howard. . . .
Hello from Jackson, Mississippi!
Wow! I cannot believe that the second of our four 8-week clinical rotations is soon coming to a close. I am definitely sad to leave Mississippi Methodist Rehabilitation Center (MMRC), but excited about the knowledge and relationships gained from an incredible clinical experience working with patients who have suffered spinal cord injuries. This rotation has truly been life-changing! Patients in rehab facilities require physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual therapy. I am so grateful that MMRC encourages this type of care. I also have enjoyed and learned from the team approach involved at MMRC including the physicians, nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists, recreational therapists, speech therapists, respiratory therapists, and neuropsychologists.
At MMRC, the therapeutic recreational therapists provide many opportunities to take patients on “outings” when they are medically stable. Last week, my clinical instructor and I had joined the recreational therapist and two of our patients on a “movie theater outing”. Through this, I’ve seen how extremely important it is to provide these patients with the motivation they need to regain experience in the environment. You could see it on the patients’ faces how excited they were to be outside of the hospital and enjoying life again! What a blessing it has been to work in this field of physical therapy!
Social Work student’s internship helps lead organization to community award
Senior Belmont Social Work student, Jimmy Smith interned last fall with The Contributor, Nashville’s “street newspaper” that focuses on the issues surrounding homelessness and poverty and is sold by homeless and formerly homeless individuals on the street as an alternative to panhandling. During Jimmy’s internship, he helped nominate the organization’s volunteer Executive Director, Tasha French, for the 2009 Titans Community QB Award. French recently won the award which resulted in a $10,000 grant from Tennessee Titans owner KS “Bud” Adams Jr and the Tennessee Titans Foundation to the organization.
From third-year PT student Stacey Apple. . . . .
Greetings from Virginia Beach!
The first clinical of the third year is already half way over! I am currently working in an outpatient neurological rehabilitation center. It is completely different from any setting I have been exposed to thus far. The clinic consists mainly of patients who have had strokes; however, there are currently additional diagnoses including traumatic brain injury, amputee, and spinal cord injury. Every patient comes to “Day Rehab” for 6 hours a day for intensive therapy. Each patient must qualify for at least two out of the three disciplines offered: physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy. I have been very fortunate to gain experience working in a clinic that focuses on a team approach to therapy. A speech therapy student and I just had the opportunity to plan a Super Bowl party for the patients incorporating therapeutic activities and, of course, football. It was not all work for the patients though. The halftime show of karaoke was a huge hit!
The clinic has recently purchased a Wii system and a Wii balance board to be used during therapy. Therefore, I have logged many hours on the Wii and the WiiFit finding different ways to incorporate all three disciplines into “Wii-habilitation” and choose activities appropriate for each individual patient to present as an inservice to the clinic. Who would have ever thought that a patient with a spinal cord injury could sit on the balance board, and his weight shifting could be tracked the same way an ambulatory patient would? It has been a wonderful experience using a commercially available technology to train my patients and find new, entertaining approaches to therapy.
Tell it slant
Dr. Ruby Dunlap’s Uganda Fulbright Blog
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightening to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind—
Emily Dickinson’s (1830-1886) poetry is for me a gradual dazzle. This one came to mind as I’ve taken retrospective tours of the Ugandan nursing graduate students and my experiences with philosophy and theory over four weeks in January. Do and should nursing theories give priority to a received philosophy of science or a perceived philosophy of science? Which one fits best with a Christian worldview? What exactly is a worldview and what could be especially Christian about it? What are the logical parameters of differing worldviews? Is logic a valid criterion by which we should evaluate any worldview or theory and on what grounds do we recognize the validity of logic itself?
And then they went home
Dr. Ruby Dunlap’s Uganda Fulbright Blog
This past Friday night, I dreamed I was a pizza box. My consciousness resided in part of the box lid; I felt the air move as my cardboard face fell downwards. Mefloquine can do that. I had forgotten to take it in the morning and rather than skip another dose as I inadvertently had the week before, I took it just before bedtime with consequences among those the inserts predict: vividly bizarre dreams.
Many of the expatriates here take no malaria prophylaxis at all and few Ugandans do. But malaria is endemic and dangerous; I helped a wobbly student walk to the front gate, get on a boda, and on to home a few weeks ago with a 3+ malaria raging in her system. Being stricken with recurrent bouts of malaria is what all Ugandans deal with as a matter of routine. It only takes one bite from one infected mosquito. Many sleep under mosquito nets; many do not. Dad refuses his mosquito net since it hampers him getting in and out of bed. I do not fuss since a fall and a broken bone are at least as risky for him as malaria and he is taking his malaria prophylaxis weekly.
From NPR – Wanted: Men for OT Jobs
Unemployed males looking for a new career path could turn to occupational therapy. It’s one of the many health-related jobs growing during the economic down turn. It’s also a field traditionally dominated by women. Females make up 90 percent of workers and men 10 percent, and recruiting males into the field has been a challenge. Listen to this report from National Public Radio.
School of Nursing Awards Foundation Scholarships
Ten new students to Belmont’s School of Nursing this Spring semester have been selected to receive a $10,000 New Careers in Nursing scholarship, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The New Careers in Nursing is a program designed to help alleviate the nursing shortage and increase diversity within the profession’s workforce. The scholarship program is designed for college graduates with non-nursing degrees to pursue a second bachelor’s degree like the accelerated nursing program at Belmont. The $100,000 grant helped Belmont’s School of Nursing increase student enrollment with a new spring cohort while expanding program admission from fall semester only to both fall and spring semesters.
Award preference is given to students from groups underrepresented in nursing or from disadvantaged backgrounds. Of the accelerated students beginning their program of study in January 2010, 23 percent are male, and 33 percent come from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. In comparison, national nursing workforce data indicate that men comprise only 5.8 percent of the American nursing workforce and racial/ethnic minorities comprise only 10.7 percent. Grant funding will be used by schools to help leverage support for new faculty resources and provide mentoring and leadership development resources to ensure successful program completion by scholarship recipients.
Belmont Nursing Grad serves aboard the USNS Comfort in Haiti
From WEAR ABC3 in Pensacola, Florida. . . .
A second wave of sailors bound for Haiti deployed from Pensacola Naval Hospital Wednesday. The group will be providing care to quake victims on a state-of-the-art hospital ship called the U.S.N.S. Comfort. Lieutenant Junior Grade Lauren Hudson shouldn’t be on this trip. She has already deployed once this year, but for this special mission, she asked to be a part of it. Hudson is a 2007 graduate of Belmont University’s School of Nursing.
“I felt kind of an emotional connection to Haiti because I had been there before, and I really just wanted to do something to help.” In fact, a sense of purpose fills many of the 25 people loading a bus for Jacksonville. From there, they’ll meet up with 10 other Pensacola sailors on board the U.S.N.S. Comfort, a floating hospital tasked with caring for the earthquake survivors.
“It’s pretty amazing what it can do and how many people it can hold.” The 1,000-bed ship will carry more than 500 staff members, 35 of which will be from Pensacola. A team that commanders say includes many volunteers. “Our corpsmen are superior, bar-none, so we have a great team. And I look forward to the mission.” They’ll each have their own way of dealing with the devastation around them. “I don’t think you can ever be totally prepared for this. You just kind of got to stop yourself from over-thinking and stop, take a deep breath.”
The bus is loaded with 25 people heading over to Haiti, but that’s only a fourth of what’s deployed around the world from Naval Hospital Pensacola. A round of applause for the latest departing staff, and the hopes for a successful mission. The sailors were not given a definite timetable for a return home. We’re told it could take anywhere from one to six months.
College of Health Sciences to host civil rights pioneer, Fred Gray
Noted Civil Rights attorney and minister Fred Gray will appear on Belmont’s campus on Wed., Jan. 20 for a special forum and lecture. Gray—the former attorney for Rosa Parks, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Tuskegee Syphilis Study victims—will discuss “Lessons Learned from a Civil Rights Pioneer about Health, Social Justice and Christian Service.” This morning-long event is free and open to the public, courtesy of financial assistance provided by the Jacob G. Schmidlapp Trusts, Fifth Third Bank, Trustee. Both the forum and the lecture will take place in Belmont’s Massey Performing Arts Center.
Belmont President Dr. Bob Fisher said, “It’s a distinct honor to welcome Fred Gray to Belmont’s campus, especially during the week when our nation celebrates the accomplishments of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights movement. At Belmont we encourage our students to use their gifts and talents to impact the world. There are few better examples of individuals who have accomplished that mission than Fred Gray.”
The event will begin with an 8:30 a.m. panel discussion featuring Gray along with the following special guests:
• Dr. Henry Foster, Jr., professor emeritus and former dean of the Meharry College School of Medicine and nominee for U.S. Surgeon General under President Bill Clinton
• Dwight Lewis, columnist and member of the editorial board for The Tennessean
• John Seigenthaler, founding editorial director of USA Today, founder of the First Amendment Center and award-winning journalist who briefly left his career in the 1960s to work in the civil rights field.
Following a 20-minute intermission at the conclusion of the panel forum, Gray will return for a keynote lecture at 10 a.m. His presentation will conclude with a question-and-answer session.
Tommy Thompson Diagnoses the Healthcare Debate
Article from Nashville Medical News
Politics in Play
Tommy Thompson, four-term Governor of Wisconsin and former Secretary of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, recently painted a scenario of political intrigue filled with back room bargaining and deal-making worthy of the latest political best seller. However, he wasn’t speaking of a fictional thriller but of the real life maneuvers that will be necessary to get a healthcare reform bill out of Congress.
Speaking at Belmont University a week before Thanksgiving, he predicted that Congress would pass a new, comprehensive healthcare bill, but not without some Congressional arm twisting, “and a lot of shootouts and deal cutting” before reaching a “cantankerous” compromise.
“The president wants the healthcare bill out. Nancy Pelosi wants it out. Harry Reid wants it out,” he explained, of the push to move quickly. Thompson added that, for Democrats, the specter of “what happened in 1994 with the Clintons’ attempt at healthcare reform hangs over their heads.”
The briefing, part of Belmont University’s continuing speaker series, Diagnosing Our Future, was held at the university’s Gordon E. Inman Center.
Belmont Nursing Graduate Honored
Kelley Allen, Nurse for the Neonatal Transport Team at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, has been recognized by Cambridge Who’s Who for demonstrating dedication, leadership and excellence in nursing. Allen received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Belmont University in 2002
As the charge nurse for the neonatal transport team at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, Ms. Allen is responsible for supervising the team, overseeing nurses during orientation, credentialing and quality control, and managing bedside care in the neonatal intensive care unit and for babies in need of medical care at outside facilities. She enjoys specializing in caring for babies. In 2004 and 2005, she was the president and vice president of the Middle Tennessee Association of Neonatal Nurses and participated in We Care for Kids Day at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital for the past three years. Ms. Allen takes pride in her team, the neonatal transport team, being certified as air medical transport professionals. She attributes her success to her parents who instilled in her a great work ethic and taught her to give her best efforts at all times.
Currently pursuing her Master’s Degree in Neonatal Nursing, Ms. Allen also received a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Lipscomb University in 1996. A certified CPR instructor and NRP instructor, she is a member of the Middle Tennessee Nurse Practitioner Association and the Middle Tennessee Association of Neonatal Nurses. She hopes to become a nurse practitioner and continue working at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital in the transport field. She would also like to work as a liaison for quality control and safety for the transport team.
How silently, how silently, the wondrous Gift is given!
Dr. Ruby Dunlap’s Uganda Fulbright Blog
We hope you had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, family and friends!
We celebrated Christmas in Uganda this year, five of us. Daughter Amy and son-in-law, Chris, arrived mid-December and returned to the U.S. on January 2. Dad Wesselhoeft and we arrived here August 14. On Christmas Day, we will had been here 134 days. The day after Christmas, December 26, was exactly the halfway point for our stay here. We are missing so many things about our lives in the U.S. that we will be looking forward to May 11 when we expect to return.
The September semester was very busy for me and had lots of adjustments for all of us. January semester will be another busy one with classes every day of the week until the end of the month. Then there will be lots of paper grading as students email me assignments.
We did have a very fun visit to Uganda’s largest game reserve, Murchison Falls, last week. We saw awesome waterfalls and many animals. In the photo above are the five of us pointing to Uganda in central eastern Africa on a big globe in front of the Nile River at Murchison Falls.
Left to right, Carl Wesselhoeft, Chris Sutton, Amy Sutton, Ruby Dunlap, Bob Dunlap
See a more photos of that trip by clicking below.
“I Don’t Want my Nurse to Quote Shakespeare”
Dr. Ruby Dunlap’s Uganda Fulbright Blog
Nurses in Uganda, like nurses in the United States, are struggling with questions of professional identity and what or even whether a bachelor’s degree in nursing adds to the nurse enough to justify its additional expense, time, and academic labor. “I don’t want my nurse to quote Shakespeare,” said a non-nurse friend, “I just want her to give me my shot.” We were discussing whether nursing education should include humanities. I’ve forgotten the friend who said this; the comment has stuck in my memory, an iconic summary of all such questioning about what it means to be a nurse and what entails an appropriate education for such a profession.
Belmont PT Grad featured in East Tennessee Newspaper Story
Belmont alumna Erin Cook was featured in her hometown newspaper, The Elizabethton Star, for her work in the Sports Residency Program at Physical Therapy Services in Elizabethton, Tenn. Cook, who received her Doctor of Physical Therapy degree from Belmont in 2009, is preparing to take the Certified Sports Physical Therapy Specialty exam. Cook is currently working with with Dr. Danny Smith, a Belmont adjunct professor, and his son Dr. Justin Smith, a 2006 graduate of Belmont’s School of Physical Therapy.
“I Would Teach for Free”
Dr. Ruby Dunlap’s Uganda Fulbright Blog
“I would teach for free but they have to pay me to grade papers.” This comment from a teacher friend was naturalized long ago into my habitual outlook on things and without any difficulty whatsoever. I have been and continue to be grading, or “marking” as they call it here, papers, what seems like hundreds of them, weeks on end now. I know that “hundreds” is a hallucination of a paper-fevered brain but there have been and are being lots. Grading graduate nursing papers, all of which have been written by students for whom English is not their first language, has turned out to be not that different from grading nursing papers by students in the U.S. for whom English is their mother tongue. Having to grade the papers turns out to be our students’ revenge for us assigning so many of them.
Belmont PT Students Host Sports Day for Empower Me Day Camp
The students of Belmont’s DPT Class of 2010 recently put on a Sports Day for kids with special needs at the Wilson County Fairgrounds in Lebanon, TN. Empower Me Day Camp, which is a summer camp for kids with special needs that is held at the fairgrounds during the summer, also hosts activities throughout the year including Sports Day, Christmas Camp, and Spring Break Camp.
About twenty kids total attended the camp and enjoyed various activities ranging from kickball to mummy wrapping both students and kids alike in toilet paper. The kids also participated in bowling games, monster musical walk (a Halloween spinoff of musical chairs), a “witch witch ghost” version of duck duck goose, and playing parachute games with a full size parachute. The kids also got to dress up in costumes of different hats, tiaras, sunglasses, and beads and walk through a curtain of streamers where bubbles were being blown around them as they then participated in a bean bag toss into pumpkin and ghost cutouts. They also had the chance to get a little messy by having to find “eyeballs” (or grapes) in bowls of marshmallows, flour, rice, and spaghetti. Finally the kids participated in an arts and crafts activity in which they designed and decorated their own paper plate masks with feathers, cotton balls, construction paper, markers, crayons, and stickers.
At the end of the day each of the kids received a special award certificate for an activity that they did exceptionally well at. All in all, both the Belmont students and kids alike really enjoyed this special Halloween themed Sports Day and made memories that will last for a long time.
In Tommy Thompson’s scenario, health reform passes this year
From Erin Lawley of the Nashville Post. . . .
In a lively presentation at Belmont University Monday afternoon, Former U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson discussed the potential future of health reform legislation currently before Congress.
Thompson said he expects a bill will be on President Obama’s desk before Christmas. That bill will include a public option, health insurance exchanges, taxes for people who make more than $200,000 per year, taxes on so-called “Cadillac” health plans, and employer credits for wellness and prevention programs.
Click here to read the full article.
“We Tremble Not For Him”
Dr. Ruby Dunlap’s Uganda Fulbright Blog
What did I expect the most trusted and skilled exorcist in the Mukono area to look like? Perhaps a fierce intensity out of the eyes? Perhaps either wildly careless or flamboyant clothing? In any case, his speech should be full of emotionally charged religious utterances, something befitting regular contact with the world of demons and evil spirits. That world, which few Westerners are likely to take seriously, the world relegated to a tiny minority of secretive devotees in the West, is taken very seriously in Uganda and by the vast majority of Ugandans. When it is taken that seriously by the locals, expatriates do well to attend seriously to it as well. Here is a not unusual bit in another of Uganda’s English newspapers, the 9 November, 2009, issue of The Daily Monitor:
Masaka man accused of witchcraft
Residents of Kijjomanyi Village in Kalungu Sub-county in Masaka District on Friday burnt the house of a 72 year old man and killed his goats, accusing him of bewitching them. The residents accused Mr. Felix Ssali of using spirits to kill 15 people between June and August. The district police chief, Mr. Moses Mwanga, said investigations are ongoing.
OTD Students Participate in CarFit Event
Occupational Therapy students and faculty recently conducted their second CarFit event of 2009. 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 year’s events were held in Hendersonville at the Hendersonville AAA Club and the Hendersonville First United Methodist Church with older adult drivers being assessed in their personal vehicles. The OTD students were required to become CarFit Technicians through a training conducted by Dr. Ruth Ford, Associate Dean and CarFit Event Coordinator. Dr. Ford has spoken at the Tennessee Occupational Therapy Middle District Association as well as AARP State of Tennessee Annual Leadership Conference on CarFit as part of their Driver Safety Program. The next AARP training is set for November 20th at Henry Horton State Park.
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.
Where in the World is Mike Voight?
PT Professor Mike Voight serves in a variety of consulting roles for businesses and organizations which provides opportunity for him to travel the world and meet fascinating people. Where has he been lately? The answer – Madrid, Spain.
Dr. Voight was one of two keynote speakers at XI Jornadas Nacionales y Internacional de Fisioterapia held in Madrid, Spain recently. The event was held in conjunction with the Spanish Olympic Committee and hosted at their National headquarters. The topic of his presentation was Current Concepts in Hip Pathology. In addition, Dr. Voight was also a guest of the Spanish Soccer Federation and the Real Madrid Football club and spent time in their facilities.
School of Nursing Hosts Simulation Conference
Nearly 150 educators and hospital administrators from Tennessee and various other states attended the second annual Tennessee Nursing Simulation Conference at Belmont University last weekend. The conference was presented by Belmont’s School of Nursing and The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee through a grant from the Partners Investing in Nursing’s Future – a collaborative initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Northwest Health Foundation.
The conference theme was Education and Practice: Working Together to Improve Patient Outcomes and included over 40 sessions which covered all aspects of medical simulation. The conference was designed to provide a comprehensive overview of simulation technology and resources and to build communication networks for educators in Tennessee. Conference faculty included nationally renowned experts on simulation technology in healthcare education and training from such institutions as Vanderbilt University, Vanderbilt Medical Center, Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital, Fort Sanders Regional Hospital, Austin Peay State University, Maury Regional Medical Center, Union University, University of Kentucky School of Nursing, Tennessee Center for Nursing and Belmont University.
Belmont’s Gordon E. Inman Center and Healthcare Simulation Center provided excellent facilities for the conference, with comfortable meeting rooms and state-of-the-art laboratories and simulation mannequins. The Gordon E. Inman College of Health Sciences and Nursing is a Laerdal Center of Educational Excellence for simulation, one of only 12 such centers designated in the United States. Also featured were demonstrations by several companies, including Laerdal, METI, Elsevier, Pocket Nurse, and Kyoto Kagaku, all which specialize in the latest simulation equipment and accessories.
4 of The 14 Best Jobs in America
Money magazine recently published a list of The 50 Best Jobs in America which bodes well for graduates of the Gordon E. Inman College of Health Sciences & Nursing. Four of the top 14 jobs were careers for which our students are preparing. The 4th best job in America was a Nurse Practitioner. At #7 was a Physical Therapist. At #13 was a Pharmacist. And at #14 was an Occupational Therapist. With doctoral programs in Physical Therapy, Pharmacy and Occupational Therapy, and master’s programs in Family Nurse Practitioner and Occupational Therapy, Belmont is well positioned to prepare students for some of the best jobs in the 21st century.
In the companion lists to The 50 Best Jobs in America, Physical Therapist was ranked as the 8th best position for job growth with a 27% increase in opportunities expected during the next 10 years for 181,000 total jobs. Physical Therapist was ranked 2nd for low stress with 59.5% of those surveyed saying their job is low stress. Occupational Therapist was ranked 9th for low stress with 50% saying their job is low stress. 97.3% of those nurse practitioners surveyed said their job was secure ranking Nurse Practioner as the 4th best for job security. Physical Therapist also made the job security list at #8 with 96% saying their job is secure. Nurse Practitioner was #7 on the list for future job growth and #6 on the list for job satisfaction. Occupational Therapist came in at #10 for job satisfaction. And finally, Nurse Practioner was ranked as 9th best for those who think their job makes the world a better place.
See more at http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bestjobs/2009/.
OT Professor Qualifies as a General Civil Mediator
Yvette Hachtel, Professor of Occupational Therapy, has met the requirements of Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 31 as a General Civil Mediator. For many years Professor Hachtel has volunteered as a mediator for the Victim and Offenders Reconciliation Program (VORP) of Sumner County, now referred to as Sumner Mediation Services. Last fall she was invited to serve on their Board and currently serves as Secretary of the organization.
Rule 31 Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) proceedings are initiated by the court, including case evaluations, mediations, judicial settlement conferences, non-binding arbitrations, summary jury trials, mini-trials, or other similar proceedings. Included are all civil actions except forfeitures of seized property, civil commitments, adoption proceedings, habeas corpus and extraordinary writs, or juvenile delinquency cases.
This achievement provides Professor Hachtel yet another opportunity to use her formal legal education. She holds the following degrees: JD, MEd and OTR/L.