Jayme Trocino, a junior nursing student, was featured recently in a story in Nashville’s City Paper on balancing her coursework with her position on the Belmont women’s soccer team – leading the Lady Bruins to a share of the Atlantic Sun Conference regular-season title this fall. In the article, Trocino is quoted, “Some places they won’t let athletes be in the nursing program because of the time it takes. That’s one of the reasons I’m so thankful to be here. … It can be difficult but my coaches and my teammates have inspired me.”
Click here read the full article.
Category Archives: Inman College of Health Sciences
OT Faculty Member contributes to book and conferences
Teresa Plummer, a faculty member in the School of Occupational Therapy recently published a chapter, “Leadership in the Occupational Therapy Classroom” in An Occupational Perspective on Leadership (Slack, 2009) edited by Sandee Dunbar.
Teresa also was the invited guest speaker for Black Bear Medical Annual Conference in Portland, Maine and the Central Illinois Therapeutic Enrichments Conference in Homer, Illinois this fall. Both presentations were in the “Relationship of vision and posture and the implication to seating and mobility.”
Social Work Alum Receives Leadership in Diversity Award
Social work alumnus Claudia Avila (’03) was recently named the recipient of the 2009 Multicultural Council Award for Leadership in Diversity. It comes from the Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD). She will go to Washington D.C. on Nov. 10 to accept the award.
PT Students Hear from Amputees
from Ashley Vidrine, PT Class of 2011
Second year physical therapy students recently participated in a prosthetics lab in which local amputees volunteered their time to come in and talk about their conditions. The class was able to perform an evaluation and get an understanding about what it’s like to live with a prosthetic limb. Earlier this year, the class also participated in a disability project in which everyone was to spend 4 hours in a wheel chair. Students got a taste of what it feels like to be a disabled person in public, and experiences were shared in class. It was a learning experience that most won’t soon forget.
Tommy Thompson to Speak at Belmont
Former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, will be on campus Monday, November 16, 2009 at 4:00 p.m. for a Healthcare Reform Briefing: How Will Reform Impact Providers, Payors and Individuals? An RSVP is required, but admission is free compliments of Medical Reimbursements of America, who is co-sponsoring this event with Clayton Associates, the Nashville Health Care Council, and the Gordon E. Inman College of Health Sciences & Nursing. The lecture is part of the Gordon E. Inman College of Health Sciences & Nursing Diagnosing Our Future Speaker Series.
Look on the Speaker Series webpage for upcoming presentations in the speaker series with Fred Gray on January 20, 2010 and Dr. David Williams on March 25, 2010.
Belmont Tops Out New Health Science Building, Home for Schools of Pharmacy and Physical Therapy Ceremony celebrates completion of $30 million building’s frame
Nearly one year after breaking ground, Belmont University celebrated the “topping out” its new $30 million health sciences building last week, which will serve as the future home for the School of Pharmacy, a Belmont program which welcomed its second class this fall. The building, which has an anticipated completion date of June 2010, will also house the School of Physical Therapy and will include expansion space for the Schools of Nursing and Occupational Therapy as well as the Social Work and Psychology programs. (Click here to view a photo of gallery of the event.)
Belmont President Dr. Bob Fisher said, “In addition to providing a time to celebrate and thank all the workers behind this immense project, a topping out is also a time to look forward to when this structure is complete. This building will be a model, 21st century academic facility, providing a venue where our students and faculty resources can intersect in service to help meet the medical needs of our community and our world.”
Iganga Bob
Dr. Ruby Dunlap’s Uganda Fulbright Blog
The non-verbal expression, “eh,” is most consistently noticeable in North America among English speakers dwelling near and around the U.S.-Canadian border. It shares company with such verbal expressions as “you bet!” a response so characteristic of the area that when an agricultural expert from Minnesota answered a question with it recently, I couldn’t help but smile with memories of miles of northern forests and lakes riding in on the coattails of “you bet!”
My own southeastern United States, on the other hand, is known for the spoken elaboration of multiple syllables into words which are written with only one. One of my favorite examples was from a patient who asked me, “Can you give me a nerve pill—I’m fixin’ to have a spell.” I hadn’t realized before that moment how many syllables a southern woman could put into the word “spell.” Practice saying, “Spay–ee—ell” and you’ll get an approximation. Make sure you draw it out to communicate adequately the threatened onset of something most dire.
PT alum named an Emerging Leader
Cara Felter, a 2004 DPT graduate of the School of Physical Therapy at Belmont University, has been named as an Emerging Leader by the American Physical Therapy Association.
Felter was recognized in the October 2009 issue of PTinmotion Magazine with the following tribute: “Cara Felter, PT, DPT, is a senior physical therapist at the Kennedy Krieger Institute International Center for Spinal Cord Injury, in Baltimore, Maryland. Also a Brain Injury Specialist certified by the Brain Injury Association of America, she has a passion for working with individuals with brain and spinal cord injuries. Felter, who joined APTA in 2001, has been a member of the APTA Neurology Section since 2005. A former member of the Tennessee Physical Therapy Association, she is a current member of the APTA of Maryland, where she serves on the Continuing Education Committee and is being mentored to become the director of education. Felter expects to complete her Master of Public Health degree at The Johns Hopkins University in December 2009. In addition to her APTA activities, Felter raises dogs that are trained to help people with disabilities.”
In relating her honor to the School of Physical Therapy, Felter provided the following comments: “When Belmont says, ‘From here to anywhere,’ they really mean it. My education in the Belmont DPT program prepared me academically and clinically. My professors challenged me to think analytically and use research to guide clinical decision making. They also encouraged me to get involved in the APTA as a means of protecting and promoting my profession. I could not have asked for better mentors on the path to becoming a physical therapist.”
Nursing Professor Leads the Way in Safe Patient Handling
Not many a day goes by that Lynne Shores doesn‟t influence lives in the nursing world. As a college professor, author, lecturer and community advocate for more than 30 years, she has helped educate and direct the energy of thousands of registered nurses who care for today‟s patients. And, she has played a key role introducing hospitals and universities to safe patient handling instruction.
“Someone once told me, I have the passion and patience needed for working with beginning nursing students,” explained Shores. “It‟s true. I love to see that fire ignited when a student does well!” To that end, Shores served as Belmont University‟s representative at ANA‟s Safe Patient Handling Conference five years ago. Learning about new research and state-of-the-art lift equipment energized her to tackle the neglected topic of safety in nursing instruction. And, it granted her the chance to work with peers at ANA and NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) to implement core curriculum for teaching students about on-the-job safety. Currently, Shores serves on the National Advisory Committee for the newly launched ANA Safe Patient Handling Recognition Program.
PT Students Pitch In for Dierks Bentley’s Miles & Music for Kids
Professor Mike Voight reports. . . .
During the October celebration of national physical therapy month, approximately 100 Belmont University Physical Therapy students and faculty volunteered their time to assist with the organization and on-site operation for the 4th annual “Dierks Bentley Miles & Music for Kids” charity motorcycle ride and concert to benefit Vanderbilt’s Children Hospital. The ride took place on October 11th when thousands of leather-wearing folks gathered on their ‘hogs’ to ride along-side Dierks Bentley for his annual Miles and Music for Kids. Starting off at the Cool Springs Harley Davidson in Franklin, TN; the ride wound its way through the Natchez Trace down to Riverfront Park downtown Nashville. There, Dierks was joined by some his best celebrity buds to entertain the masses … literally THOUSANDS of people all to raise money for Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital.
OT Professor Contributes Chapter to New Book
Dr. Scott McPhee, Professor of Occupational Therapy, had a chapter recently published in the book, What you need to know about Nursing and Health Care in the United States (B.L. Nichols & C.R. Davis, Eds., New York: Springer Publishing). This book is intended for foreign trained nurses who are applying for a visa to work in the United States.
The chapter Dr. McPhee wrote details the history of occupational therapy, education requirements, licensure, and areas of practice (with descriptions of typical types of patients and goals for therapy).
PT Graduate Chosen as Outstanding Young Alumna from APSU
Dr. Bethany McKinney Froboese, a 2003 graduate of Belmont’s School of Physical Therapy, has been chosen as an Outstanding Young Alumna by her undergraduate alma mater, Austin Peay State University. The award recognizes her contribution to APSU as a volunteer. Froboese will be honored with other alumni award recipients during homecoming festivities at the end of October.
After receiving her Doctor of Physical Therapy from Belmont, Froboese took a job as a physical therapist with Inmotion Rehabilitation. Three year later, she joined Premier Medical Group and, in 2007, she found her current position as a physical therapist with Tennessee Orthopeadic Alliance.
Froboese is a member of the American Physical Therapy Association and the Tennessee Physical Therapy Association and is a Susan G. Komen lymphedema treatment provider. She is a certified Lymphedema therapist, a certified clinical instructor and a certified sole supports provider.
Her volunteer work also extends into her community, such as assisting in a one-day teaching experience for Clarksville-Montgomery County School System anatomy and physiology AP classes about physical therapy and physiological principles used for her profession.
Those Nurses
Dr. Ruby Dunlap’s Ugunda Fulbright Blog
Along the stone retaining wall outside our apartment is a row of snowy white daylilies. That is, I call them daylilies because of their leaf, stem and bud shapes. If not actually a daylily, they must be close kin to the daylily tribe. The flowers start out as a daylily bloom, a suggestion of a white trumpet on a slender stalk. But then the Designer of this flower changed His mind. Instead of the expected trumpet shape, the flower turns into a loose fringe of white, the petals going abruptly from wide to narrow in a graceful drape. I do not know which gives me more pleasure, the recognition of a familiar plant type or an unexpected variation in that type. This daylily illustrates my conviction that our appreciation of diversity needs to be anchored in an appreciation of unity. Otherwise, diversity becomes mere difference and mere difference seems to me to degenerate easily into competitive hostility among differences.
Gov. Bredesen, U.S. Rep. Cooper Lead Healthcare Conversation at Belmont
Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen and U.S. Representative Jim Cooper provided the keynote addresses for “Diagnosing Our Future,” the inaugural presentation in Belmont University’s Gordon E. Inman College of Health Science & Nursing Speaker Series. The event was held on October 13 in the Frist Lecture Hall in the Inman Center on Belmont University’s campus.
The theme of the speaker series, “Diagnosing Our Future,” reflects the call to collaboratively advance new ideas to improve healthcare and healthy living for future generations. The purpose of the series is to connect these ideas with the greater community of Nashville and Middle Tennessee and with students in Belmont’s health science programs who are preparing to serve society as physical therapists, pharmacists, registered nurses, nurse practitioners, occupational therapists, and social workers.
Nursing Professor Recognized as a Health Care Hero
The Nashville Business Journal recently honored professor Jane Shelby as one of the 2009 Health Care Heroes in Middle Tennessee. Shelby is a professor of nursing and the former director of the university’s undergraduate nursing program.
“I am very honored and humbled by this award,” said Shelby. “It really is not an award for me personally but for all the faculty and staff in the School of Nursing who work so hard to prepare our students for their profession.”
Shelby was recognized in the “Behind the Scenes” category along with other local leaders, including Aileen Katcher of Katcher, Vaughn and Bailey Public Relations, Julie Warner from the Matthew Walker Comprehensive Health Center and Jonathan Uttz from Psychiatric Solutions. This was the third annual luncheon to “help celebrate the accomplishments of the leaders, innovators, strategists and caretakers, whose work is helping to grow the region’s health care industry and reinforcing Nashville as the health care capital of the nation.”
Belmont Board Member R. Clayton McWhorter receives award for service
R. Clayton McWhorter has been named the recipient of the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee’s 16th annual Joe Kraft Humanitarian Award. McWhorter, a businessman and former health-care professional, serves as chairman of the board for PharmMD, and he is on the board of trustees for Belmont University.
Belmont Grad appointed to Kansas Occupational Therapy Council
Kansas Governor Mark Parkinson has appointed Angela Petite to that state’s Occupational Therapy Council. Petite, of Leavenworth, Kansas is an occupational therapist for USD 409, Atchison Public Schools, providing assessments and services to children identified with special needs. She attained a master’s degree in occupational therapy from Belmont University and her certification in 2004. The Occupational Therapy Council reviews all applicants for examination and licensure, determines the applicants who successfully pass the examination, licenses applicants and adopts rules and regulations as necessary.
The Maid Escaped Mid-Term
Dr. Ruby Dunlap’s Uganda Fulbright Blog
As Dad and I walk down to the track most mornings around 6:30 AM for exercise, we meet many elementary school children in neat uniforms headed for school. They walk purposefully and soberly but their faces break out into smiles as we greet them. “Good morning,” Dad says, “God bless you. God loves you. Have a good day at school.” And they beam with pleasure, receiving the gift as Dad intended to give it.
We see children outside the campus headed for school in deep purple, bright pink, yellow, orange or green uniforms. The effect is of a moving flower garden. The imagination fast-forwards 5 years, 10 years, and one wonders what kind of man or woman each child will be father or mother of and what kind of world today’s fathers and mothers will leave tomorrow’s. I especially wondered this as I spent a day this week doing school physicals on 43 girls ages 13 to 20 at a secondary boarding school.
Madame Janet visits Mityana
Dr. Ruby Dunlap’s Uganda Fulbright Blog
Uganda’s premier English language newspaper, The New Vision, had this article with the headline, “MEDICAL STAFF ABANDON HOSPITAL IN MITYANA” in the 23 September issue, page 7.
Over 40 medical workers in Mityana Hospital on Monday morning abandoned work, leaving 400 patients unattended to.
The workers went to attend a court session where their four colleagues were charged with manslaughter following the death of a pregnant woman in labor.
Sources in the hospital said workers reportedly agreed not to return to work unless their colleagues were granted bail.
Nurses Jane Nanfuka, Agnes Namirembe, Joy Namutebi and Dorris Nalwanga allegedly refused to attend to Sylvia Nalubowa and her unborn baby last month.
The hospital administrator, Charles Luzira, said the medical workers were not on strike but were only showing solidarity to their colleagues and would return to the hospital after the court session.
The nurses were backed by officials from the national midwives and nurses association.
Chief magistrate Justine Atukwasa granted the accused bail of sh200,000 each which they paid. She then ordered them to return to court on October 6.
I say “Mattress,” you say “Matt-er-ess.”
Dr. Ruby Dunlap’s Uganda Fulbright Blog
“Does the U.S. have a big problem with culture?” asked Eva, her small face full of concern. We had just finished reading and discussing Wellman’s chapter on “The Diverse Learning Needs of Students” in the 2009 Billings’ textbook on Teaching in Nursing. The “problem” in this chapter (pp. 21-22) is expressed partly as a catalogue of failures, failure to recruit sufficient minority nursing students and nursing faculty, failure to adequately support the minority student, etc. “Well, children in the U.S. go to similar schools,” I said, “and almost all of us speak the same language. We do have some cultural issues but I don’t think we have a ‘big problem’ with culture. What about Uganda?”
“Oh, all children in Uganda learn English from the beginning,” she said, taking her cue from me. “We don’t have a big problem with culture in Uganda.” (See photo of Eva, the young woman wearing the black sweater. Christine is busy at the computer in front of Eva who is speaking with Keren.)
“When were you last de-wormed?”
Dr. Ruby Dunlap’s Uganda Fulbright Blog
While in Kampala on Saturday, I received a frantic text message from Bob: “Come home and look at my stomach.” He was indeed in a pitiable state with an intensely itching rash and welts erupting all over him within a few hours. He was having an obvious allergic reaction to something. We thought at first it might be the laundry detergent. Perhaps Amina hadn’t rinsed his clothing sufficiently? I gave him what I had: topical diphenhydramine and also topical cortisone I had purchased at a Mukono pharmacy on the way home. I also had him take Advil PM which has close to 40 mg of diphenhydramine per tablet. That made him sleep and calmed the itching for a little while. But the rash kept growing and I began to get suspicious of the doxycycline. Antibiotics are notorious for causing rashes like the one Bob was having. I instructed him not to take any more doxy and re-washed all of his clothing, rinsing everything until the water was perfectly clear.
This Week in Kampala
Dr. Ruby Dunlap’s Uganda Fulbright Blog
Kampala is a city of unknown millions who, from a distance and from a height, has a lush look to it with many red tiled roofs nestled among trees and rolling hills. Marabou storks are its biggest birds, tall, gaunt, bald-headed carnivorous birds that prefer their meat well-aged. When one sees many of them circling, a ballet of exquisite grace for one of the world’s ugliest birds, one can be sure of a butcher shop close by.
Getting into Kampala from Mukono is a laborious drive of around an hour if one is lucky, the vehicle lurching either to avoid or try to beat other occupants of the road to a coveted spot. Lurching, I might add, in a mix of oily black diesel fumes, red Ugandan dust, and the smell of garbage which litters the roadsides. I had to make this trip four times this week. I have decided the experience gives me sensory data with which the better to enter imaginatively into Dante’s Inferno.
The first trip was on Monday for groceries, a weekly hire of driver and vehicle which has become necessarily routine. The next two trips were for a two day meeting of a Duke University sponsored “partnership to improve the Ugandan health system.” Mike Smith, the chair of health sciences at UCU, had been invited and, in turn, invited Jean Chamberlain, a Canadian OB/GYN who has made it her personal life’s mission to reduce maternal mortality in Uganda, and Edward, the Ugandan physician who heads an undergraduate program in health administration which is funded by another Canadian organization. As it turned out, I was the only nurse invited to the group.
First Class Maps
Dr. Ruby Dunlap’s Uganda Fulbright Blog
“Africans don’t like maps and they don’t use maps,” laughed my Ugandan colleague as he handed Mike Smith’s map to me. Mike wanted me to see the turns in the road, the towns and villages, and the geographical features of the country through which we were traveling from west to east as we headed to Sipi Falls.
“What do you do when you want to get somewhere?” I asked. “Do you just start out in the general direction?” But they laughed as though my question were hardly worth answering. Even without maps, Ugandans are a people on the move and they always seem to end up where they want to be. Ben, our Saturday afternoon speaker for the retreat, told us the chilling story of how Idi Amin had punched him in the face, causing the loss of his eye, and how he had followed the railroad track by foot to escape being murdered by Amin’s henchmen. It took him nine days to walk from Kampala to the Kenyan border to safety, the railroad mapping his path securely.
Ben, at the time the editor of one of Uganda’s English language newspapers, hadn’t caught a typographical error in the headlines. The headline was supposed to read, “Amin Raps Nyerere” or some such other African leader. Someone had inadvertently put an “e” after the “p” in “Raps” and Ben had not caught it before it went to press. Amin was not amused. “Ben is one of the few important people who survived the Amin years,” one of the Ugandans told me later.
Sipi Falls Retreat
Dr. Ruby Dunlap’s Uganda Fulbright Blog
Members who could from UCU’s health sciences department spent the weekend in a retreat at Sipi Falls near the Kenya border. That I survived this experience is testament to a God in heaven. It all began innocently enough with Faith, one of those splendidly capable young women such as Belmont’s school of nursing has in Karen and Heather, telling me “we would do a little walking.” Faith had organized the whole thing, all the meals and the stay at the Crow’s Nest at Sipi Falls. Why that name didn’t make me suspicious I’ll never know.
We loaded up on the school of nursing bus: department head, physician Mike Smith who, besides myself, was the only other expatriate. Faith, Maureen, and Dorothy, department administrative coordinators. Jemimah, the chair of nursing.
Edward, a physician, who is the administrator of a MBA in healthcare. Francis, one of the instructors for their BS in community health, an important non-nursing health profession in developing countries. Clarissa and Selah (pronounced Sell-ah) from the MPH in maternal-infant health. Mike told me it’s actually an MPHL (MPHLeader) degree, open to anyone with a previous bachelor’s degree and very popular; it has UCU’s largest enrollment for a health profession. Tom was our driver. And finally, Grace and the other Faith, two of my MNS students and also faculty for the RN-BNS program. Here’s a photo of our first meal stop, lunch on Friday. I had beans and rice with greens, all delicious.
Finding a Rhythm
Dr. Ruby Dunlap’s Uganda Fulbright Blog
Had it been a philosophical chicken, it certainly would have appreciated Thomas Hobbes and his cynical view of things. From the moment it emerged from its shell, wet and tottering, until it was finally dispatched by someone to be eaten by me and mine, it had lived to eat brutishly and avoid being eaten nastily.
It had been marginally successful in its first ambition and finally unsuccessful in its last. Now, to add insult to injury, I was critically gazing at its scrawny, blue-tinged carcass and wondering why I had paid 12,000 Ugandan shillings for it, roughly about 6 USD.
Chicken, I had been told, is more expensive than beef in Uganda. My experience has validated that. A plump fryer-sized chicken in a Kampala grocery store costs about 16,000 shillings or 8 USD. A pound-sized package of minced (ground) lean beef costs about 1.50 USD. The chicken in my kitchen had been purchased, sight unseen, from someone Karen had said raised really extra good chickens. This must have been one of their bad-chicken days.