Belmont University’s College of Pharmacy recently competed in the American College of Clinical Pharmacology’s (ACCP) Clinical Pharmacy Challenge. Pharmacy students Henry Lim(P4), Sarah Ayers(P4) and Anna Whitwell(P3) participated in the team-based event.
Teams of three students compete against other schools and colleges of pharmacy in a quiz bowl format. This year, a total of 108 teams from across the country competed and Belmont’s team made it to the third round of the competition, consisting of the top 32 teams in the country.
Belmont women’s soccer alumna Alison Alcott, a 2015 graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), has been selected as one of the Top-30 honorees for the 2014 NCAA Woman of the Year award, as announced by the organization on Thursday. She becomes the first student-athlete from the Ohio Valley Conference and the first Bruin to garner the honor.
Ten women from each of the three divisions make up the Top 30, spanning various NCAA sports. Later this month, three finalists from each division will be selected to form the nine finalists for the award.
Earlier this summer, Alcott was tabbed the 2015 Woman of the Year Conference Honoree for the OVC, joining a record 146 other NCAA female student-athletes were also named Woman of the Year honorees by their respective conferences and independent schools. Continue reading →
Belmont College of Pharmacy students Michael Nixon and Brian George recently became certified by examination in the area of health care informatics. The Certified Associate in Healthcare Information and Management Systems (CAHIMS) is a new Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) health IT certification designed for emerging professionals within the industry.
This certification demonstrates knowledge of health IT and management systems, facilitating entry-level careers in health IT and is designed to be a career pathway to the Certified Professional in Healthcare Information and Management Systems (CPHIMS) credential. Continue reading →
Students and faculty from Belmont’s School of Occupational Therapy participated in an afternoon of service at seven Nashville locations on Monday, August 24, as part of new student orientation.
The team of 56 students and faculty members completed a number of projects including delivering household items for refugee families with World Relief, sorting and organizing equipment for children with special needs living overseas with Show Hope and my LIFE speaks, packaging new parent materials for the Down Syndrome Association of Middle Tennessee, completing landscaping at Homeplace, making graduation photo collages for New Beginnings and interacting with clients at Fifty Forward’s adult daycare services.
Through these experiences, incoming students were introduced to organizations around the Belmont community as they were actively involved in service, a key value of the University and a central theme in the Occupational Therapy Doctorate curriculum design.
In an article titled “Nurses Take Lead Role in Treating Depression Among Diabetic Patients” on nurse.com, Belmont Associate Professor of Nursing Jamie Adam was interviewed and quoted about depression in diabetic patients due to her recent work on the topic.
Adam provides information on factors that contribute to depression occurrences including poor health, chronic illness, socioeconomic status and unemployment.
Allison Storrow, a Belmont University junior and nursing major, was recently awarded one of five Promise of Nursing Scholarships from The Foundation of the National Student Nurses’ Association (FNSNA). Overall, 15 students from three states received the award sponsored by Johnson & Johnson’s Campaign for Nursing’s Future. Since 2002, the campaign has raised more than $18 million for undergraduate student nursing scholarships, faculty fellowships and nursing school grants.
The 15 recipients were selected by a scholarship selection committee, made up of faculty and students, who reviewed the hundreds of submitted scholarship applications. For more information on the FNSNA and its scholarship opportunities, click here.
Natalie Cohlmeyer, a current PharmD student and member of Belmont University’s women’s basketball team from Evansville, Indiana, traveled with her teammates this summer to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil as part of a sports evangelism trip. The team partnered with Brentwood Baptist Church for the endeavor, playing games at the 2016 Olympic basketball venue against three different teams including a Brazilian national team in the Bruins’ age group. The team won each contest handily.
“Going into it, I didn’t really know what to expect,” said Cohlmeyer. “We went down to change those kids’ lives and it ended up changing ours.” Continue reading →
F.A. Davis is delighted to announce the winner of its first annual undergraduate nursing scholarship. An award of $1,500.00 will be made to Megan M. Maddox, a student in the BSN fast track nursing program at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee.
Ms. Maddox juggles her full-time studies with two jobs and volunteer work at her church, Cross Point Community, mentoring a group of high school girls. Her hard-earned 3.6 GPA demonstrates her outstanding academic achievements. She’ll complete her degree in December 2016. Continue reading →
Dr. Eric Hobson, professor of pharmacy at Belmont, was recently featured in a story in CrossMap about his service (and that of his family and college) at the Moore Pediatric Surgery Center in Guatemala. CrossMap is a digital Christian living magazine published by The Christian Post.
Dr. Hobson was instrumental in connecting Belmont’s College of Pharmacy with the Moore Center at its inception. The Center was opened in 2011 by The Shalom Foundation in Nashville which owns and operates the facility.
Dr. Hobson provided guidance to students as they created the Center’s pharmacy. “The hospital needed a pharmacy, so I worked with a colleague to design one for the facility and in May of 2011 we brought several students here and opened the pharmacy,” he related. Since then, Belmont student have provided about 95% of the pharmacy services at the Moore Center.
Dr. Amanda Hassen, a 2015 graduate of Belmont University School of Occupational Therapy, was featured in a recent article in Today in OT for her work in teaching swimming skills to children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The effort was part of Hassen’s experiential component as a third-year doctoral student in occupational therapy at Belmont that integrated curricular themes of clinical excellence, scholarship, service and leadership. Continue reading →
Fred O’Neal, a Belmont University College of Pharmacy student, was one of six student presenters at the Tennessee Pharmacist Association’s Annual Convention this summer. In his presentation, “OTC Medication Clinical Pearls and Therapeutic Updates,” O’Neal educated more than 120 pharmacists and students about allergic rhinitis, the determination of allergy severity and recommendations on the best products for use. At the end of his 15-minute presentation, O’Neal provided several examples and a poll to encourage audience participation.
A team from Belmont’s College of Pharmacy recently spent 10 days in Guatemala City, Guatemala as part of a multidisciplinary surgical mission team serving at The Moore Pediatric Surgery Center. Led by Professor of Pharmaceutical, Social and Administrative Sciences Dr. Eric Hobson, three students – Shelby Blalock, Anais Fraire and Tayler Storrs – served the hospital’s hospitality and outreach team, charged with meeting the patients’ and hospital staff’s physical, emotional and spiritual needs. Continue reading →
As a result of meeting the Healthcare Information and Management System Society’s (HIMSS) rigorous standards for quality health IT or healthcare education, Belmont’s College of Pharmacy has been named as a HIMSS Approved Education Partner (AEP).
The College joins an exclusive group of organizations authorized to offer HIMSS-approved review courses and training programs to prepare candidates for advanced knowledge in health IT or healthcare. Additionally, this curriculum serves as a solid foundation to prepare students for the Certified Associate in Healthcare Information & Management Systems (CAHIMS) or Certified Professional in Healthcare Information & Management Systems (CPHIMS) exams. HIMSS sponsors both certifications.
CAHIMS is a new health IT certification designed for emerging professionals within the industry. CPHIMS is a professional certification program for healthcare information and management systems professionals with more than five years’ experience in health IT. Continue reading →
Faculty members from Belmont’s College of Pharmacy Drs. Lindsay Hahn, Ashton Beggs, Leela Kodali and Kristy Wahaib recently published a peer-reviewed therapeutic review article in the American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy. The article, “Vedolizumab: An integrin-receptor antagonist for treatment of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis,” serves as a review of the currently available literature for this newly approved medication. The article was also co-authored by Vanessa Kirkwood, a recent College of Pharmacy graduate.
The American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy publishes peer-reviewed scientific papers on contemporary drug therapy and pharmacy practice innovations in hospitals and health systems. With a circulation of nearly 40,000, it is the most widely recognized and respected clinical pharmacy journal in the world.
As a result of meeting the Healthcare Information and Management System Society’s (HIMSS) rigorous standards for quality health IT or healthcare education, Belmont’s College of Pharmacy has been named as a HIMSS Approved Education Partner (AEP).
The College joins an exclusive group of organizations authorized to offer HIMSS-approved review courses and training programs to prepare candidates for advanced knowledge in health IT or healthcare. Additionally, this curriculum serves as a solid foundation to prepare students for the Certified Associate in Healthcare Information & Management Systems (CAHIMS) or Certified Professional in Healthcare Information & Management Systems (CPHIMS) exams. HIMSS sponsors both certifications.
As a HIMSS Approved Education Partner, Belmont becomes the only pharmacy school in the nation with a Healthcare Informatics concentration leading to an internationally recognized certification in Healthcare Informatics which may be obtained before the students’ experiential rotations, residency inquiries and job searches begin.
CAHIMS is a new health IT certification designed for emerging professionals within the industry. CPHIMS is a professional certification program for healthcare information and management systems professionals with more than five years’ experience in health IT.
Belmont’s program sponsor is Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Informatics and Analytics in the Department of Pharmaceutical, Social and Administrative Sciences Anthony Blash, Pharm.D., BCompSc, CPHIMS. Blash has created a four-course, web-based sequence of classes to prepare Belmont student pharmacists for the CAHIMS certification. The college saw its first two students certify at the CAHIMS level last month and expects twenty to thirty students to certify each year moving forward.
“Nashville is considered by many to be home to the U.S. healthcare industry, with nearly 300 companies providing healthcare synergies found in few other places,” said Blash. “If your interests lie in pharmacy and informatics, our program stands apart. With experiential rotation sites at the headquarters of the largest healthcare organizations in the world, faculty with experiences in the corporate boardrooms of many American healthcare companies and a Pharmacy / Healthcare Informatics experience facilitated by the current national chairman of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists’ Educational Steering Committee on Informatics and Technology, our faculty represents the pinnacle of teaching experience.”
Belmont will expand the CAHIMS certificate program in both self-paced and accelerated formats to professional pharmacists and other healthcare or IT professionals in the very near future.
“We are pleased to welcome The College of Pharmacy at Belmont University as a HIMSS Approved Education Partner,” said JoAnn W Klinedinst, M.Ed., CPHIMS, DES, PMP, FHIMSS. “By earning this AEP designation, The College of Pharmacy has demonstrated that its educational development activities meet the rigorous standards for quality as identified by HIMSS.”
Pictured top row left to right are Dr. Phil Johnston, Dean of Belmont University College of Pharmacy, Dr. Cathy Ficzere, Chair of the Department of Pharmacy Practice at Belmont University College of Pharmacy, Mr. Bob Mifflin, Executive Director of the Christy-Houston Foundation, Gordon B. Ferguson, President and CEO of St. Thomas Rutherford Hospital, Dr. Amy Hodgin, Residency Director at St. Thomas Rutherford Hospital, John Farringer, Director of Pharmacy at St. Thomas Rutherford Hospital. Dr. Nick Brakefield and Dr. Maggie Goodman (Belmont COP ‘15), inaugural residents, are seated.
Belmont University College of Pharmacy initiated their first post-graduate pharmacy residencies earlier this month in cooperation with Saint Thomas Rutherford Hospital and the Christy-Houston Foundation. On July 1, Drs. Maggie Goodman, a 2015 graduate of Belmont’s PharmD program, and Nick Brakefield, a 2015 graduate of Auburn University’s PharmD program, started their year-long residency.
Dr. Philip Johnston, Dean of the College of Pharmacy, remarked, “We are very excited about the partnership with Christy-Houston Foundation and Saint Thomas Rutherford Hospital. It is an excellent practice and location to establish a pharmacy residency program. Drs. Hodgin and Farringer will serve as wonderful role models and mentors along with various health care personnel. This helps create jobs in Rutherford county, where the Christy-Houston Foundation focuses, it helps the hospital expand its clinical and administrative services, and helps Belmont establish additional training sites.” Continue reading →
On the heels of being selected as the Belmont University nominee for the 2015 NCAA Woman of the Year award, recent Belmont nursing and women’s soccer alumna Alison Alcott (Dallas, Texas) received another honor from the NCAA. She was named the 2015 Woman of the Year Conference Honoree for the Ohio Valley Conference.
In May, Alcott was presented the 2015 Ohio Valley Conference Steve Hamilton Sportsmanship Award for her stellar career on the pitch and in the classroom along with good sportsmanship and citizenship, becoming only the second women women’s player to garner the honor. Continue reading →
A few weeks ago I had the privilege of traveling to China. The group I traveled with included a faculty representative from each of the College of Health Science disciplines (Social Work, Nursing, Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy), and 4 gentlemen who work at the Show Hope Foundation. The major purpose of the trip was for the Belmont CHS faculty to see the Show Hope operations in China and to explore possible ways our students could learn and serve there as a part of Show Hope, whether through short term mission trips or longer term clinical and field experiences.
When I tell people I went to China, most people are curious if we got to visit the Great Wall. We did! We were able to spend a day in Beijing before traveling back to the states, and we visited the wall from outside that city. It was, of course, an amazing experience to be able to climb part of it and walk along it. To think of how that structure was built before modernized tools, and how it still stands firmly today (at least in the place we visited) is really a testament to human capability. I am so glad I got to experience this, what a privilege! You can see all of our CHS disciplines represented in this picture from the Great Wall, at noon on a very hot summer day!
But I want to tell you also about another wall in China, a wall on the 6th floor of Maria’s Big House of Hope (MBHOH) in Luoyang, China. Continue reading →
Sara Thompson, a fourth year Pharmacy student at Belmont University, was recently chosen as a Walmart Scholar by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP). The program recognizes select students and their faculty mentors in an effort to strengthen the recipient’s skills and commitment to a career in academic pharmacy. Dr. Edgar Diaz-Cruz, Assistant Professor of Pharmacy, serves as Thompson’s mentor.
In speaking of Thompson, Dr. Diaz-Cruz said, “It is refreshing to see such maturity , determination, and passion for academic pharmacy and patient education in a pharmacy student.” Thompson is interested in medical Spanish and health disparities as experienced in the Hispanic community. After pharmacy school, she plans to pursue a residency with a teaching certificate program and has a career goal to join academia as a faculty member in pharmacy practice.
The Scholar program provides scholarships to student-faculty pairs to attend the AACP annual meeting and Teachers Seminar which was recently held in National Harbor, Maryland.
When doctorate of nursing practice student Jennifer Quigley realized she would be the first Belmont recipient of the Frist Global Health Fellowship, she said she was eager to use her passion for global health to implement a plan for teaching health care providers in Cap-Haitien, Haiti a modern method of natural family planning. Her trip was born of a partnership between Belmont’s College of Health Sciences and Nursing and the organization Hope Through Healing Hands, which was founded by Former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, M.D.
Although the goal of the trip was to assist the Haitian people, Quigley was quick to say the trip was life-changing for her, as well. “I learned so much more from the Haitian people than they learned from me. I have never seen a more joyous people, full of life and love, and each was eager to show me love. Though they did not have much, I never went hungry, and I always had water. They joyfully give, even if they have so little to start with,” she said. “I also had the opportunity to deliver a baby, with only one other nurse, no drugs and not sterile equipment — only a clean room and the two of us. It was an experience I will hold with me for the rest of my life.” Continue reading →
Sixteen Belmont faculty and staff members attended and contributed to the 2015 American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) joint meeting with the Association of Faculties of Pharmacy of Canada, recently held in National Harbor, Maryland.
Due to changes in the pharmacy market and pharmacy practice act and the number of new schools, this year’s conference, attended by approximately 2,000 people, was particularly active. Continue reading →
Rising junior exercise science and Spanish major Morgan Tweddle has spent the last two months shadowing three Ph.D. candidates for the School of Kinesiology at Texas A&M as a lab assistant, aiding in data collection and gaining experience in the field she hopes to join.
Tweddle’s main focus has been an infant intervention called “tummy time,” an intentional placing of an infant on their stomach during play time that has been proven to build core muscles, allowing infants to explore their surroundings sooner and begin their cognitive development. In the candidates’ study, the researchers looked specifically at the effects of tummy time on infants with Down Syndrome. Tweddle collected data and evaluated the babies’ developmental progress.
The researchers used two motor tests, the Bayley and the Peabody, taken monthly to measure the infant’s development. The tests take each child through a series of different skill sets and movements, and the baby’s progress is scored based on their results. A previous study found average scores of infants with and without Down Syndrome without the use of tummy time. There was a profound gap between the progression of the infants – tummy time is intended to close that gap.
Tweddle and her team used the previous study for comparison purposes as they added the prescribed 90-minute/day tummy time regimen to a group of babies with and without Down Syndrome. Tweddle explained that the results indicate “the infants with Down Syndrome who have tummy time are remaining at the same developmental level as those without for a longer period of time before there is a gap in their development.” Therefore, with tummy time, the developmental gap is much smaller.
Seeing the impact of these results, Tweddle said she now understands the importance of her work. “Our most exciting example of this was a baby we worked with who has Down Syndrome who started walking at 16 months – the national average is 24 months! It was incredible. Now that he can walk, explore his surroundings and continue his cognitive and social development, he can live life more fully,” she said.
It was through Belmont’s Alpha Epsilon Delta Pre-Medical Honor Society that Tweddle first heard of the opportunity and was chosen through an application in the spring semester. “Through my job at the gym, I went in comfortable with resume writing and interview processes, both of which I think helped me to secure a position there at all,” she said. Tweddle is a personal trainer and yoga instructor at Belmont’s Fitness and Recreation Center, both of which, she says, are similar to the personal interaction and movements necessary to be a successful physical therapist.
One of Tweedle’s favorite parts of the program was the day spent at the Texas State Special Olympics to provide health screenings for athletes.
Post graduation, Tweddle plans to attend physical therapy school to obtain both a Doctor of Physical Therapy, allowing her to practice in a clinical setting, and a Ph.D., allowing her to conduct research and teach. Tweddle explained that this opportunity gave her new excitement for her future goals. “I am a planner, and this gave me a look at one of the possible roads I can take. God led me to this opportunity, and it is exciting to see His plan for me starting to unfold,” she said.
Destin Lenz and Kelsie Graham, third year Belmont pharmacy students, recently attended the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists 2015 Summer Meeting in Denver, Colorado. Lenz and Graham serve as president and vice president, respectively, in Belmont’s Student Society of Health-System Pharmacists (SSHP).
This year’s meeting had the highest attendance of any in nearly a decade, consisting of four content-targeted conferences including the Ambulatory Care Conference, Informatics Institute, Medication Safety Collaboration and Pharmacy, Practice and Policy.
The duo participated in a student leadership development workshop focused on leadership opportunities in pharmacy practice and attended a session entitled, “A Student’s Guide to Provider Status,” where updates on the latest developments in provider status legislation were discussed. In addition, they attended poster presentations, a session exclusively for students entitled, “Career and Life Success,” and a number of educational seminars on a variety of topics.
Alumni Jenny and Evan Owens may not have ever gone through basic training, much less served in combat, but the couple has still developed a passion for ministering to soldiers and their families. In fact, helping soldiers overcome the spiritual wounds of war has become this couple’s mission and led to them founding REBOOT Combat Recovery in 2011.
Jenny received her B.A. from Belmont in 2005 followed by a doctorate in occupational therapy, also from Belmont, in 2007. After graduating, she worked in neuro-rehabilitation at Vanderbilt and then with patients suffering traumatic brain injuries at the Warrior Resiliency and Recovery Center at Fort Campbell’s Blanchfield Army Community Hospital. Continue reading →
Rising senior social work major Rebecca Sanders trekked many miles and asked many difficult questions during Professor Dr. Andy Watt’s Maymester program as she and her team learned the history of the western U.S.’s land and people.
The trip began May 12 on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, where Sanders met with tribal elders and local artists to hear their stories and visit important, local sites. The next stop was the Crow Reservation in Montana to learn about the Battle of Little Big Horn and Crow culture. Soon after, the group traveled to Yellowstone National Park to participate in the park’s Wolf and Bear Exploration and Cody, Wyoming for the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. The trip concluded May 29 in Keystone, South Dakota with stops at Mt. Rushmore, the Crazy Horse Memorial, Sylvan Lake and Badlands National Park. Continue reading →
Belmont University’s College of Pharmacy recently competed in the American College of Clinical Pharmacology’s (ACCP) Clinical Pharmacy Challenge. Pharmacy students Henry Lim(P4), Sarah Ayers(P4) and Anna Whitwell(P3) participated in the team-based event.
