News
Faculty Member Inducted into American Academy of Nursing
Dr. Donna Fick, GCNS-BC, FGSA, associate professor in Penn State’s School of Nursing, was inducted into the American Academy of Nursing (AAN), as one of its 2009 fellows. She was nominated for this honor by two current AAN fellows and was selected by the AAN’s fifteen-member Fellow Selection Committee for her outstanding achievements in the nursing profession. Fick was inducted along with ninety-seven other nurse leaders at AAN’s annual awards ceremony and induction banquet in Atlanta, Georgia, on November 7, 2009. Read the full story.
Collaborative Program Emphasizes Team-Based Learning Between Nursing and Medical School Students
A new collaborative initiative between Penn State’s School of Nursing (SON) and Penn State College of Medicine (COM) brings together nursing students and medical students in a team-based approach to reducing medical errors and associated costs. The program, one of just six in the nation funded by the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, will join medical and nursing students at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in a series of workshops that focus on safety and quality issues. Read the full story.
School of Nursing Magazine
The 2009 edition of Penn State Nursing is available at www.hhdev.psu.edu/nurs/news/magazine.html.
Nursing professor receives lifetime achievement award
Dr. Mona Counts, Elouise Ross Eberly Professor in the School of Nursing, was awarded a lifetime achievement award by the Retail Clinician, Drug Store News, and the Convenient Care Association. The award honors nurse practitioners “who go above and beyond the call of duty to achieve excellence in patient care” over a lifetime.
Counts, only the second person to receive this honor, received her award at the Retail Clinician Education Congress, held at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin, Orlando, Florida, August 3-5. Counts, was also the keynote speaker at the conference, presenting on the future of nurse practitioners. Read the full story at www.hhdev.psu.edu/news/2009/8_6_09_counts.html.
Professor makes reform suggestions at White House health care meeting
Dr. Mona Counts, Elouise Ross Eberly Professor in the School of Nursing, visited the White House on Thursday, July 2, to participate in a health care discussion with health care professionals and the White House Office of Health Reform. Counts and the nurse practitioner contingent at the meeting recommended that all nurse practitioners be utilized to their full capabilities as care providers. Currently, some health insurance companies do not provide sufficient recognition to nurse practitioners, which creates a problem with providing care in the United States. Read the full story at www.hhdev.psu.edu/news/2009/7_22_09_counts.html.
Fenstermacher named National Research Service Award (NRSA) recipient
Kim Fenstermacher, doctoral candidate in Nursing, is a 2009 recipient of the
Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA). This is a
predoctoral fellowship that provides individuals with research training in
specific health-related areas leading toward the research degree (Ph.D.).
The faculty sponsor for the NRSA is Dr. Judy Hupcey, associate professor of
nursing at Hershey. The co-sponsor is Dr. Elizabeth Susman, Jean Phillips
Shibley Professor of Biobehavioral Health at Penn State. The title of
Fenstermacher's proposal is "Perinatal Loss and Bereavement in Non-Hispanic
Black Adolescents."
School of Nursing holds ribbon-cutting ceremony for new Simulation Lab
The School of Nursing hosted a forty-fifth anniversary celebration weekend in April, which brought together alumni, students, staff, and faculty together to learn about the school’s history and future. One highlight of the weekend was a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the newly renovated Nursing Simulation Laboratory.
Read more about the Nursing Simulation Laboratory.
Jablonski Awarded Brookdale Fellowship
Rita Jablonski, assistant professor of nursing, is the recipient of a Brookdale Leadership in Aging fellowship. Beginning in July, she will spend two years researching ways to improve nurses’ provision of mouth care to people with dementia who resist care. Read the full story.
School of Nursing 45th Anniversary Celebration Weekend
Please join the Penn State School of Nursing for a celebration weekend in honor of its 45th-year anniversary April 24-25, 2009 at the University Park campus.
Activities throughout the weekend include a ribbon-cutting ceremony to unveil the new Simulation Laboratory; scholarly forums focusing on current nursing research at Penn State; and a celebration banquet hosted by past directors and the current dean, Dr. Paula Milone-Nuzzo.
See details of the celebration weekend at:
www.hhdev.psu.edu/nurs/celebration.
Second Degree Option Allows Students with Bachelor's Degrees to Obtain Accelerated Nursing B.S. Degree
The University and the State Board of Nursing recently approved a new Nursing program, known as the Second Degree option, that allow students who have obtained a non-Nursing bachelor's degree to pursue a Nursing B.S. degree in a shortened time frame. All prospective students will go through a review process, and must have met all prerequisite course requirements.
The program includes a rigorous sixteen-month educational curriculum that combines course work with numerous hours of clinical practice at facilities surrounding Penn State Altoona. After earning the bachelor's degree, students will be eligible to take the national examination for licensure as registered nurses (NCLEX - R.N.).
At this time, this option is only available at Penn State Altoona. The first class of twenty will be admitted for fall 2009.
For more information, please contact Suzanne Kuhn (Penn State Altoona) at skk6@psu.edu.
Summer 2009 MACaN (Minority Advanced Careers In Nursing) Application Available
Summer 2009 MaCaN Application is now available. For additional information, please contact Lisa Kitko, MACaN director at lah150@psu.edu.
Accelerated RN to BS Program to be implemented
An “Accelerated RN to BS Program” will be implemented at two Penn State Campuses beginning fall 2008. Contact Suzanne Kuhn (Penn State Altoona) at skk6@psu.edu or Melissa Miner (Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus) at mbm12@psu.edu for more information.
School of Nursing to host Homecoming Alumni & Student Pre-parade Party
Please plan to join us on October 17th from 5-6:30 pm, for the annual School of Nursing Homecoming Parade Party on the verandah of Health & Human Development East (the entrance facing College Avenue), University Park. This event will provide great fun, good food, and a time when alumni and students can get together. This location also provides one of the best have the best viewing spots for watching Penn State's Homecoming Parade!
Kitko selected to 2008 Grantmakers in Aging Fellows Program
Lisa Kitko, Penn State Nursing Instructor and Ph.D. candidate, was one of seven graduate and post-doctoral students selected to the 2008 Grantmakers in Aging (GIA) Fellows Program. Kitko was offered the GIA Fellowship to attend the annual conference in October in Princeton, New Jersey. The theme of this year's conference is "The Power of Knowledge: Lighting the way for bold advances in aging philanthropy."
Outreach and Continuing Education Online Courses Available
The School of Nursing announces a new portal for online continuing education courses for nurses. These courses are offered continuously for Online CE.
At completion of a CE course students will recieve a certificate for the appropriate amount of contact hours.
Penn State School of Nursing is an approved provider of continuing nursing education by the PA State Nurses Association, an accredited approver by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.
Brown receives multi-year grant
Dr. Raymonde Brown received a multi-year grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), D11HP09763-01-00 for Nurse Education Practice and Retention, July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2011 to implement an Accelerated RN to BS Program at two Penn State campuses (Penn State Altoona and Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus). The project will admit three cohorts, graduate 100 BS prepared RNs during the funding period and develop a program expansion plan to other Penn State Campuses.
Nursing Magazine
School of Nursing Magazine: Summer 2008
Board of Trustees approves administrative change for School of Nursing
We are pleased to announce that at its meeting on May 16th, the Board of Trustees approved a proposal for an administrative structure change for the School of Nursing. This change will allow for the School of Nursing to become its own academic unit operating with a dean. Read the full story about the restructuring.
Nursing faculty receives grant
Patricia Sweeney MS, CRNP has received the Dempster 2008 NP Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant from the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners Foundation.
Hershey Chronicle: 
Partnership connects the generations : Future nurses discover a different side of growning old.
AACN 2008 NTI & Critical Care Exposition
Sandra O’Sullivan, a instructor at the Hershey campus presented 90 minute concurrent session at the National Teaching Institute of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses in May, 2008 to over 400 participants on "Necrotizing Fasciitis: A Flesh-eating Disease."
Type Necrotizing Fasciitis: Flesh-eating Disease (page 619)
Nursing Program Improvement Model Accepted for Presentation at Educational Summit
A Novel 21st Century Nursing Program Improvement Model by Dr. Linda C. Carl, instructor of nursing, has been accepted for poster presentation during the National League for Nursing 2008 Education Summit conference on the Power of Diversity in Nursing Education: Embracing Differences in Heritage & Thought.
The Research examined NCLEX-RN pass-fail rates in relation to attrition rates, demographics, student achievement levels, administrative educational levels, and Assessment Technology Institute test scores. Recommendations to change how nursing programs are assessed, regulated, and accredited was supported by an innovative dichotomous nursing program/student pass-fail metric that was created to prospectively evaluate nursing program improvement in tandem with student achievement levels throughout the course of the nursing program.
The conference will be held in September in San Antonio Texas. Dr Carl's research was one of thirty-six selected out of 404 presentation submissions after a judicious peer review process.
Jablonski Appointed to Nursing Home Collaborative
Rita Jablonski, PhD, RN, has been appointed to the HCGNE Nursing Home Collaborative. The HCGNE Nursing Home Collaborative was formed in 2006 to address the challenges currently being faced in our nations’ nursing homes. Since the early 1950's, when the federal government first required states to establish some form of licensing for nursing homes, the nursing home industry in the United States has grown to serve millions of people in tens of thousands of facilities.
Initially conceptualized as providing long-term care, nursing homes have evolved over the past twenty years to include multiple levels of care for residents with high levels of acuity and or highly complex care needs. This change, along with complex funding and regulatory structures that have developed over time, have created challenges for those who care for residents in nursing homes, including nurses. The Nursing Home Collaborative aims to find solutions to these challenges.
Nursing student receives award
At the 20th Anniversary Scientific Sessions of the Easter Nursing Regional Society Conference Penn State nursing student Kathy Wilt received the 2nd place award for the “Outstanding MS Poster Presentation” for her poster entitled “The Association of Anticholinergic Burden with Mental Status Changes in Hospitalized Older Adults with Dementia.” The poster presentation was based on Kathy’s Schreyer’s Honors Thesis work in which she examined the association of subjects’ anticholinergic medication burden and both delirium and cognitive status changes throughout hospitalization.
Penn State and University of Pennsylvania nursing centers collaborate
At the 20th Anniversary Scientific Sessions of the Eastern Nursing Regional Society Conference, the Penn State and University of Pennsylvania HCGNEs, co-sponsored a reception to highlight the collaboration efforts between the two Centers. The collaborative activities include:
- Leveraging resources
- Sponsoring Joint Hartford Scholars Seminars
- Designing innovative doctoral courses
- Partnering to disseminate “best practices”
- Synergistic faculty/student exchange
Nursing faculty receive grants
Two faculty members of the Hartford Center, Dr. Janice Penrod and Dr. Judith Hupcey, have been awarded mutli-year research grants investigating caregiver and palliative care needs:
Penrod, J. & Hupcey, J. E., Exploring the informal/formal caregiver interface across 3 death trajectories. NIH/National Institute of Nursing Research, 1R01 NR010127-01, 2008/2012
Hupcey, J. E., Penrod, J., & Boehmer, J. Investigation of palliative care needs of elderly heart failure patients and their spousal caregivers. The American Heart Association, Pennsylvania/Delaware Affiliate, Grant-in-Aid program. 2006/2008
Fick authors new paper
Dr. Donna Fick is the first author on a new "How To Try This" that will be coming out in January 2008 titled, "How To Try This - Delirium Superimposed on Dementia: An algorithm for detecting and managing this underrecognized confluence of conditions." A video will accompany the paper and both will be available at www.nursingcenter.com/library/static.asp?pageid=730390.
Fick is currently working on a video that discusses medication use and will be available Spring 2008. In addition to her other responsibilities, Fick is an editorial consultant for the American College of Physicians—Physicians' Information and Education Resource (pier) Drug Prescribing in the Older Patient Module. Pier is a comprehensive overview of prescribing in older adults that is updated regularly to provide authoritative, evidence-based guidance to improve clinical care.
Loeb receive multi-year grant
Dr Susan Loeb recently received a multi-year grant from the National Institute on Aging, 1R03AG029544-01, $82,000 Direct Costs, September 30, 2007 – August 31, 2009, to investigate “Factors influencing the health-promotion behaviors of older male inmates." Loeb was also the recipient of the 2007 Springer Publishing Company Award in Geriatric/Gerontological Nursing for a Distinguished Single Work of Research on Applied Geriatric Nursing Award. She received her award at The Gerontological Society of America’s 60th Annual Scientific Meeting in San Francisco, CA.