Honors, Awards, and Other News: July/August 2014

Grants

Patricia Stone, PhD, RN, FAAN, Centennial Professor of Health Policy,  is principal investigator of a newly-funded research supplement to promote diversity in health-related research awarded to “Prevention of Nosocomial Infections and Cost Effectiveness in Nursing Homes (PNICE-NH),” which will support the dissertation research of Columbia Nursing PhD student, Jasmine Travers.  Travers will take the lead on scholarly work needed to further the PNICE-NH goals of understanding best practices related to health care associated infection (HAI) prevention practices.  This $130,000 supplement is funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research of the National Institutes of Health for two years.

PhD student Catherine Crawford Cohen is Principal Investigator of a newly-funded Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral National Research Service Award (NRSA) entitled, “Multi-Drug Resistant Infections and Isolation Precautions in Nursing Homes.”  Cohen will evaluate nationwide isolation precaution use and multi-drug resistant infection risk in nursing homes.  This $80,000 individual fellowship award is funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research of the National Institutes of Health for two years to support Cohen’s career development and dissertation work.

The Milbank Foundation for Rehabilitation awarded $45,000 to Columbia Nursing towards scholarships for students pursuing the pediatric palliative and end-of-life care subspecialties.

Publications

Rebecca Schnall, PhD, RN, assistant professor, was the lead author of “eHealth Interventions for HIV Prevention in High-Risk Men Who Have Sex with Men: A Systematic Review,” published in Journal of Medical Internet Research. PhD student Jasmine Travers was also an author.

Honors and Presentations

Multiple faculty members attended the Nursing Informatics International Congress, American Medical Informatics Association 2014 in Taipei, Taiwan. Among the work showcased: Suzanne Bakken, PhD, RN, FAAN, FACMI, the Alumni Professor of Nursing and Professor of Biomedical informatics  was a plenary speaker and spoke on “Big Data- The Promise and the Peril: Implications for Nursing Informatics.” Adriana Arcia, PhD, RN, assistant professor, presented a tutorial “Development and Testing of Visualizations of Personal Health Data,” with Suzanne Bakken. Dawn Dowding, PhD, VNSNY Professor of Nursing,  presented a poster “Assessing and Managing Pain in Patients with Dementia in Acute Care Settings: Developing a Decision Support Tool.” Michelle Odlum, PhD, postdoctoral research scientist, presented “Exploring Factors Related to the Adoption and Acceptance of an Internet-based Electronic Personal Health Management Tool (EPHMT) in a Low Income, Special Needs Population of People Living with HIV and AIDS in New York City.” Sunmoo Yoon, PhD, postdoctoral research scientist presented “Using a Data Mining Approach to Discover Behavior Correlates of Chronic Disease: A Case Study of Depression. ” Suzanne Bakken, was also an author of this paper. In addition, she presented a tutorial “Data Mining Approach of Big Data for Health,” presented on a panel discussion “Triangulation Approaches to Evaluation Methods of Health IT,” and presented a poster, “Do Jogging-related Tweets Reveal Motivation Theory Concepts?”

Jeffrey Kwong, DNP, MPH, ANP-BC, ACRN, AAHIVS, program director, Adult-Gerontology Nurse Practitioner Program, presented  “HIV Nursing: The Past, The Present, and the Future,” at the Greater New York Association of Nurses in AIDS Care 25th Anniversary Conference. In addition, he was a featured  speaker at two conferences sponsored by New York's Clinical Education Initiative and the New York/New Jersey AIDS Education & Training Center speaking on "HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis: Implementation in Real World Settings," in Buffalo, NY and at Baruch College in New York, NY.

Marlene McHugh, DNP, FNP, assistant professor of nursing, presented “Teaching Students Interprofessional Team Skills: Education Frameworks, Competency-Based Objectives and Instructional Resources,” at  an interprofessional education medical school clerkship retreat at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Michele Odlum, PhD,  postdoctoral research scientist, was selected as a fellow for The OpEd Project- which trains women to write publishable Op-eds.

Jeff Struthers ’06 ’07 presented “Blood Products: Limited Resource, Limitless Access: Where Should Medical Futility Draw the Line?” at the Critical Care Grand Rounds at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital Heart Center.

Briefs

Judith Aponte PhD ‘04  received an award for “Advancing and Leading the Profession” at the Nurse.com Nursing Nursing Excellence Giving Excellence Meaning Awards ceremony.    She attended the event with former advisor Mary Byrne, PhD, DNP, MPH, Stone Foundation and Elise D. Fish Professor of Health Care for the Underserved in Nursing.

Anita Nirenberg, PhD, RN, FAAN, AOCNP, ‘96, ‘09, Received 2014 Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) Lifetime Achievement Award.  The award recognizes her outstanding contributions as an oncology nurse researcher, mentor, and educator as well as her service to ONS and the community at large. She was honored for the award recently at ONS’s 39th Annual Congress in Anaheim, CA.

More than 400 graduates were welcomed into the Columbia Nursing Alumni Association.  Ilana Kresch ’13 ’14 received the Alumni Association Award during the ceremony, which is presented to the graduate who has demonstrated active commitment to developing and maintaining alumni support for the school. 

Dean Bobbie Berkowitz will lead a nursing delegation to Vietnam open to Columbia Nursing alumni and friends from November 7-16, 2014.  For more information: http://bit.ly/NursingVietnam

Six Combined BS/MS students returned from a clinical rotation in La Romana, Dominican Republic. This year's nursing students, under the preceptorship of Jennifer Dohrn, DNP, CNM, director, Office of Global Initiatives,  implemented standardized BMI data in patient charting, supplemental antiretroviral side effect information for all patients, and initiated a new preventative health program that will be added to the list of clinic services. 

Marianne Caskran of the Helene Fuld Health Trust met with Associate Dean for Academic and Student Affairs Judy Honig, DNP,  and student scholarship recipients Karina Gardela-Mazur, Aaron Greenberg, Caitlin Taylor Harskamp, Doreen Kramer, and Scott Michener.