FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                   

For more information, contact:

The University of Tennessee Health Science Center

Communications and Marketing

Sheila Champlin – (901) 448-4957 or

Dena Owens – (901) 448-4072

 

College of Nursing Faculty Members at

 The University of Tennessee Health Science Center

To Receive Nearly $3.5 Million in Grant Awards 

____________________________________________________

Memphis, Tenn. (July 28, 2009) – Donna Hathaway, PhD, FAAN, dean and professor in the College of Nursing at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC), announced that seven faculty members in the college have been awarded a total of $3,481,286 in grant funding.  The funds will be used to help develop young nurse researchers, evaluate the effectiveness of advanced nursing education initiatives, support improvements for care of the mentally ill, prepare nurses to care for both crime victims and perpetrators, improve core nursing skills to better meet the needs of the medically underserved, and increase the competencies of students and experienced nurses in use and application of information technology.      

“The receipt of these competitive national grants is further recognition of the outstanding academic programs offered through the Health Science Center’s College of Nursing,” Dean Hathaway observed.  The college is the leading producer of graduate nurses and nursing faculty in the region and is a nationally recognized change agent in nursing education.  

 Ann Cashion, PhD, professor and chair in Acute and Chronic Care, will receive $35,527 in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  The funding, which runs from July 14, 2009, to September 1, 2010, is a supplemental grant that will support summer research experiences for students and science educators.  In a previously funded NIH parent grant titled, “Genetics, Environment, and Weight Gain Posttransplant,” Dr. Cashion is trying to determine factors associated with weight gain, including genetic factors, during the first year after kidney transplantation. 

Patricia Cunningham, DNSc, associate professor of Primary Care and Public Health, will receive $770,651 through HRSA, the Health Resources and Services Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  The funds are designated for Advanced Nursing Education, with the term of the grant set from July 14, 2009, through June 2012.  Based on the principle that provision of mental health services in primary care settings promotes more effective health care access, this program will enhance Mental Health/Substance-Use (MH-SU) knowledge and clinical practice for advanced education nurses in the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program at the UTHSC College of Nursing.  Family Nurse Practitioners/DNP students and their preceptors will collaborate with Psychiatric Mental Health DNP faculty during clinical rotations to improve the knowledge, clinical skills and attitudes to support an effi­cient and effective nursing workforce.

Veronica Engle, PhD, professor of Primary Care and Public Health, will receive $12,144 from the Methodist Healthcare Foundation in a grant that began May 1, 2009, and will run through April 2010.  The project will identify the effects of the Dedicated Education Unit (DEU) at Methodist University Hospital (MUH), including the impact on personnel, performance and on UTHSC College of Nursing students who rotate through the unit.  A DEU is an innovative academic-practice partnership that provides an optimal teaching-learning environment.  Organized through the collaboration of nurses, faculty and management, the Methodist University Hospital DEU is one of the first units of its kind in the southeastern United States, and one of only a few nationwide.

Leslie McKeon, PhD, assistant professor of Acute and Chronic Care, earned a total of $713,688 in a HRSA grant for Advanced Nursing Education, which runs from July 2009 through June 2012.  The award supports the development and evaluation of the College of Nursing's new Master’s Entry Clinical Nurse Leader (CNL) program.  Specific outcomes of the grant include evaluation of CNL core competencies in the curriculum; development of effective strategies to recruit and retain a qualified diverse student cohort through graduation; development of core content for faculty for CNL certification; development of web-based simulation to teach CNL competencies; and continued development and evaluation of the MUH DEUs. 

Susan Patton, DNSc, associate professor of Primary Care and Public Health, will receive $167,000 through HRSA in the sixth year of funding for advanced practice forensic nursing education development.  The one-of-a-kind program prepares Doctor of Nursing Practice students to care for victims of injury and violence as well as perpetrators of crime.  Graduates are qualified not only as nurse practitioners but also credentialed as Advanced Practice Forensic Nurses who are expert in unique skills such as sexual assault examination, medical legal death investigation, correctional care, and consultation to legal justice entities. 

Cynthia Russell, PhD, RN, professor in Acute and Chronic Care, has been awarded a $974,294 grant from HRSA to fund the Learning Information Seeking and Technology for Evidence-based Nursing (LISTEN) Project.  The project began in July 2007 and will run through June 2010.  The LISTEN Project targets students and faculty at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and Baptist College of Health Sciences as well as workforce nurses at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Memphis.  The project is designed to improve students’ and nurses’ information technology, information seeking, and information application competencies.  Through improving these skills, the program will enhance the abilities of members of the target groups to provide evidence-based nursing care that will result in positive patient outcomes as well as positive nursing outcomes.

Patricia Speck, DNSc, assistant professor of Primary Care and Public Health, will receive a total of $807,982 in HRSA grant funding for Advanced Nursing Education also over three years, July 2009 through June 2012.  This project is designed to double the number of Public Health Nursing (PHN) Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) graduates and enhance technical competencies by provision of an annual technical assistance workshop.  The curriculum will build PHN competency skills through advanced nursing education, targeting graduate PHN faculty from historically Black colleges and universities, as well as PHNs working in disadvantaged areas.

As the flagship statewide academic health system, the mission of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center is to bring the benefits of the health sciences to the achievement and maintenance of human health, with a focus on the citizens of Tennessee and the region, by pursuing an integrated program of education, research, clinical care, and public service.   Offering a broad range of postgraduate training opportunities, the main campus is located in Memphis and includes six colleges: Allied Health Sciences, Dentistry, Graduate Health Sciences, Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy.  UTHSC has additional colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy plus an Allied Health Sciences unit in Knoxville, as well as a College of Medicine campus in Chattanooga.  For more information, visit www.uthsc.edu.

###