Dean's Monthly Communication: April 2007

Message from Dean Woods
I'd like to reiterate how excited I am to see us, once again, at the top of the nursing school rankings by U.S. News & World Report. This is a time for all of us—faculty, students and staff—to stop for a moment and give ourselves a well-deserved pat on the back.

We have been fortunate to rank No. 1 in the nation for 24 years now, and it is special every time it happens. We are privileged to share the national spotlight on nursing leadership with top-ranked peers such as University of California-San Francisco and University of Pennsylvania.

I know we have the skills, the people and the motivation to continue being innovators and leaders in our field. I hope this latest recognition from our nursing school peers gives everyone renewed energy for pursuing your goals and helping make the UW SoN the best school it can be!
—Nancy Fugate Woods, PhD, RN, FAAN


New Grant Awards
Please join me in congratulating the following faculty for receiving new grant awards.

Ya-mei Chen, acting asst. prof, Dept. of PCH
Project 1: Disability and the Use of Home- and Community-Based Services Used by the Elderly
Sponsor: SoN Research and Intramural Funding Program (RIFP)

Project 2: Home- and Community-Based Service Model for Taiwanese Elderly
Sponsor: Liteon Foundation

Ardith Doorenbos, asst. prof., Dept. of BNHS
Project: Enhancing End-of-Life Communication Between Clinicians and Family Caregivers
Sponsor: SoN Center for Women's Health and Gender Research

Cynthia Dougherty, assoc. prof., Dept. of BNHS
Project: Reducing Health Care Utilization in Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator Care
Sponsor: SoN-RIFP

Catherine Kirkness, research assoc. prof, Dept. of BNHS
Project: A Telephone Intervention to Improve Symptom Management in Subarachnoid Hemorrhage Survivors
Sponsor: SoN Center for Women's Health and Gender Research

William Lober, assoc. prof., Dept. of BNHS
Project: King County Care Information System
Sponsor: Department of Human Services

Susan McCurry, research assoc. prof, Dept. of PCH
Project: The Long-Term Care Awareness Campaign, "Own Your Future": Program Evaluation in the State of Washington
Sponsor: SoN-RIFP


Faculty
Sheri Hill, lecturer, Dept. of FCN, and faculty lead on policy at CIMHD, was named a ZERO TO THREE Fellow in honor of her ongoing work to instill infant mental health principles in family court system. She also has been invited to join the 2007 ZERO TO THREE Leaders for the 21st Century Fellowship Program. Hill has conducted "Through the Eyes of the Infant" trainings throughout Washington state and beyond, and will soon launch a court-based intervention project for infants, young children and families whose lives intersect with the dependency court system. To learn more, visit the ZERO TO THREE Web site.

Linda Teri, prof., Dept. of PCH, has been named a member of the National Institute of Mental Health Interventions Committee for Disorders Related to Schizophrenia, Late Life, or Personality (ITSP). She will serve on the committee from 2007–2011. More information about the committee is available on the NIMH Web site.

Noel Chrisman, prof., Dept. of PCH, recently attended the invitational Conference on Race, Human Variation, and Disease: Consensus and Frontiers in Warrenton, Virginia. Funded by the Ford Foundation and the National Science Foundation, it is part of a 10-year project by the American Anthropological Association called "Race: Are We So Different?" Participants included social scientists (mostly medical anthropologists), geneticists (both from biology and anthropology), health scientists (mostly physicians), and people from the humanities (mostly ethicists). The CDC and the NIH were both represented. Learn more about the project on the Understanding Race Web site.

Monica Jarrett, assoc. prof., Dept. of BNHS, was recently promoted to full professor. Her research focuses on functional gastrointestinal disorders in women and men. Currently she is the project director of three studies that explore potential physiological and psychological causes and/or factors that exacerbate symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) in women and in men. She also sits on the board of directors for the King County Nurses Association.

Ardith Doorenbos, asst. prof., Dept of BNHS, and Hilaire Thompson, asst. prof., Dept. of BNHS, were selected to attend AACN's Geriatric Nursing Educational Consortium Faculty Development Institute in Portland in June. The institute provides nursing educators with skills, knowledge and resources to ensure that the best geriatric practices are included in baccalaureate curricula at the senior level.

George Demiris, assoc. prof., Dept. of BNHS, will be the keynote speaker of the Telemedicine and eHealth Conference 2007 (TTeC 2007) in Tromso, Norway, in June 2007. The conference, cosponsored by the WHO Collaborating Centre in Telemedicine, promotes practice, research and development within the field of telemedicine and e-health in elder care. This event will help maximize the potential for technology initiatives to contribute to better health care and quality of life for the elderly. Learn more about the conference and Demiris's keynote address on the TTeC Web site.


Staff
Welcome to Brendon Lee, a fiscal specialist working in the Dept. of BNHS. He will help this rapidly growing department with payroll, hiring and other essential business administration duties. Brendon comes to us from the UWMC Emergency Dept., and he recently earned a bachelor's degree in history from the UW.

Congratulations to Erica Winberry, graduate student program coordinator, on being asked to represent the SoN on the UW Student Fiscal Services Advisory Board.


SoN in the News
The following SoN student and staff member have recently been featured in major media outlets:

Mike Nicholls, BSN student, and Carolyn Chow, dir. of admissions & multicultural student affairs, were featured in a Seattle Post-Intelligencer article on March 13, 2007.


Academic Services
Student Scholarships
The School of Nursing awarded more than $550,000 in scholarships and fellowships to students in the 2006–2007 academic year. Kudos to Brigette Yates, asst. director of development, and Tracy Ostrem, asst. dean for development, for raising the funds for these scholarships, and also to Laura Mason, operations manager; Carolyn Chow, dir. of admissions and multicultural student affairs; Julie Katz, assistant dean for academic services; and Sue Woods, assoc. dean for academic programs, for disbursing the awards.

Newsletter Archive
Find other issues of the Dean's Monthly Communication.