News from Around the School and Hospital
Image Makers: Beyond the Tired Stereotypes
Endowed Chair Honors Anna D. Wolf
Welcome Incoming Class
Five “Stellar Nurses” Join Faculty
Faculty News
Four Full Scholarships Awarded
Global Connections
Letters to the Editor Walking the Halls of a Legend
A Better Way to Schedule
Hawkins Awarded Prestigious Graduate Scholarship
Image Makers: Beyond the Tired Stereotypes
Every Thursday night Sandy Summers, MSN ’02, turns on her television to watch ER and holds her breath in anticipation. Just how will nurses on the perennially popular program be portrayed this episode? Most of the time the show’s representation of nurses is inaccurate and even demeaning, Summers says.
ER’s physician characters often perform critical nursing tasks, such as defibrillation, triage, and patient education, she notes, a distressingly common tendency known as the “Marcus Welby Syndrome.” While ER’s nurses do occasionally act as patient advocates, they question physician care only when the physician is somehow impaired, such as by illness or inexperience. And plot lines surrounding the show’s sole major nurse character are far more likely to revolve around her love affairs with her physician colleagues. Because ER goes out of its way to achieve “medical accuracy” — its physician characters correctly rattle off obscure diagnostic tests — viewers may think that the professional roles depicted are also accurate, Summers worries.
Tired of influential misportrayals like these in the entertainment industry and the media in general, and concerned that such portrayals were exacerbating the nursing shortage, Summers decided to act. While still a graduate student, she and fellow alumnus Richard Kimball, MSN ’01, gathered together some classmates, a handful of faculty members, and colleagues from national nursing organizations to advocate for accuracy in the portrayal of the nursing profession. The group has grown to become the grassroots Center for Nursing Advocacy, and is now collecting many members from around the world.
The center has launched an extensive Web site to advance its mission (www.nursingadvocacy.org). While the center applauds accurate, balanced media portrayals — such as Joel Dresang’s recent series of articles in the Milwaukee Sentinel Journal — the center’s leaders want to call attention to inaccurate images of nurses and spearhead campaigns to educate those responsible.
One recent victory the center had involved consumer products giant Procter & Gamble, which makes Clairol shampoo. Summers says she cringed when she saw a Clairol commercial that featured a nurse leaving her critically ill patient unattended while she went to wash her hair in the bathroom. The center quickly started a letter-writing campaign. The result? Procter & Gamble promptly discontinued the commercial and issued an apology to the profession.
“The Center for Nursing Advocacy should be viewed as a hub of action,” says Summers. “We want to tell the world what nurses really do, and we want nurses everywhere to come to the Web site to advocate for the profession. Nurses can do something about the negative way we are sometimes portrayed.”
This fall the center is launching a broad scale letter-writing campaign to urge the producers of ER to do a better job of portraying nurses. Summers believes that such efforts will ultimately lead to more resources for nursing education, research, and clinical practice.
— Kate Pipkin
Endowed Chair Honors Anna D. Wolf
It took more than 10 years and $1.5 million, but the Anna D. Wolf Chair has finally been fully endowed. Since 1986, when the Anna D. Wolf Professorship was established, School of Nursing alumni and friends, and members of Wolf’s family have worked to raise the necessary funds to convert the professorship to a fully-endowed chair.
At the school’s annual Homecoming celebration in September, Dean Martha N. Hill announced establishment of the Anna D. Wolf Chair. She noted that close to 300 people have contributed to the effort.
“Anna D. Wolf is a major figure in the legacy that is Johns Hopkins Nursing,” said Hill. “It is only fitting for her accomplishments to be acknowledged more prestigiously with a chair.”
In 1940, Wolf became the fifth superintendent of nurses at Johns Hopkins. A 1915 graduate of Hopkins, she had founded a nursing school in Peking, reorganized nursing services at the University of Chicago, and developed the baccalaureate program at Cornell. She returned to Baltimore with the intention of establishing a university-based program at Hopkins and remained here until her retirement in 1955. She died in 1985.
A tall woman with a commanding presence, Wolf was known for moving through the hospital corridors with her long gray cape sweeping behind her. She could be formidable at times, and students were respectful and sometimes even fearful of her.
“Miss Wolf was instrumental in promoting higher education for nurses,” says Hill. “She also was a pioneer in advocating for research to be a critical part of all nursing education. I applaud the alumni and others who have contributed to creating The Anna D. Wolf Chair. They understand that Miss Wolf was a visionary and a leader in her own right.”
Jacquelyn C. Campbell, associate dean for faculty and professor at the School of Nursing, holds the Anna D. Wolf Chair. Campbell is known internationally for her research and work in the area of domestic violence.
— KP
Welcome Incoming Class
The Johns Hopkins community welcomes the incoming baccalaureate class at the School of Nursing. With 114 students, it is the largest class ever. The new students will graduate in two years. In addition to them, 107 students began the school’s 13-month accelerated baccalaureate program in June.
The average age of this year’s nursing student is 26. Approximately 5 percent of the incoming class are men, 20 percent are minorities, and nine of them are returned Peace Corps volunteers. Close to 80 percent of the new students hold a bachelor’s degree in another field.
Orientation took place on August 28 and 29, where the new nursing students received class assignments, were measured for uniforms, picked up textbooks, and toured the school.
Five “Stellar Nurses” Join Faculty
Five new full-time faculty members have joined the School of Nursing with the start of the new academic year. “Each of these stellar nurses brings a particular expertise to the School of Nursing that will enhance our research, teaching, and practice efforts,” says Martha N. Hill, PhD, RN, FAAN, dean of the School of Nursing. “We are very pleased to have them on our faculty as we head into the fall semester.”
The five include: Patricia A. Abbott, PhD, RN, FAAN; Marguerite Kearney, DNSc, RN, FAAN; Linda E. Rose, PhD, RN; Julie Stanik-Hutt, PhD, ACNP; and Jo M. Walrath, PhD, RN.
Patricia Abbott, an expert in nursing informatics, is an assistant professor who teaches baccalaureate and graduate students and conducts research in the area of data mining techniques with a particular emphasis in long-term care. She also directs efforts of the school’s Collaborating Center for Information Systems in Nursing Care, which was designated last year by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) as the first WHO/PAHO Collaborating Center concentrating specifically on clinical nursing informatics.
“I think that informatics, as an applied science, requires access to the clinical laboratories to demonstrate utility. I’m intrigued by the opportunities at the School of Nursing and with collaborative organizations within Hopkins, such as the Center for Innovation in Quality Patient Care,” says Abbott, referring to the new Johns Hopkins initiative that seeks to examine patient care and improve patient safety systems.
“I am also quite excited at the prospect of working with students, particularly the pre- and post-doc fellows,” she adds.
Abbott comes to Johns Hopkins from the University of Maryland School of Nursing, where she was an assistant professor and director of the graduate program in nursing informatics. While there, she also served as an adjunct assistant professor with the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Marguerite Kearney, a bench researcher whose area of expertise is pathophysiology, served on the faculty at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine for three years. She took a primary appointment with the School of Nursing in August as an associate professor and continues to hold a joint appointment with the School of Medicine. Kearney’s work is almost fully funded by the National Institutes of Health. She is currently investigating the effects of estrogen deficit on the platelet, an important blood coagulation element. Her research will determine if estrogen deficit-induced or estrogen replacement-induced platelet function changes alter patterns of cerebral circulation after cardiac arrest or stroke.
Prior to joining Hopkins, Kearney taught master’s and doctoral students in trauma critical care at the University of Maryland School of Nursing. “I really enjoyed teaching nursing at the University of Maryland, and I look forward to getting back into teaching the nursing students at Johns Hopkins,” she says.
Kearney has been a Nurse Corps Officer in the United States Navy Reserve since 1987. She served four months of active duty at Bethesda Naval Hospital earlier this year and is now back in reserve status as a commander.
Linda Rose is no stranger to Johns Hopkins. She has been an adjunct faculty member with the School of Nursing for the past two years and became a full-time associate professor in July. Rose teaches in the school’s baccalaureate program while developing her clinical and research expertise in the areas of adult and family psychiatry. She has published extensively on topics such as how families manage mental illness; mental health and the underserved patient; and interventions to support families of psychiatric patients. In addition, she has consulted on research studies involving domestic violence and adolescent teasing.
Rose has also worked at the University of Maryland School of Nursing. Prior to coming to Maryland, she lived in Canada and worked at the University of British Columbia School of Nursing, St. Paul’s Hospital, Nova Scotia Hospital, and Victoria General Hospital.
Julie Stanik-Hutt became an adjunct faculty member with the School of Nursing in 2002 while serving as an acute care nurse practitioner in the lung transplant program at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She is now an assistant professor at the School of Nursing, teaching students in the acute care nurse practitioner program. She continues to practice at the School of Medicine in the Emergency Department/Emergency Acute Care Unit. Her field of research is pain management in the critically ill.
Stanik-Hutt says that when she taught at the School of Nursing last year, it reminded her how much she enjoyed teaching. “I thought I’d really like to combine the two. I really enjoy teaching, and I really enjoy practice, and now I can do both.”
Before coming to Johns Hopkins, Stanik-Hutt taught and practiced at the University of Maryland School of Nursing and the University of Maryland Medical System.
Jo Walrath is an assistant professor and teaches in the school’s baccalaureate and graduate programs. In addition, she participates in the clinical studies of Johns Hopkins’ new Center for Innovation in Patient Quality Care. Walrath’s primary areas of focus are managed care, case management, and organizational performance improvement.
” After a long and very satisfying professional career as a hospital-based nurse and administrator, I am happy to have the opportunity to impart to young nurses some of the knowledge and experiences that I have had that might influence their new careers as nurses,” she says.
Walrath comes to the School of Nursing from the Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Virginia, where she was vice president of patient care services from 2001 until last spring. Prior to that, she was director of emergency medicine from 1981 to 1985 at Johns Hopkins Hospital and director of surgical nursing at Johns Hopkins from 1985 until 1998.
— Ming Tai
Faculty News
Jerilyn Allen, ScD, RN, FAAN, was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Preventive Cardiovascular Nurses Association, a national organization that develops and promotes nurses as leaders in the prevention of cardiovascular disease.
Anne E. Belcher, PhD, RN, FAAN, presented “Nursing — So What’s to Laugh About” to the Association of Occupational Health Nurses and “Using Humor to Cope with Cancer” to the Women’s Support Group at Bayview Medical Center.
Marion Ball, EdD, was named an honorary member of Sigma Theta Tau International, the honor society of nursing.
Jacquelyn C. Campbell, PhD, RN, FAAN, published an article titled “Risk Factors for Femicide in Abusive Relationships: Results from a Multi-site Case Control Study” in the July issue of the American Journal of Public Health. Campbell was also a key speaker at the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence 2003 Statewide Training Institute held in May.
Campbell, Phyllis Sharps, PhD, RN, FAAN, and Daniel Sheridan, PhD, RN, published chapters in the March 2003 issue of Clinics in Family Practice. Campbell and Sharps wrote “Medical Lethality Assessment and Safety Planning in Domestic Violence Cases,” and Sheridan’s chapter is titled “Forensic Identification and Documentation of Patients Experiencing Intimate Partner Violence.”
Marion D’Lugoff, MA, RN, and Carmalyn Dorsey, MSN, RN, were honored as “Nurse Heroes” at The Daily Record’s 2003 Health Care Heroes Award ceremony earlier this year.
Fannie Gaston-Johansson, DrMedSc, RN, FAAN, received a grant from the National Institutes of Health/Fogarty International Center to continue the Minority International Research Training Program (MIRT). The funds support 14 students abroad this summer to participate in joint research projects with SON faculty and faculty at foreign research institutions. Gaston-Johansson also received The International Trends and Service Award from The Links, Inc. for being outstanding in the field of international services.
Linda Gerson, PhD, RN, instructor, was appointed to the Continuing Competency Education Committee of the Maryland Board of Nursing.
Martha N. Hill, PhD, RN, FAAN, dean, published an article titled, “Hypertension Care and Control in Young Urban Black Men” in the November issue of the American Journal of Hypertension.
Miyong Kim, PhD, RN, published an article titled, “Depression, Substance Use, Adherence Behaviors, and Blood Pressure in Urban Hypertensive Black Men” in the July issue of Annals of Behavioral Medicine.
Sharon Olsen, MSN, RN, published an article titled “Creating a Nursing Vision for Leadership in Genetics” in the June issue of MEDSURG Nursing.
Linda C. Pugh, PhD, RNC, FAAN, and Phyllis Sharps, PhD, RN, FAAN, have been named fellows of the American Academy of Nursing. They will be formally inducted into the Academy at its annual meeting and conference in November.
Kathy Sabatier, MS, RN, received a Presidential Award from the American Society of PeriAnesthesia Nurses, for helping the group to develop the Guideline for Perianesthesia Pain and Comfort.
Phyllis Sharps, PhD, RN, FAAN, was appointed to the Literature Selection Technical Review Committee of the National Institutes of Health National Library of Medicine.
Theresa Yeo, MSN, MPH, RN, CRNP, was named president of the Nurse Practitioner Association of Maryland. Her term began June 1, 2003.
Four Full Scholarships Awarded
Thanks to gifts from two major organizations, four students at the School of Nursing are receiving full scholarships this year.
The Women’s Board of The Johns Hopkins Hospital has awarded full scholarships to three senior nursing students, and The John R. and Ruth W. Gurtler Foundation has awarded one $50,000 scholarship to provide full tuition, matriculation fees, and a stipend to a student in the school’s accelerated program.
The Women’s Board of The Johns Hopkins Hospital, established in 1927, has provided support to the School of Nursing since 1984 in areas such as student scholarship and building initiatives. All have committed to working at Johns Hopkins Hospital for at least one year after graduation. Recipients of the Women’s Board full scholarships are Megan A. Hoffmann, John Kerr, and Bethany Toliver.
“This scholarship opportunity from the Women’s Board is a dream come true,” says Hoffmann. “Nothing compares to placing my stethoscope around my neck, washing my hands, and entering my patient’s room equipped with knowledge and a smile, prepared to help heal them in any way I can.”
The John R. and Ruth W. Gurtler Foundation Scholarship was awarded to Marguerite Baty, a returned Peace Corps volunteer.
“I plan to work primarily in clinical settings that treat the underserved,” says Baty. “I want to enact positive change in health care, and the Gurtler Scholarship will help me achieve those goals.”
The John R. and Ruth W. Gurtler Foundation was established following the death of Ruth Ward Gurtler, a 1932 graduate of the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. Based in Maitland, Florida, the foundation has been a generous supporter of Johns Hopkins Nursing and of many organizations throughout Florida.
— KP
Global Connections
African Connection
Last May, Nicole Subryan and about 20 of her fellow classmates showed up at commencement sporting a bright addition to their black robes: colorful stoles from Africa, hand-embroidered with JHUSON Class of 2003.
Subryan had been looking for a way to bring an Afrocentric flavor to her graduation when, in class one day with faculty member Julie Hindmarsh, MPH, RN, she heard from Theodosia Jackson, a guest speaker from Ghana, Africa. “She was with the Women’s Opportunity Fund, and she was wearing this beautiful stole. When I saw that stole, the light bulb went off,” says Subryan.
After class, Subryan spoke to Jackson about the Women’s Opportunity Fund, which directs funding to programs throughout the world that aim to empower women. Subryan learned that the stoles were made by a cooperative of low-income women in Ghana. Convinced the stoles would provide a perfect complement to traditional commencement robes — and a great way to support the efforts of low-income women living and working in another country — Subryan commissioned around 20 stoles to be made and custom embroidered. They arrived in plenty of time for graduation day.
Subryan, who now works on the coronary intermediate care unit at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, Maryland, keeps her African stole on display in her apartment.
China Calling
Currently, nursing students in China who want to take their education to the doctoral level are out of luck. Doctoral programs in nursing don’t exist there. Not yet, anyway. In October, Dean Martha Hill made her second trip to Beijing to meet with officials from the Peking Union Medical College School of Nursing to discuss how Hopkins can help them implement doctoral level nursing programs. While nothing is written in stone yet, Dean Hill says she is optimistic about the collaborative opportunities, including possible exchange programs, that exist between Hopkins and Peking Medical Union. It wouldn’t be the first time the two institutions have interacted. The founding of the Peking Union Medical College in 1917 was supported by the Rockefeller Foundation through the China Medical Board, and Hopkins’ own Dr. William Welch traveled to China to help get them started. Dr. Welch was also instrumental in recruiting Anna D. Wolf (nursing superintendent at Hopkins from 1940-55) to start the nursing school at Peking Union.
Letters to the Editor
Congratulations! The new Johns Hopkins Nursing is truly a first-class magazine. I guess most of us in nursing are quite aware of the nursing shortage. I’ve kept my license active so I can give flu shots and TB tests. I get one or two calls a week as well as mail solicitations from hospitals and nursing services begging me to come back to work. At 77 years, I’m not about to do that, so I just smile and say “No, thank you.” I still work three full days a week as a volunteer in our Regional Cancer Center and appreciate feeling needed. It balances my life. I’ve always felt privileged to be a graduate of the Johns Hopkins Hospital School of Nursing. Thanks again for a great new publication.
Mary Danielson, Class of 1947
Oakland, California
The first issue of Johns Hopkins Nursing magazine is spectacular! Starting with the creative and eye-catching cover, the entire piece is well-written and visually pleasing. I am so very pleased with the inclusion of so much information pertaining to the Johns Hopkins Hospital and of course the theme of hospital-based nursing as a “destination career.” What a great kick-off edition.
Ronald R. Peterson
President, Johns Hopkins Hospital
Walking the Halls of a Legend
Little did M. Adelaide Nutting know, when she was a student in the very first class of the Johns Hopkins Hospital School of Nursing back in 1889, that more than 100 years later a corridor in the venerable institution would bear her name.
Last June 5, one of the most prominent corridors in Johns Hopkins Hospital was named after M. Adelaide Nutting, the school’s second superintendent. In addition to laying the foundation for Johns Hopkins Nursing, Nutting was instrumental in creating national standards in nursing education and was responsible for reducing the number of hours nurses worked at the bedside and increasing their time in the classroom.
“We thought this was a great opportunity to acknowledge the enduring legacy of Hopkins nursing leadership by honoring a very special nurse in Hopkins’ history,” said Ronald Peterson, president of Johns Hopkins Hospital.
The 411 on Nursing
By Karen Haller, PhD, RN
Vice President of Nursing and Patient Care Services,
Johns Hopkins Hospital
We have two generations working at the bedside.One group is the experienced, but aging, baby boomers. The boomers can give you the “skinny” on what nursing is about. The other group is the inexperienced, but energetic, Gen-X’ers. They can give you the “411” on why they chose nursing. Most of the first group were educated in programs that provided more hours of hands-on practice than in today’s colleges and universities; but most of the second group grew up with high-technology and the high-speed systems that come with it.
In a new recruitment video, Hopkins asked six of its young, tech-savvy nurses to give their peers the “411” on what nursing at Hopkins is like for a new practitioner. Melanie Michel, BSN ’99, a nurse working with patients undergoing bone marrow transplants, cheerfully explains that she chose nursing because she is just “pathologically helpful.” She acknowledges that there is no way to be prepared for the high mortality rate, the experience of holding someone’s hand while they die, or being with the family as they say good-bye to a loved one. Most new nurses do not feel prepared the first day on the job.
But all six Gen-X’ers found help around the corner — in the form of their boomer-preceptors, who were their “first line of defense” when help was needed. As Michael Cox, a cardiology nurse, says: “You started learning skills in the School of Nursing, but the finishing touches” must be mastered on the job. New nurses found that help was always on the way for them at Hopkins, and that time was on their side. As a word of advice, Emergency Department nurse Ray Blush tells new nurses to “handle every opportunity thrown at you” in order to learn.
All six agreed on why they became nurses, citing the gratification from saving lives; making a difference in others’ lives; and as a result, feeling rewarded in their own lives. All six seemed to echo the values of an earlier generation. We welcome these young nurses to our ranks and need more like them.
A Better Way to Schedule
When Amy Vance first started working as a nurse in the Johns Hopkins Hospital oncology department, she was dismayed by the amount of time and paperwork it took to schedule the nursing staff.
“As a new nurse, I found manually coordinating the scheduling for my entire unit to be a tedious and time-consuming task. I thought, There has to be a better way to do this,” recalls Vance, a 1996 graduate of the School of Nursing Accelerated Class.
She set out to find one.
Working together with her husband Josh, who has a background in automated systems, she eventually came up with Nightingale© software, a Web-based system that allows nurses and staff to self-schedule and/or enter a preference for their schedules. Using customized rules for each unit and staff member (such as the number of hours in a shift or the number of shifts that can be worked in a row), the system then creates the best schedule based on the unit’s needs and nurse’s preferences. Once the schedule is generated, manual adjustments can be made.
” Other applications focus on management,” says Vance, “but we focused on the end user, figuring if we made a flexible product that people were able to use, then everything else would fall into place.”
The Nightingale© system includes a real-time application that allows staff to view the schedules for other units and even other hospitals. A unit that is understaffed can see another that is overstaffed and ask for help. “This leads to a more efficient use of internal resources,” says Vance, who now works for VasTech, the company that markets the software.
The system is currently being tested in the Department of Surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital and is slated for testing in the Department of Pediatrics next spring, as part of a research project headed by School of Nursing instructor Barbara Van de Castle, RN, APRN. One of Vance’s former teachers, Van de Castle believes an electronic scheduling system could benefit everyone — nurse managers, educators, staff nurses, and ultimately patients — by saving time, improving work flow efficiency, and increasing job satisfaction.
Van de Castle’s research project, funded through a grant from the Nu Beta chapter of Sigma Theta Tau International, the honor society of nursing, will eventually survey 10 units at Hopkins Hospital. Staff nurses, nurse managers, schedule coordinators, and educators from each department will be surveyed prior to implementation and six months later to measure time spent, work flow efficiency, and participant satisfaction.
The success of automated scheduling could lead to better retention of nurses, according to Krysia Hudson, RN, MSN, a co-investigator and clinical instructor at the School of Nursing. “The second most common reason nurses leave a job is because they are unhappy with their work schedules,” she says. “This new system could give nurses more control over how, when, and where they work.”
” It also allows for a better staff mix,” she says. “The system takes into account abilities and certifications. Mixing nurses with varying degrees of experience will create the opportunity for established nurses to mentor those new to the profession. This too may contribute to better nursing retention.”
Other co-investigators of the project are Lynn Jones, RN, MS, and Peggy Neidlinger, RN, BSN, from the Johns Hopkins Hospital and Joy Nanda, DSc, MS, MHS, from the Bloomberg School of Public Health.
— MT
Hawkins Awarded Prestigious Graduate Scholarship
When Hopkins nursing student Annika Hawkins considered applying for the prestigious 2003 Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Graduate Scholarship, she felt a moment of doubt. “I was surprised at the complexity of some of the questions. They wanted to know things like my philosophy on the environment and my view of overpopulation,” she says. As she was looking over the application in the school’s library, another nursing student, Rachel Breman, passed by. Even though the two didn’t know each other, Breman, a 2002 recipient of a graduate scholarship from the private foundation, encouraged Hawkins to apply.
That encouragement paid off. Hawkins completed and submitted the application, and now she is one of three students from Johns Hopkins and the only one from Nursing who will receive up to $50,000 a year for up to six years to pursue a graduate degree. Hawkins, who received her baccalaureate degree in nursing last summer, plans to earn two degrees — an MS in nursing in the family nurse practitioner program at the School of Nursing and an MPH from Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health.
A native of Strafford, Vermont, Hawkins graduated from Wesleyan University in 2000 with a degree in Spanish Language and Literature, then worked for one year in Boston at Planned Parenthood as a clinical assistant and counselor. “It was there, counseling Spanish-speaking patients and working with nurse midwives and nurse practitioners, that I realized the nursing profession was a good fit for me,” she says.
From Boston she traveled to a rural village in the Amazon jungle to work with Robert Gilman, MD, a professor in the department of International Health at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, to study shigella, a form of bacteria that causes diarrhea. The original intent was for her to assist with language-based tasks, but within weeks of her arrival, her responsibilities grew enormously.
“Shortly after our arrival, the doctor leading the project left,” Hawkins explains. “Suddenly there was a project, up and running, with four field workers, a pediatrician, and a biologist, but no one to keep it running.” The 23-year-old Hawkins jumped in and provided guidance to the group. She describes the experience as “incredible, rewarding, difficult, and hot,” adding, “Being able to speak Spanish gave me a distinct advantage.”
“Annika was one of the best students I have had the pleasure of supervising,” Gilman says. “She is innovative, very bright, mature, and highly personable.”
When the project ended in February 2002, Hawkins began the task of analyzing the data, another new and challenging experience for her. She returned from Peru just a few weeks before entering the accelerated baccalaureate program at the School of Nursing.
After she earns her master’s degrees, Hawkins would like to practice in a community or public health setting and is interested in working with Hispanic populations. “As an advanced practice nurse,” she says, “I will work firsthand with the public health issues that will define the 21st century, including those of indigent people, both locally and internationally.”
— MT