Johns Hopkins nursing faculty and students are achieving recognition for their scholarship, practice and teaching.
Jennifer Wenzel, PhD, RN, CCM, Assistant Professor, Department of Acute and Chronic Care, won the 2012 Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) Excellence in Writing Award for Qualitative Nursing Research. The award is given to the best published qualitative research manuscript across all ONS publications. Wenzel received the award at the Jannetti Publishing Reception held during the ONS Annual Congress in May. The writing team (Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing doctoral student Rachel Klimmek; BA, BSN, RN, OCN; Sharon Krumm, Director of Oncology Nursing, Johns Hopkins Hospital Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center; and Maya Shaha, PhD, RN, former JHUSON postdoc), were also recognized through a photo display during the Congress, press releases, and on the ONS Web site (http://www.ons.org/).
PhD Candidate Grace Ho received the Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI)/American Nurses' Foundation Grant for her proposal on differentiating discipline from abuse. Grace also won the STTI Nu Beta Chapter Research Award and the Southern Nursing Research Society Dissertation Award. The study, "Differentiating Physical Discipline from Abuse: A Comparison of Chinese-American Mothers and Mandated Nurse Reporters of Abuse," will examine the viewpoints of 42 Chinese-American mothers and 40 pediatric nurses on how they differentiate parents' behaviors as physical discipline or child physical abuse.
Professor Laura Gitlin, PhD, Department of Community-Public Health, was given an American Occupational Therapy Association Service Commendation for her work as a representative with the American Medical Association-Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement Dementia Measure Development Work Group 2011-2012. Gitlin represented the Association on an appointee-only panel of national professional organizations sponsored by the AMA. The panel developed performance measures on dementia care for use in primary care. “It was an important step as part of the Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement (PCPI) that develops physician performance measures intended to facilitate quality improvement activities by physicians. In this case it was dementia care,” she said. The panel integrated critical measures and CPT codes that cover occupational therapy practices.
Faculty member Patty Wilson, MSN, RN, Department of Community-Public Health, received the Johnson & Johnson/American Association of Colleges of Nursing Minority Nurse Faculty Scholars Award to further her research on helping African American survivors of intimate partner violence. This award allows Wilson to continue with a second year of funding ($18,000 per year) toward this cause. Wilson also hopes earning this award encourages others to take part in doctoral studies. “I encourage minority students interested in doctoral studies to apply. There is a great need to increase the number of minority doctorate-prepared nursing faculty,” she said.
Graduate students Kelsey Merl and Sally Hess, (Accelerated B.S. ’91), Greater Baltimore Medical Center received a Student-Community Small Grant Award for $5,000 from the Urban Health Institute for their work on preventing dating violence with the aid of a smartphone app. This effort is in conjunction with the One Love Foundation, named after the late University of Virginia lacrosse player Yeardley Love. The interactive tool helps young women avoid intimate partner abuse. “This provides Johns Hopkins a unique opportunity to collaborate with a sensational community partner and develop a truly innovative tool for an extremely at-risk population,” Merl said.
Faculty members Joan Kub, PhD, APHN, BC, Department of Community-Public Health, Sara Groves, DrPH, APRN, BC, Department of Community-Public Health, and partner Nicole Johnson, Senior Director, Elev8 Baltimore, were awarded Faculty-Community Small Grant Awards from the Urban Health Institute for their work on anti-bullying. With rising awareness and recognition of bullying behavior as a public health problem, the proposed program “No Room for Bullying,” offers a timely opportunity to decide and evaluate an interaction. The program, focusing on 5th graders in two Elev8 schools, will examine the impact of a school-wide intervention for the prevention of bullying behaviors in an effort to reduce existing bully/victim problems among the children and to prevent the development of new bullying behaviors.
Vinciya Pandian, MSN, CRNP, has received the JHUSON 2012 Doctoral Student Best Published Paper Award for her paper titled “Predictors of Short-Mortality in patients undergoing dilatational tracheostomy" published in the August issue of the Journal of Critical Care. The study evaluated factors that contribute to mortality in patients who need a tracheostomy for prolonged dependence on a breathing machine, according to Pandian. “The findings from this paper are very important for advanced practice nurses like me and other clinicians who screen critically ill patients for a tracheostomy.” Yvonne Commodore-Mensah, RN, BSN, won the 2012 PhD Student Graduate Teaching Assistant (TA) Award for demonstrating exceptional performance in the classroom, innovation, and commitment to student learning at the SON. “With such a significant need for nurse educators, I am very fortunate to have such great resources at my disposal to prepare me for a challenging yet rewarding career in nursing education,” Commodore-Mensah said. Pandian and Commodore-Mensah were chosen by a committee of six JHUSON faculty members.