Here it is – October. It is during this month that the pace quickens for most of us. Everything begins to bubble up, often at the same time. Things like work, school, conferences, papers, and the advent of the holidays with all the hustle and bustle they bring. And so it is perhaps no surprise that my mind has thought of paraphrasing the words of Oscar Wilde on “the importance of being ‘balanced’.”

This is no small task. In truth, I struggle with this on a regular basis. I seem to be constantly challenged by juggling work, family, exercise, recreation, socialization, and dare I say, relaxation! Just when I think I get it right, something comes along that throws my balance off. For example, the entrance of my grandchildren, sweet Sasha and darling Leo, has caused me to make some major recalibrations. They have bumped catching up on work on my weekends to playing catch with a ball and some very important family time. Another bump occurs when my book is in revision. It requires hours of my off time sitting at a computer rather than exercising. Now these are good things for sure and each is a conscious choice, but it does keep me constantly trying to hold things in balance. What I have learned is that every day I wake up I am faced with more things to do than I can possibly accomplish. I believe that is true for all of us. So the “balancing act” is to sort through my mental list and set priorities, with attention paid to the many facets of my life and not just one to one of them. Some days this is easier to do than others. In the words of E.B White, “I wake up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning the day a little difficult.” Oh well, here’s to a new try tomorrow…Gail

INSIdE The balance thingBy Dean Gail Stuart, PhD, RN, FAAN

VOLumE 9 | OcTOBEr | 2012

eCONnectionsmEdIcAL uNIVErSITy OF SOuTH cArOLINA

cOLLEGE OF NurSING

Published by:Medical university of south Carolina College of Nursing

send inquiries to:beth KhanMusC College of Nursing99 Jonathan lucas st., MsC 160Charleston, sC 29425

InvestIgateCollaborateeduCate advoCate

MusC Nurses change Lives!

College News ...........................p. 2

CaleNdar of eveNts ................p. 3

offiCe of aCademiCs ...............p. 4

offiCe of researCh .................p. 5

offiCe of praCtiCe .............. p. 6-7

College News

OcTOBEr 2012 eCONnections2

Our family keeps growing

congratulations to romina

McCandless. She gave birth to her first child, Jacob

Walker mccandless on September 18, weighing in at 6 pounds, 14 ounces.

BSIT: A new resource for the MUSC communityThe Behavioral Support and Intervention Team (BSIT) is a new resource for the muSc community, which is designed to reach out to students who seem to be hurting or strug-gling, and to help maintain a safe campus by interven-ing when potential red flag behaviors are identified. The purpose of BSIT is to provide supportive and proactive intervention for muSc students who are experiencing problems which may affect their safety and/or the safety of others. The BSIT mission is threefold: 1) To take a proactive, collaborative approach in evaluating student behavior that may impact safety. 2) To integrate various sources of information and offer recommendations to the college deans. 3) To provide a centralized repository for information which may indicate student problems. Each college has its own BSIT representation on the muSc BSIT Team. The BSIT will review behavioral incidents and apply a consistent, systematic, and timely response to referred con-cerns. We will work in collaboration with the six colleges and appropriate muSc offices including, public safety, risk management, student services, legal services, and the associate provost. reasons for referral to BSIT include 1) Self-injurious behavior/suicidal ideation or attempt. 2) Erratic behavior. 3) Worrisome behavior related to alcohol, drug use, abuse. 4) “red flag behaviors” which are questionable, suspicious or inappropriate behaviors. BSIT is not a crisis intervention team. If you are con-cerned about a student related to immediate or extreme risk contact Public Safety at 792-4196 or call 911 if off campus. To make a referral to BSIT you can contact the BSIT chair, dr. Alyssa rheingold at 792-4497 or visit the BSIT website (www.musc.edu/bsit). In addition, Annemarie donato, BSI committee member and cON representative, can also answer questions concerning reporting.

It’s time to start

packing!Moving day

is only two months

away.

oCtober13 saturdaySNA/MSNA ‘80’s Bowling (wear ‘80’s attire)8:00 -10:00 p.m.amf triangle lanes (1963 savannah highway)- $15 for two hours of bowling and shoe rental. all faculty, staff, and students are welcome to attend. 15 moNdayBoating Retreat on the Carolina Queen4:30 p.m. boarding / 5:00 p.m. departureCity marina (mega dock) 17 lockwood dr. - Bring an appetizer to share, beverages will be provided

17 wedNesdayWelcoming Diversity Workshop9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.harper student Center- open to musC students, faculty, staff, and muha employees - to register: daNine fleming @ 792-7147

28 saturdayOut of Darkness Walk2:00 p.m. (registration 1:00 - 1:30 p.m.)hampton park

noveMber3 saturday4th Annual Nurses Care Walk9:30 a.m. (9:00 registation)palmetto islands park - mt. pleasant

7 wedNesdayCON Alumni Association Social5:00 - 7:00 p.m.mad river Bar & grill (32 N. market st.)- free appetizers, $3 domestic beer, $4 mixed drinks, non-alcoholic beverages provided. all faculty, staff, and students are welcome to attend.

12 moNdayVeterans DayCoN open

22-23 thursday-fridayThanksgiving HolidayCoN closed

Calendar of eveNts

Boat CruiseRetreatMoNDAy, octoBeR 15 @ 4:30 P.M.

(dePartiNg @ 5 P.M. | doCKiNg @ 7 P.M.)

city MARiNAMeGA Dock / 17 LockwooD BLvD.

DRiNkS wiLL Be SuPPLieDBRiNG A SNAck AND A SMiLe to ShARe

FAcuLty, StAFF & FAcuLty eMeRituS

Don’t let this be you.

don’t wait until the last minute. start packing now. faculty and staff should have their offices

packed and ready to move before the thanksgiving holidays.

3eCONnections OcTOBEr 2012

office of aCadeMICs

SCNF awards scholarships and hosts annual Nurses Care WalkThe South carolina Nurses Foundation (ScNF) has awarded accelerated BSN students Hayne Clifton, Martha Peake, Megan squires, and Marie thomas, and dNP student rory

brodie each with a $1,500 scholarship. The scholarships are awarded from monies which come from the proceeds generated by the “Nurses care” license tags. Another way to support the ScNF is through the annual Nurses care Walk. This year’s walk is Saturday, November 3. registration is free (donations accepted) and begins at 9 a.m. The walk will begin at at 9:30 a.m. at Palmetto Islands Park in mt. Pleasant. For pre-registration information, directions, and more information, go to www.scnursesfoundation.org.

Congratulations to new class repsThe muSc SGA, cON SGA, cON SNA, and cON Honor council recently held elections for the students who started the accelerated BSN program in August. congratulations to these class of december 2013 student leaders!> muSc SGA: lindsay dangerfield, Kelli schoen, and Michael occhipinti

> cON SGA: daniel Martin, laney Purser > SNA: emily eling, steve schultz, and dominique Cognetta

> Honor council: brian bartnett, adam Miller, grace

Moran-Hanna, and Michael occhipinti

Porcher Medicinal Garden dedicationThe muSc Office of the President and the Waring Library Society will host a lecture and reception to dedicate the Porcher

medicinal Garden on October 18 at 5:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the drug discovery Building. The lecture will be presented by mr. michael A. Flannery, associate director for Historical collections at the Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences at the university of Alabama. The title of the presentation is “Healing the South: The Life and Work of

Francis Peyre Porcher.” dr. Porcher graduated from medical college of the State of South carolina in 1847. His thesis, A medico-Botanical catalogue of the Plants and Ferns of St. John’s, Berkeley, South carolina, was published later that same year by the faculty of the medical college.

CON Tervis Tumblers® - $15The college of Nursing Student Nurses Association is selling Tervis Tumblers® that are customized with the cON logo. If you would like to purchase one for $15, see mardi Long in room 221B. checks only—made out to the cON Student Nurses Association. (complimentary lids available while supplies last.)

RWJ New Careers in Nursing awards CON $150,000The college of Nursing received a $150,000 award from the robert Wood Johnson (rWJF) New careers in Nursing (NcIN) scholarship program to allocate to 15 students enrolled in the Accelerated BSN degree program during the 2012-13 academic year. Eight students received a one-time award of $10,000 during the fall 2012 semester and another seven students will be awarded during the spring 2013 semester. All recipients must have an earned baccalaureate degree in another area. Fall 2012 recipients are: Meghan behlmer, Crystal bell, Courtney benjamin, desmond Capers, Kara edmond, adam Miller, grace Moran-

Hanna and shanice strobart. The rWJF NcIN scholarship program is a national program of rWJF and the American Association of college of Nursing. The prestigious program is designed to help alleviate the national nursing shortage, increase the diversity of nursing professionals, expand capacity in baccalaureate and graduate nursing programs, and enhance the pipeline of potential nurse faculty. According to nancy duffy, dnP, rn, Cen,

Cne, program coordinator, “I believe our continued funding of this important project is due to the success of our participants and the positive effect it has had on increasing the diversity of the students enrolled in the BSN program.”

eCONnections FEBruAry 2012 OcTOBEr 2012 eCONnections4

Funded grantscongratulations to Frank a. treiber, Phd and Prabhakar K. Baliga, md (muSc, department of Surgery) for receiving funds in the amount of $1,290,625 from the National Institute of Health/National Institute of diabetes and digestive and Kidney diseases (NIddK) for an r01 titled “Enhancing Kidney donation Through Live Organ Video Educated donors (LOVEd).” This five year study will conduct focus groups with African

American (AA) live organ kidney donors and recipients, as well as with end stage renal disease patients and kidney transplant team providers to determine barri-ers to live kidney donation. The information will be utilized to develop two iPad delivered education and motivation enhancement programs, one for AA kidney eligible end stage renal patients and the other for AA potential donors who have not finished the medical screening process. AA live kidney recipients and donors will lead the two programs, respectively.

NIH & NINR news• NIH: RevIsed PRe- aNd Post-awaRd FoRms & INstRuctIoNs

The National Institute of Health has announced the availability of newly revised forms and instructions used to submit interim and final reports, and other post-award documents associated with the monitoring, oversight, and closeout of an award (notice number: NOT-Od-12-152). Newly revised forms and instructions are posted on the NIH Forms and Applications page with a date of August 2012. revised forms will expire August 31, 2015.

• NINR: caLL FoR aPPLIcaNts

The National Institute of Nursing research (NINr) invites nursing students who are currently enrolled in a Phd program to apply to the 2013 NINr Graduate Part-nerships Program (GPP). A doctoral fellowship program that coordinates training and funding for nursing students who are motivated to undertake careers in basic or clinical research, the GPP offers the academic environment of a university and the breadth and depth of research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). NINr will support GPP scholars for up to three years. Funding for scholars includes: a stipend, tuition allowance, health insurance, and modest sums for travel. The appli-cation period for NINr’s 2013 GPP opened September 17. For more information, visit: www.ninr.nih.gov/training/gpp. Applications due: January 3, 2013.

Publications & Presentations:> Magwood, g., andrews, J.o., Zapka, J., cox, m.J., newman, s., stuart, g. (2012). Institutionalization of community partnerships: The challenge for academic health centers. Journal of Healthcare for Poor and underserved, (23), 1512-1526.

> Conner, brian t. “Bridging the gap between academia and clinical practice: Building foundations for translating research and evidence based practice to the bedside.” 10th Annual research Symposium, Greenville, Sc, September 2012.

office of researCH

New technology useFrank treiber, Phd, head of the Technol-ogy Applications center for Healthful Lifestyles (TAcHL) and John mcGillicuddy, md, transplant surgery, developed a study titled,“Facilitating medication Adherence and Eliminating Thera-peutic Inertia using Wireless Technology: Proof of concept Findings with uncontrolled Hyper-tensives and Kidney Transplant recipients.” This study involved the development of a mobile health (mHealth) medication and blood pressure (BP) self-management system. The system consist-ed of a remotely monitored medication reminder device and blood pressure device which auto-matically sends data to a secure server. Sum-mary information on the adherence rate and the blood pressures were provided weekly to the patients’ health care providers. Based upon ad-herence levels to the regimen, patients received personalized motivational and reinforcement messages via text, email and/or voice mail. Two patient populations were studied: Hispanic uncontrolled hypertensives recruited through a local Federally Qualified Health center (FQHc), and patients who recently received a kidney transplant at muSc. The Hispanics’ medication non-adherence was determined by a medical record search for uncontrolled hypertension and then confirmed by a screening visit. The kidney transplant pa-tients were enrolled after a one month screening period where their medication adherence was followed. Those with less than 85 percent adher-ence were enrolled in the randomized trial. The mHealth intervention resulted in significant and sustained increases in medication adherence, as well as significant reductions in blood pressure in both patient groups. These proof of concept findings will be presented at the third annual Wireless Health conference in San diego, cA on October 25 and are in press in the Journal of the Associa-tion of computing machinery.

5eCONnections OcTOBEr 2012

office of PraCtICe

CON students work with school readiness programThe college of Nursing works with the charleston county School district to provide federally mandated screenings to children ages 3 to 5 who are enrolled in the Head Start program. There are 27 centers with over 1,000 children needing to be screened within the first 45 days of school. cON students enrolled in the Population Focused Nursing course have begun to work with two Head Start nurses to provide hearing, blood pressure, weight and height screenings. A vision screening also is provided through a special grant that includes free glasses if needed. To date, the cON students have screened over 300 children. This hands-on experience has provided an opportunity to observe developmental differences among a heterogeneous population of children. Below are some com-ments from three cON students.

HHI ScHOLArS VISIT mIGrANT cAmPAs part of their Population Focused Nursing course, the newest group of Hispanic Health Initiative Scholars visited a migrant camp on Johns Island to learn about migrant health. The scholars also met with a

migrant outreach coordinator from the Franklin c. Fetter Family Health center to learn more about charles-ton’s migrant community. Throughout the semester the scholars will interact and gain first-hand experience with newly immigrated Hispanics. In addition to a variety of clinical experiences, the scholars will also participate in at least one community health fair

that serves the Hispanic population. For more information about the HHI Scholars program, contact Anna Tecklenburg at tecklenb@musc.edu.

“Today’s clinical experience was an eye-opener. For weeks (possibly months) we have been learning about developmental stages. I have not been around many children, so seeing them move through these stages is a first. The Head Start health screenings have been so beneficial to me beause we were given the opportunity to see children in all of these different stages. I found it surprising to see how development can be completely different for several 4-year olds. According to a journal article from the University of Pennsylvania, researchers looked at literacy among 4-year olds in the Head Start program and found four different tiers of literacy capability. The more engaged a parent was (reading with the child, library visits, school visits, etc.), the more likely they were to be in a top tier. However, each student also showed significant improvement through involvement with the Head Start program compared to those who do not, so it is clear to me that Head Start is a worthwhile investment.” “I was happy to see that most of the children already had learned or were beginning to learn English. Considering that many of them came from non-English speaking families, this was proof that children are eager to learn and given adequate resources they will have an opportunity to excel. However, it’s sad to think that these children do not always have access to sufficient resources, and therefore may not develop to their fullest potential. I am thankful for programs like Head Start that take the first steps to help children become integrated into the community.

“I enjoyed seeing a community nurse in action at Midland Park Primary. It reminded me that as a future nurse I can take on many different career paths. It was fascinating to see such diversity in this school and its classrooms. I hope that the Head Start program will continue to fully prepare these young students so that they will be ready for school next year.”

CON students helping the community

eCONnections FEBruAry 2012 OcTOBEr 2012 eCONnections6

rurAL mISSION cOmmuNITy mEETINGOn September 14, accelerated BSN students and HHI Scholars, Christy Jean Kyle, Carolyn ramos, and Jake

schubert conducted basic health screenings at the rural mission Head Start community meeting on Johns Island. In addition to blood pressure assessments, students provided parent education on car seat safety, childhood immuniza-tions, and healthy meal planning to over 30 families.

(l to r) back row: Jacob schubert, Maggie Meyer, hayne Clifton, Michelle Mejia

Front row: Christy Kyle, shechianh stewart, Carolyn ramos, amancio roca, Natalie Murphy,

Martha Peake

When the united States Supreme court affirmed the Affordable care Act (AcA) in June of this year, the door was opened for women to receive some important health benefits. A prime requirement under the new law is that, effective August 1, 2012, most health plans must cover specific preventive services for women without requiring co-pays, deductibles or other out-of-pocket costs. In designing the law, uS congress came to recognize the unique health needs of women—including a longer life expectancy, more chronic disease, reproductive needs and other gender-specific conditions.

10 ImPoRtaNt aca FeatuRes FoR womeN

1) A medical home for women within medicare, medicaid and cHIP (children’s Health Insurance Program). Ob-Gyn practices are eligible to become “medical homes” for women and receive additional reimbursement for doing so.2) Legal immigrants are held to the individual mandate to purchase insurance through the exchange system that will be established. They may be eligible for income-related premium credits and insurance subsidies. However, undocumented immigrants are not eligible for medicaid nor will they be able to purchase insurance in any exchange, even if paying cash out-of-pocket.3) Breast cancer detection and education for premenopausal women via funds channeled through the National Institutes of Health to develop and test prevention measures. Nine million dollars in funding has been allocated from 2010 to 2014 to improve awareness of breast cancer among women 15 to 44 years of age.4) Education for personal responsibility targeted to reducing unintended pregnancy among young people including information on abstinence, contraception, prevention of sexually transmitted infections and HIV/AIdS.5) community-based support for patient-centered medical homes in the form of funds given to states to develop community-based health teams to support medical homes run by primary care practices. Teams will include a variety of health professionals, including nurses. Ob-Gyn practices can be designated as primary care practices.(6-10: specific provisions for pregnant women)6) Home visitation models to improve health of underserved pregnant women by providing funds to implement evidence-based practices to support parenting skills, newborn health, school readiness, family self-sufficiency, and prevent juvenile delinquency. This plan appropriates $350 million in 2012 and $400 million in 2013 and 2014.7) Assistance with smoking cessation in recognition of the dangers of smoking on the health of mothers and fetuses. reimbursed services will include diagnostic and therapeutic measures, counseling and prescription medications.8) Federal funds for research, patient education and treatment for postpartum depression. 9) Assistance for pregnant students enabling them to continue pregnancies to term, bring their babies to school, remain in school, and provide assistance for prenatal care, birth, foster care or adoption, if needed. 10) One of the most exciting previsions of the new health care act is that medicaid will reimburse health care providers (other than physicians) who practice in freestanding birth centers, as long as those providers are functioning within the scope of their state’s practice regulations. This includes payments for nurse-midwives providing care to women and families who choose birth center care.

rEFErENcEdiVenere, L. Women’s health under the Affordable care Act: What is covered? OBG management; 24(9): 46e-56e.

ACA: Important benefits for women’s healthoffice of PRactIce: Policy UPdate

by Sharon Bond, PhD, CNM

7eCONnections OcTOBEr 2012

Note: Not all health plans are the same. some health plans are “grandfathered” under the patient protection and affordable Care act (ppaCa) and preserve certain basic health coverage that was already in effect when the law was enacted. a grandfathered health plan may not include certain consumer protections of ppaCa that apply to other plans. please check with your health plan provider or your benefits coordinator for specific questions about your coverage.