WHAT'S NEW

Holiday Cheer Spread By SON Staff, Faculty, and Students
This season, SON staff, faculty, and students donated more than 300 gifts to needy families in the Baltimore community.  Pat Blockston, SON Academic Contracts Coordinator, has been in charge of the school’s Holiday Project since 1999. She started working with the Wald Clinic to provide gifts for needy children. What started with only one organization has now grown to include three others (Amazing Grandmothers, House of Ruth, Apostolic Towers). And each year, an increasing number of students, faculty, and staff help by purchasing gifts, volunteering for delivering, or planning the event.

Scholarships and Fellowships Increase
Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing (JHUSON) undergraduate and graduate students now can benefit from an expanded variety of scholarships and other funding opportunities.  The newest among these is the Leadership Education in Adolescent Health (LEAH) Training Program, which provides graduate students throughout JHU with interdisciplinary skills to improve family- and youth-centered, community-based care for adolescents.  Each year, one JHUSON graduate student can be awarded a $10,000 stipend to work 16-20 hours per week in activities designed to train health professionals for leadership roles in clinical care, research, training, advocacy, and administration. 

Hopkins Nurses Publish Evidence-Based Practice Model and Guidelines
In November, the authors of Johns Hopkins Nursing Evidence-Based Practice Model and Guidelines attended a book signing event to promote the new book.  The publication depicts three essential cornerstones that form the foundation for professional nursing: practice, education and research.  For more information, visit http://www.ijhn.jhmi.edu/.

Visiting Doctoral Students Share Chinese Culture
This year, JHUSON is hosting the third group of Chinese students to pursue their PhDs through a joint program with the Peking Union Medical College (PUMC) School of Nursing.  In October, the students gave a presentation to the school's students, faculty, and staff to share what life is like in China--culture, food, customs, etiquette, and the art of papercutting.  The program, designed to bring China an internationally recognized, doctoral-level model for nursing education, is funded by the China Medical Board of New York, Inc. 

In her role as a member of the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN) Board of Directors, assistant professor Betty Jordan, DNSc, RNC, led a major announcement on revised recommendations for fish consumption and pregnancy. “Every day I see the consequences of the failure of women to obtain optimal nutrition in pregnancy," said Jordan, who has more than 25 years of experience in labor and delivery nursing.  The group recommends that pregnant women, women that want to be pregnant, and breastfeeding women consume a minimum of 12 ounces of ocean fish per week.

Using Technology to Stop the "Brain Drain"
Faculty member Patti Abbott, PhD, RN and JHUSON alumni Christina Fusco MSN/MPH are actively participating in an international effort by WHO, Realizing Rights, and the Global Health Workforce Alliance (GWHA) on the recruitment of health personnel.  Using their expertise in building and maintaining the Global Alliance for Nursing and Midwifery Electronic Community of Practice, Abbott and Fusco will help to create a similar platform for use in their work to collaborate and disseminate information and policy in regard to the issue of healthcare worker "brain drain". A global launch of the new Migration Community of Practice is planned for late January or February 2008.