Nevada System of Higher Education

Health Sciences System Newsletter

November 2014

The Health Sciences System (HSS) was established by the Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE) Board of Regents in 2006. Its purpose is to address Nevada's community health issues through a system-wide effort to integrate and expand the education of health professionals and to foster collaborative research in health and health care. Through collaboration among the NSHE institutions and a broad range of external partners, the HSS intends to be a catalyst for improvement in the health and wellness of Nevada. Visit us at: http://system.nevada.edu/

GBC Nursing Students Certify in Pediatric Emergency Assessment, Recognition, and Stabilization (PEARS)

Second year Great Basin College nursing students recently completed a Pediatric Emergency Assessment, Recognition, and Stabilization (PEARS) course. This course teaches providers at all levels to identify respiratory distress, shock and cardiac arrest, and to provide age appropriate lifesaving interventions within the initial minutes of response until the child can be transferred to an advanced life support provider. The goal of PEARS is to improve the quality of care provided to seriously ill or injured infants and children, resulting in improved outcomes (AHA, 2014). This course allowed students to be actively engaged while learning to assess, categorize, decide, and respond quickly. PEARS was added into the third semester Nursing Care Acute and Chronic Illness course to prepare students to recognize an emergency and act quickly with no delay in treatment. This is one way that the GBC nursing program has addressed research indicating failure to recognize and respond to emergencies by new graduate nurses. In rural Nevada, with limited resources, it is imperative that response time is initiated immediately. This training gives students additional preparation for these types of situations thereby improving patient outcomes.

UNR Orvis School of Nursing welcomes mental health nursing track to master's program

University of Nevada, Reno's Orvis School of Nursing was recently approved for the addition of a new educational curriculum, the psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner track, within the Master of Science in Nursing degree program. The track will be open to those enrolling in the MSN program at the Orvis School of Nursing for fall semester 2015.

The new track is designed to prepare psychiatric nurse practitioners who will address acute and chronic mental health problems in the community. The role of the psychiatric nurse practitioner will focus on mental health issues across the lifespan: caring for clients in childhood, adolescence, adulthood and geriatric stages of life.

The new psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner track will prepare students to assess clients and make psychiatric diagnoses, determine and implement treatment plans and evaluate their outcomes, provide psychotherapy on an individual, group, or family basis; and ensure clients have the best support available. As an advanced nurse practitioner, Orvis graduates will also have prescriptive authority enabling them to offer a full spectrum of care for their clients.

Those who successfully complete the MSN degree program in this track will be able to utilize necessary elements of their skills to develop plans of care in conjunction with their clients' wishes for care. Additionally they will be prepared to consult with primary care providers who are the defacto providers of mental health services for many of their clients.

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TMCC Winter Session C.N.A. Class Offers Swift Way to Enter Nursing Program

A new option is available for students seeking to fulfill their nursing assistant course requirement before entering the nursing program at Truckee Meadows Community College. A new 3-week hands-on accelerated class is being offered during winter session; Nurs 129: Basic Nursing Skills.

"What sets the winter session class apart from its semester-long counterpart is the intensive nature of the class," said Susan Bluhm, nursing assistant professor and coordinator of the program. "It allows students to fulfill the nursing program requirement faster than the traditional method."

The class will be held from Jan. 5-23 on the Dandini Campus four days a week, with three off-campus clinical days at a long-term skilled nursing facility during the third week of the course.

"This is about developing hands-on skills, working with confidence, and becoming comfortable with patients and residents," Bluhm said. "Students will learn how to assist people with basic activities of daily life (ADL), and will learn the basics of infection control, safety, and resident rights."

For more information about the new winter session basic nursing skills class, call the Maxine S. Jacobs Nursing Program office at 775-673-7115, or Bluhm directly at 775-673-7180.

School of Medicine Students excel at Annual George G. Bierkamper competition

The School of Medicine held its 32nd Annual George G. Bierkamper Student Research Convocation on Monday, Oct. 20 at which 38 graduate and medical students presented their research work in the David Lupan Auditorium of the Center for Molecular Medicine at the School of Medicine's Reno campus.

The convocation provides students the opportunity to present original research to a group of their peers and mentors.

Students participating in the convocation were evaluated by a panel of judges from the School of Medicine faculty. They competed in either the graduate student category or medical student category and were judged based upon the quality of their research, findings and presentation. The top student in each category will receive a cash award as well as recognition for their achievement during School of Medicine commencement ceremonies in May.

In the graduate student category, Apurva Sarathy took first place for her presentation entitled: "Identification of a Novel a7 Integrin Enhancing Small Molecule for the Treatment of congenital Muscular Dystrophy."

There was a tie for first place in the medical student category between Brittany Bartolome for her presentation "Respective Review of Transjugular Liver Biopsy in Patients with Left Lobe Only Liver Transplants" and a team consisting of Cole Gross, Chris Kurnik, Barre Guillen, Robert Childs, Reuel Jake Meason, Danielle Hayes and Christina Works for their work entitled: "Iron Deficiency Anemia and Undernourishment in Residents of Belen, Iquitos, Peru."

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Did you know:

The Nevada System of Higher Education has 150 distinct Health Sciences programs throughout eight institutions with an estimated total of 18,000 enrolled students.