Columbia University recently announced that Lorraine Frazier, PhD, RN, FAAN, has been named the new dean of the School of Nursing, the Mary O’Neil Mundinger, DrPH Professor of Nursing, and senior vice president at Columbia’s Irving Medical Center. Frazier’s appointment is effective September 1, 2018, succeeding Bobbie Berkowitz, PhD, RN, FAAN.
Lee Goldman, MD, Dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and Medicine and Chief Executive, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, tells Newswise.com, “We are delighted to welcome Dr. Frazier to the Columbia University School of Nursing. Dr. Frazier’s remarkable depth of experience will help us advance the role of nursing practice in an increasingly complex health care landscape. As we welcome her to Columbia, I also want to express my personal as well as institutional gratitude to Dean Bobbie Berkowitz, whose extraordinary leadership over the past eight years has positioned the school for even greater success in the future.”
Dr. Frazier is joining Columbia from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston where she is professor and dean of the School of Nursing. After completing her PhD there in 2000, Frazier joined the faculty in 2002 then rose to professor, associate dean, and chair of the Department of Nursing Systems in 2008.
Frazier is a national expert in biobanking, the emerging science of collecting, storing, and sharing blood and tissue samples for the purpose of advancing medical research and providing access to genetic information. Dr. Frazier served as director of the UTHealth Biobank and project director for TexGen, a biobank consortium involving academic institutions in the state of Texas.
To learn more about Dr. Lorraine Frazier and her appointment as dean of the Columbia University School of Nursing, visit here.
The Columbia University School of Nursing has launched a comprehensive palliative care program for students of all levels that integrates the basic principles of palliative care into the curriculum. The program reflects the recent development of competencies and recommendations from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN). The AACN is encouraging palliative care education for nursing students as the healthcare industry begins bracing for an unprecedented number of Americans who will be living with one or more chronic illnesses.
Marlene E. McHugh, DNP, assistant professor of nursing at Columbia University, tells Newswise.com, “We are reaching a moment of crisis in the United States as more and more people, especially older Americans, are living with serious illnesses and experiencing impairments in their quality of life, from pain issues to loss of function and depression. Providing every health care professional with the basic tenets of palliative care is crucial to meeting the needs of these patients.”
Palliative care focuses on the person rather than the disease, emphasizing meeting the needs of patients and families, and easing suffering. The area of palliative care includes end-of-life care and addresses the physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual needs of people with a serious illness.
“As palliative care providers, we talk to patients about what they value, what their goals are, and what their understanding is of their medical illness so that they can make decisions about next steps,” saysMary Ellen Tresgallo, DNP, assistant professor nursing at Columbia Nursing.
Columbia Nursing’s program includes a series of six End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC) modules developed in partnership with the AACN. Completing the program provides entry into palliative and end-of-life care subspecialties that are available for advanced students.
To learn more about Columbia Nursing’s new palliative care program, visit here.
On Thursday, June 8, the Columbia University School of Nursing welcomed faculty, alumni, and friends of the Columbia community to a dedication ceremony for its cutting-edge new building. The seven-story, 68,000-square-foot facility is located on 168th Street and Audubon Avenue in Washington Heights.
The most significant feature in the new building is a two-story, state-of-the-art simulation laboratory, designed to prepare students to meet the changing demands of the profession as expert clinicians, researchers, and educators. Other notable features of the building include a large assembly space, sprawling rooftop terrace, meeting rooms, and a café on the ground floor. The building is also decorated with archival photos providing a visual retelling of the nursing school’s 125-year history.
Lee Goldman, MD, dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and Medicine and chief executive of Columbia University Medical Center tells Nursing.Columbia.edu.
“Columbia University School of Nursing needed a space to match its celebrated record as a leader in nursing education, research and practice, and the new facility beautifully fulfills this need. This building is a fitting centerpiece for nursing at Columbia.”
The impressive 16,000-square-foot Helene Fuld Health Trust Simulation Center is the “literal and figural ‘heart’ of Columbia Nursing’s new home,” according to the building’s architect, Jonathan Kanda. Students will now be able to practice clinical skills in simulated hospital rooms, exam rooms, in-patient hospital rooms, and birth simulation in the labor and delivery suite in a space that quadruple’s the school’s current simulation space.
To learn more about Columbia Nursing’s new state-of-the-art home and dedication ceremony, visit here.
The Columbia University School of Nursing welcomes faculty, alumni, and friends of the Columbia community to a dedication ceremony for its cutting-edge new building to be introduced Thursday, June 8. This new home for the School of Nursing will provide current and future nursing students with an ultramodern learning environment that will prepare them for the changing demands of the profession as expert clinicians, researchers, and educators.
Following the dedication program, guests will receive a tour of the glass-enclosed building including its planted rooftop terrace, collaboration and study spaces, and archival photographs displayed throughout to tell the story of the school’s 125-year heritage. The seven-story, 68,000-square-foot structure features a two-story, high-tech simulation learning laboratory including a simulated birthing scenario with human patient simulators. Guests will get to see nursing students demonstrate use of this leading-edge facility.
When the new building was first announced in October 2013, Columbia President Lee. C. Bollinger told the Columbia Newsroom, “Columbia’s mission of teaching and research, patient care and public service all come together so vitally in our School of Nursing. This new state-of-the-art facility for the school is another in a series of important steps forward not only for Columbia University Medical Center’s home campus in Washington Heights, but for the university as a whole as well as for our neighbors in Northern Manhattan.”
The dedication program will feature speakers including Bollinger and Bobbie Berkowitz, PhD, Dean of Columbia University School of Nursing. The new School of Nursing building is located at the corner of 168th Street and Audubon Avenue in Manhattan.
The Columbia University School of Nursing conducted a national survey finding that 40 percent of nursing students feel they need more education on preventing and controlling infection. Reported findings also included that more than half of respondents have witnessed breaches in prevention practices during clinical placements, but didn’t feel comfortable addressing them due to feeling unqualified or out of fear of retaliation.
Columbia Nursing Assistant Professor Eileen J. Carter, PhD, lead author of the study, tells Newswise.com: “Student nurses overwhelmingly reported that they knew when and how to use various infection prevention precautions, but acknowledged that it was often difficult to perform these practices when busy, which speaks to the complexity of the healthcare environment. Education is important but education alone is not sufficient.”
As part of the study, researchers interviewed a national sample of student nurses about the overall approach to infection prevention and control in their programs. Students were asked to report the amount of time devoted to infection prevention, the quality of instruction, and the settings where they received instruction. The survey also asked students to rate the difficulty of adhering to infection-prevention practices when they were busy and to describe the difficulty in addressing breaches in prevention protocol that they have observed in their clinical rotations.
There was a total of 3,678 respondents, with 91 percent female respondents, 67 percent undergraduate BSN students, and 66 percent age 29 or younger. Most of the respondents felt that their program currently emphasizes infection prevention practices, but 40 percent said additional education is needed. Nurses play a large role in preventing infections, especially in busy healthcare environments. Infection prevention is proven to decrease rates of patient morbidity and mortality, as well as healthcare costs.
To learn more about Columbia Nursing’s study on Infection Prevention Education, visit here.
