USD NURSING TIMES UNIVERSITY OF SAN DIEGO: HAHN SCHOOL OF NURSING AND HEALTH SCIENCE Vol 4 Salutes our Military Nurse HEROES and HEALERS In Memoriam Dean Emerita Irene Sabelberg Palmer, PhD, RN, FAAN CAPT Irene Sabelberg Palmer Army Nurse Corps Dean Emerita Palmer and Dean Sally Brosz Hardin at Hahn’s 35th Anniversary Celebration rene Sabelberg Palmer, PhD, RN, FAAN, Founding Dean of the Hahn School of Nursing and Health IScience, passed away Sunday, May 29, 2011. Dr. Patricia Roth and Ms. Linda Johnston were with her and said that she died very peacefully. Saturday had been Dr. Palmer’s 88th birthday; she accom- plished amazing things in her 88 years, not the least of which was being a premier historical scholar of Florence Nightingale. Dr. Palmer came to USD in 1974 after distinguished service as a Captain in the Army Nurse Corp, and as faculty at New York University, and as Dean at Boston University. Her vision was for a rigorous, science- based curriculum of practice and research to educate nurses to the highest educational standards. In 1975, she secured a substantial gift from the Phillip Y. Hahn family and a federal grant, which enabled her to break ground on the Nursing building. Dean Palmer’s vision remains the intellectual cornerstone of our USD Hahn School of Nursing and Health Science and the foundation for the current graduate programs committed to producing the profession’s leaders in science and practice. Fall 2011 USD NURSING TIMES UNIVERSITY OF SAN DIEGO USD NURSING TIMES SON Military Nurse Salute HAHN SCHOOL OF NURSING AND 2/ USNS Mercy HEALTH SCIENCE MEPN’s: First nursing students to serve on the USNS Mercy. 6/ Heroes and Healers [ Dean ] In their own words - stories of courage, bravery and compassionate service. Sally Brosz Hardin, PhD, RN, FAAN Nursing Research Events [ Director of Development ] 34/ SON Doctoral Poster Presentations Joan Katherine Martin, M.A. Faculty Spotlight [ Features Writer ] Barbara Davenport 36/ Joseph Burkard, DNSc, CRNA RET Nurse Corps Officer, Professor and Mentor [ Editors ] Christopher Hardin, Susan Merrill, Donor Spotlights Carol Ponce, Carol Scimone 37/ Donald and Barbara Jonas Five SON military nursing students receive merit scholarships from the Jonas Foundation [ Designer ] 38/ Major SON Donors Chika Sasaki, Left Tree Design Donors and military veterans, Dr. Robert Beyster, Richard Charlton, Martin Dickinson and Richard Woltman. Correspondence regarding editorial content or address changes should be sent to: Military Roll-Call 40/ SON Military Graduates University of San Diego Hahn School of Nursing and Health Science Author E. Hughes Career Achievement Award Recipient for Nursing Development Office 42/ Marilyn T. Macdonald, PhD ‘05 5998 Alcala Park San Diego, CA 92110-2492 Faculty and Alumni Scholarly Review 44/ Honors, Awards, Grants, Publications and Presentations Phone: (619) 260-4730 Fax: (619) 260-6814 Philanthropy Corner 58/ Another Reason to Give [ Cover Photo] Conrado Perales, MSN, (2011) in his role Donor Honor Roll as Hero while stationed at Guantanamo 59/ 2011 Donor Contributions Bay Naval Station, and in his role as Healer during a volunteer medical mission to Ensenada, Mexico. All nurses saluted in the USD NURSING TIMES are USD faculty, students [ or alumni of the Hahn School of Nursing and Health Science. [ 1 Six Masters Entry Program in Nursing (MEPN) students made history last June when they and their instructor boarded the USNS Mercy in Da Nang, Vietnam. Abigail Chua, Catherine Chung, William Flores, Kimberly Fong, Jacqueline Iseri, and Patrick McNichols were the first nursing students ever invited to serve aboard the Navy’s Pacific fleet hospital ship. 2 Practice at Hahn this May, was aboard as the Mercy’s chief anesthetist during the students’ tour. “The MEPN’s were awesome,” she remembered. “They were very energetic, and we used them everywhere: in screening clinics, peds, med-surg, the onshore clinics. They did everything we assigned them, and we assigned them a lot.” Templin and her students were eager to learn about other cultures, with the aim of becoming culturally competent providers. In preparation to provide rapid, flexible acute medical for their tour, they studied the history and surgical services to combat forces and culture of Vietnam and Cambodia. afloat and onshore. Her last wartime They learned about prohibitions like deployment was in 1991, supporting not touching the top of a person’s head Operation Desert Shield. Since then because that could damage the per- her deployments have been chiefly in son’s spirit, and about such traditional disaster relief, such as the Indonesian healing methods as rubbing a heated tsunami in 2005, and in regularly coin across the affected body part to scheduled humanitarian missions restore internal balance. coordinated through NGO’s. Project They faced their first demand for Hope was the coordinating agency for cultural competence the day they last summer’s Pacific Partnership tour. boarded the Mercy. For all but McNich- On humanitarian missions, Navy ols, who’d previously served a Navy healthcare personnel comprise about hitch, the military environment was a 5% of the total healthcare staff. The foreign culture, with its own customs, rest of the staff are providers from the language, and taboos. Students bunked other U.S. military services and 10 with enlisted personnel, 100 people in partner nations, including Australia, close quarters, where the racks (beds) Canada, Cambodia, France, Japan, stood three high and the communal New Zealand, Portugal, Republic of bathrooms and showers were a walk For five weeks they and Professor Korea, Singapore, and the United down the hall. Professor Templin got Kathleen Templin lived aboard the Kingdom. Hahn students joined these a reprieve; she was moved to officers’ Mercy, and the students worked chiefly military providers and nurses, physi- quarters, where the racks were only in the shipboard pediatric and med- cians and other volunteers from East- two high. Reveille sounded at 0600 surg wards, and also on shore-based Meets West, International Relief Teams, through speakers: “Reveille, reveille! clinics in Cambodia. That first day in Latter-day Saint Charities, Operation All hands on deck. Now reveille. Da Nang harbor, they could not antici- Smile, Project Hope, Hope Worldwide, Breakfast for the crew.” They were re- pate all that they would give, and all UCSD Pre-Dental Society, Vets With- quired to muster (roll call at their duty that they would take home. out Borders, and World Vets. Learning station) at 0630, on days off as well as The Mercy, home ported in San Di- to work with colleagues from other on duty days. Their uniform, Project ego, is a fully equipped hospital, with countries and varied clinical back- HOPE tee shirt and scrub pants, was 12 OR’s, 20 recovery beds, 80 ICU grounds and trainings was an essential mandatory for duty and all meals. Will beds and a maximum capacity of 1000 part of the mission. Flores spoke of the shock of “someone beds. As one of the Navy’s two large Commander Robin Tyler, who all the time telling you where to be.” hospital ships, her primary mission is completed her Doctorate in Nursing Three-high racks in crowded quar- 3 Professor Kathleen Templin and MEPN students with the Mercy clinical team ters, no internet access, and 14 hour HOPE, and our country.” were expected to bring their own food. work days is a different experience Kimberly Fong said, “It was a great On the Mercy patients weren’t permit- from most students’ semesters abroad. experience to live with the military. ted to bring food aboard. The western Abby Chua remembers working on- What awed me most was that they food served on the ward was unfamil- shore in a clinic in Cambodia, where work so hard, 13-14 hour days, and iar, and her patient wouldn’t eat. The the temperature was in the high 90’s, they never complained. They earned staff tried a variety of foods, and found and the humidity was 80-90 percent. my total respect.” she would eat pancakes and dry cereal, The clinic day ran from 7am to 5pm, On shipboard, three students were and drink Ensure. and by mid morning her tee shirt was assigned to pediatrics, and three to the The length of the Mercy’s stops, 12 drenched with sweat, her scrub pants med-surg unit; half way through the to 13 days, determined which patients clung damp and clammy against her tour, they switched assignments. They and which disorders could be treated. legs, and her hair was plastered to her learned to work through interpreters, Conditions that could be resolved in head. Coming back to the ship, more to admit and discharge patients quick- a single episode of care were treated; than food, more than sleep, she want- ly, and to care for multiple patients in those that would require sustained ed a shower, and then to put on a tank a shift. They learned the practicalities care over weeks or months were not. top and shorts. On the Mercy shorts of culturally sensitive care. Caring for “We had to get them ‘streetable,’” weren’t an option. “We were always on a 16-year-old Cambodian girl after Tyler explained. Patients’ pain had to good behavior,” she said. “We knew we surgery for kidney stones, Abby Chua be manageable by discharge, and at were representing Hahn, and Project learned that at local hospitals, patients some stops, “manageable” included 4 tolerating a bumpy ride back to shore tions in local health care facilities. patients had serious scarring from acid in the band aid boat, the Mercy’s small When Patrick McNichols transported burns inflicted by their husbands, one transport craft. a child to a local ER he found “dirty, for her refusal to work as a prostitute.