When Dean Hill first approached me to discuss what she thought might be the right timing for a transition of the deanship of our school, I was immediately stressed by the concept of losing such a phenomenal leader.

Nurse Faculty Scholar puts ‘handymen’ to work turning older people’s homes into safe, healthy environments.

In my years as a nurse practitioner providing house calls to homebound older adults and their families, some of the most poignant experiences I have had are with the families of completely paralyzed older adults.

Last week we were able to get Sarah Bristol, Traditional 2012 student and Provost’s Undergraduate Research Award (PURA) award winner started on her very innovative PhotoVoice project.  Sarah is working in partnership with our colleagues at Foundation RamaLevina (FORAL), a … Read More »

The last week has been busy working in the villages and visiting members of our Pigs for Peace project in Ciriri and surrounding villages.  The project continues to grow, with a total of 300 families in 15 villages participating in … Read More »

Thursday morning the team was heading to the city of Goma.  We had two main objectives for our trip:

Get updated on work colleagues are doing in two partner programs, AFEDEC (Congolese women’s health and development program) and Flamme d’Amour (orphanage)
Visit … Read More »

We have arrived in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the 30th of June is Congolese Independence from Belgium. Although a day normally celebrated, our Congolese colleagues stated there is nothing to celebrate as life has not gotten better … Read More »

After my latest trip to Haiti last month, I have been asked by many about the changes I noticed. Are things getting better since the earthquake? Are things worse? Although my time was spent mostly in the southwest in the rural mountain village of Leon, I also spent some time at the end of the week in Port-au-Prince.

Our JHUSON contingent of nurses returned home from Haiti late Saturday night/early Sunday morning. I was joined by five graduate NP students: Vanessa Bruce, Anthony Pho, Amber Richert, Amanda Singh, and Tresie Yost. We were part of a multidisciplinary team that delivered primary health care to hundreds of Haitians last week in the rural mountain village of Leon in the southwest.

I do not want to believe the international community is so ineffective in its response that people believe that the NGOs are “entrepreneurs of insecurity” … but given what I have witnessed over the last three days, it is hard to think otherwise.

Our group of 11 have returned from Jeremie, Haiti– having spent a week working with the Haitian Health Foundation. As usual, everyone on the team worked happily and non-stop. Our main work focused on a girls’ adolescent health promotion program, which is a continuation of work that clinical groups of baccalaureate PHN students have done for 5 years.

Our last weekend in Bukavu before taking the boat north to the DRC border city of Goma was very eventful. Our Pigs for Peace coordinator, Luwazi, invited me to his home for a meal. While at his home, he surprised me with an opportunity to see one member repay their loan of two piglets to the project and see two women each receive their new piglet. It was a joyful time … the member repaying his debt was so pleased to see the smiles and hear the singing of the recipients. One woman said “this pig will help me lift my family out of poverty.”