The Latest News from the School of Nursing

Yvonne Scherer, Ed.D., associate professor in the School of Nursing at the University at Buffalo, has received a $1 million, three-year grant from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration to support new academic programs aimed at alleviating the chronic shortage of skilled nurses and nursing faculty.

In an innovative approach to easing the chronic nursing shortage, the School of Nursing at the University of Buffalo, in partnership with the Catholic Health System and the Kaleida Health System, is launching a fast-track degree program that allows persons who hold a bachelor's degree in another field to receive a bachelor's of science in nursing in 12 months.

Eleven students in the University at Buffalo School of Nursing received awards at the school's recent commencement ceremony.

Members of the University at Buffalo community, at the request of a UB alumnus who was serving with the U.S. Army Nurse Corps in Afghanistan, have joined the international effort to improve medical care in Kabul and the surrounding area by donating and shipping 40 boxes of medical textbooks to the war-torn region.

A study of data from more than 26,000 U.S. hospitals covering outcomes of 38 million patients has shown that people treated in private for-profit hospitals in the U.S. have a greater risk of dying than those cared for in private not-for-profit hospitals.

Look around any hospital, clinic or doctor's office and most of the nurses you see will not be people of color. This situation does not bode well for the future of nursing or for health care, as the general population becomes more diverse and the need for multicultural understanding more crucial. Providing that understanding is the goal of a new curriculum in the master's-degree program for family nurse practitioners in the University at Buffalo.

Why are so many people willing to relegate important medical decisions to strangers? That is the question a University at Buffalo nurse-anthropologist is attempting to answer in a study on medical advance directives funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research.

Pamela S. Hinds, Ph.D., director of nursing research at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis and a specialist in end-of-life decision-making for children and adolescents, will present the fifth annual Bonnie Bullough Lecture, to be held at 4:30 p.m. Oct. 4 in the Center for Tomorrow on the North (Amherst) Campus.

The nursing profession currently faces two major problems: an aging workforce and a less-than-stellar public image, according to Carol Brewer, Ph.D., associate professor in the University at Buffalo School of Nursing and an expert in nursing labor trends. She sees two potential solutions to solving these problems and avoiding a major shortage of nursing services: change the behavior of nurses who are already licensed by getting them to work more hours, or educate more nurses to increase the number entering the workforce.

Photodynamic therapy (PDT), one of the most promising new cancer treatments, may have much wider application than previously thought, new research by University at Buffalo researchers has shown.

Everyone knows that clogged arteries increase the risk of a heart attack or stroke. Unfortunately, most people don't know they have clogged arteries until they actually have a heart attack or some other serious cardiovascular event. By that time, the damage may already be done. Evidence is mounting, however, that information gleaned from a routine dental X-ray may serve as an accurate early-warning system of risk of dying from heart attack or stroke.

Cigarette smoking appears to increase the risk for developing large brain aneurysms in patients who are predisposed to these life-threatening, blood-vessel malformations, a study headed by researchers in the University at Buffalo Department of Neurosurgery has shown.

Most people are ill-prepared to deal with the hardships brought on by a loved one's gambling problem. Researchers at the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions (RIA) have begun a new project funded by a $649,283 grant from the National Institutes of Health that is aimed at studying the stress these people may be experiencing and the ways they've tried to deal with it.

Jo Freudenheim, Ph.D., professor of social and preventive medicine at the University at Buffalo, is leading a project that will map the early-childhood residences of a group of women, the proximity of their homes to sites that may have been environmentally hazardous, and compare this data to the women with and without breast cancer to see if there is an association.

The School of Nursing will offer three new advanced certificate programs beginning this summer and fall.

Researchers from the University at Buffalo's Functional GI Disorders Center and the University at Albany have received a $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to conduct a clinical trial of two non-medical treatments for irritable bowel syndrome, one of the leading causes of work absenteeism.

Is there an infant or toddler with disabilities on your holiday gift list? If so, you might be interested in some advice from Susan Mistrett, director of the Let's Play! project at the University at Buffalo, which uses assistive technologies and interactive strategies to help disabled children to play.

With the help of a $2.74 million grant, researchers at the University at Buffalo and the University of Missouri-Columbia are taking steps to find answers to why some teens engage in risky behaviors, such as drinking, using drugs and having unsafe sex.

Does drinking really kill brain cells? If not, what does happen, and how does it happen? Is the damage permanent? Does chronic alcohol abuse in late adulthood increase the deficits caused by aging? For 16 years, UB professor Roberta J. Pentney has pondered these basic questions concerning chronic alcohol abuse and brain function. Her painstaking work has yielded striking and unexpected answers.

The Research Institute on Addictions (RIA), formerly a component of the New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS), became part of the University at Buffalo today at ceremonies held at the institute, 1021 Main St.

New research on the effects of exercise on juvenile arthritis indicates it is OK -- advantageous, in fact -- for these kids to be kids. Children with juvenile arthritis who took part in an eight-week individualized program of resistance exercise at the University at Buffalo significantly improved their ability to function, some by as much as 200 percent, preliminary results of the study have shown.

A husband-and-wife team of psychiatrists at the University at Buffalo has received a $4.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to search for a gene or genes that may be linked to bipolar disorder, commonly referred to as manic depression.

ACE inhibitors can keep high blood pressure under control if life is running smoothly, but they don't prevent it from rising when things get tense -- like when the bottom drops out of the stock market. That's when a person needs a friend. And if a human friend isn't available, the four-legged variety will do nicely, a study of responses to stress in a group of hypertensive New York City stockbrokers conducted by University at Buffalo researchers, has shown.

Richard Lee is a veteran "trekker." The founder and director of the University at Buffalo Medical Trek Program has made numerous trips overseas since the mid-1980s delivering medical treatment to indigenous populations all across the globe. But a 28-day mission last summer to India with 17 others to deliver medical treatment to the people of the Himalayas was the most harrowing by far.

As a pediatric neurosurgeon at Kaleida Health's Children's Hospital of Buffalo, Mark Dias treats children who suffer from a host of diseases associated with the brain and spinal cord. But in addition to combating those serious illnesses ever day, he’s taking steps to insure that he doesn’t have to treat infants for something that could have been prevented: shaken baby syndrome.