Washington Adventist University (WAU) has appointed Emily Mize, RN, Ph.D., to serve as chair of the department of nursing. The Edyth T. James Department of Nursing is part of the University’s School of Health Professions, Science and Wellness.

“The department is at a point of transitioning from a college program to a university program. I am excited about this opportunity to give back to the Seventh-day Adventist Church and to nursing education,” Mize said. “I am passionate about teaching and mentoring both students and faculty.”

Annual Health Care Open House

WAU School of Health Professions, Science, and Wellness hosted its annual Health Care Open House on Tuesday, February 14^th, 2012 in the lobby of Wilkinson Hall. Students were greeted by health career demonstrations, heart healthy treats, and large selection of written healthcare career materials. Faculty and staff of WAU as well as the Washington Adventist Hospital School of Radiology were available from 10AM-2PM to answer student’s questions and help them decide if a healthcare career might be in their future.

Lee Wisel, Director of the Weis Library, was available to assist students as they gathered information about various healthcare careers. With her expertise, students were able to explore a multitude of healthcare career possibilities. The Department of Health, Wellness, and Physical Education provided exciting and educational fitness demonstrations, healthy eating information and yummy samples!Eden Good vegan cookies were provided courtesy of our own Student Association here at WAU. They were quite a hit!

Another popular stop was at the Respiratory Care tabke, the Department of Respiratory Care generated considerable excitement due to an up-and-running mechanical ventilator along with ongoing demonstrations of airway management techniques. There were lots of students gathered around to try their hand at intubating the adult and infant manikins and listen to our newest clinical instructor, Abigail Wankyo, give an impromptu lesson on the proper use of a mechanical ventilator. The 2012 Healthcare Career Fair was informative and fun for students and faculty alike!

Atlantic Hope CERT Training

On Feb 13, 2011, 6 people from the WAU community participated in a customized training to learn the principles of Community Emergency Response Training or CERT. This program was started by FEMA to enable the community to act when disaster strikes. The training taught participants the basics of first aid, how to maintain safety before, during and after a natural or man-made disaster. These programs are provided by each county for their residents. This one day program enabled our WAU community to prepare for a 4 day simulation entitled Atlantic Hope, in Ft. Pierce Florida from March 8 to March 11th.

Atlantic Hope is a 4 day and night simulation that prepares students to provide humanitarian aid in the conflict zone. Students are housed in military like tents, fed basic rations and simulate leading and managing a camp of 50, negotiating with local military and displaced peoples, providing basic evacuation and triage of mass causalities and assessing a village hit by an earthquake. Two of your fellow nursing students Darryl Staten and Cherrylyn Remigio both attended this training. They slept outside in tents, in the rain, got less than 6 hours sleep a night, managed with one flush toilet and no showers from Thursday to Sunday night. They ate rice and beans for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch and pasta and bread for dinner each day. There were no runs to the local McDonalds for a mocha latte. Local EMT students participated as simulated bomb victims covered in moulage, with debris sticking out of their skulls, moaning and groaning.

This program provided the students with the leadership, logistics and negotiation skills that will allow them to be fully prepared for work in the future with the Red Cross, Peace Corps or mission work around the world. We all came back tired, dirty and hungry but we came back excited with new ideas to implement and new opportunities opened up to us. Thank you to Dean Marshall for supporting this opportunity.

The Edyth T. James Department of Nursing at Washington Adventist University (WAU) was recently awarded 4.3 million dollars in grant funding. The U.S. Department of Education awarded the University a three million dollar “Master’s Degrees at Predominantly Black Institutions (MPBI)” grant. This federal grant is intended to encourage low income and/or African Americans to pursue graduate degrees in fields such as nursing and engineering. Washington Adventist University was one of only five institutions that were awarded this grant.

Washington Adventist Hospital has also underwritten a 1.3 million dollar grant awarded through the Maryland Hospital Association and titled “Who Will Care.” This initiative seeks to address Maryland’s nursing shortage by equipping nursing schools to increase enrollment and graduation rates. Sixteen other Maryland educational institutions received grant funding through this initiative.

Washington Adventist University currently offers a Master of Science in Nursing with Business Leadership (M.S.N.-B.L.), which was implemented in the spring of 2007 and graduated its first class in December 2009. The MPBI grant will allow the University to enhance the existing M.S.N.-B.L. program and create two new academic concentrations: an educator track to the M.S.N.-B.L., called the Master of Science in Nursing, Nurse Educator (M.S.N., Nurse Educator; to be implemented in fall 2010) and an Associate Degree in Nursing to Master of Science in Nursing (A.D.N. to M.S.N.; to be implemented in fall 2011).

In addition to facilitating a seamless progression from the existing R.N. to B.S. programs, these new concentrations will provide curriculum theory and application courses; instructional and evaluation strategies that utilize faculty-guided, student-led,
case-based learning and utilization of technology such as human-patient simulations; a nurse education practicum; research opportunities for graduate students; and preparation for graduate learners to take and pass the National League for Nursing (NLN) Nurse Educator Exam.

The University’s traditional baccalaureate nursing program has been in existence since 1904. Over the past 10 years nursing classes have averaged about 25 graduates. WAU will use funding from the “Who Will Care” grant to increase enrollment, retain students, and increase the number of graduates. The campaign’s comprehensive goals are to increase the pool of diverse and qualified nursing graduates, and to develop and disseminate a technology-based nursing education curriculum model that can accommodate students from the underrepresented sectors of society. The “Who Will Care” grant will also enable the nursing department to purchase additional educational equipment such as patient simulators and computer software to help meet the aforementioned goals.