School of Nursing caps another year of local, national honors

by Mark McGowan

NIU's School of Nursing marked another year of success and accolades in 2001 for its continued mission to improve and maintain the health of DeKalb County and the region.

The Oncology Nursing Society and its 26,000 member nurses have recognized Marilyn Frank-Stromborg, chair of the School of Nursing, with the highly competitive 2002 ONS Excellence in Patient/Public Education Award for the 1997 prostate screening of 539 men in DeKalb County and for the 1999 "A Day for Latino Women," when about 90 Latino women were screened for breast and cervical cancer.

Also, the City of DeKalb's PRIDE award—People Responsible for Improving DeKalb's Environment—has honored the school's radon project, which tested radon levels in hundreds of county homes.

Meanwhile, the Department of Defense awarded $72,000 to the School of Nursing for its La Clinica Day program, an innovative approach to breast cancer screening for rural Hispanic women. The event, which will include mammography and demonstrations of breast self-examinations, will take place this spring.

The Fuld Health Foundation also bestowed a two-year grant worth nearly $100,000 to fund faculty workshops on how health care is moving into the community and to pay salaries for School of Nursing professors who spend their summers working in community health care.

Stromborg said the recognition and the monetary grants indicate the strengths of NIU's program and outreach.

"As I said of our successful year in 2000, this speaks highly of our work, not only to teach the nurses of tomorrow, but to include our students in providing health care for many people in our area," Stromborg said. "Now we also are being lauded for the work our faculty members do to keep our own rural population well."

The Fuld Grant comes after years of work by Stromborg and Associate Chair Ken Burns to obtain funding that will enhance the nursing curriculum to include community-based nursing care, disease prevention and health promotion.

Many faculty with acute care expertise lack experience in community health, however.

The grant will pay selected professors to work in those settings from May to August this year and consequently give students a real-world, experience-based understanding afterward. Thanks to support from 10 public health departments, some "summer job" opportunities include Hospice programs and home care.

"The goal of this project is to re-orient that curriculum away from its emphasis on acute care in order to align it with the new realities of the U.S. health care system," Stromborg said. "A major element in successfully accomplishing this goal will be to ensure that all faculty are committed to and fully understand the necessity of integrating community-based concepts throughout the curriculum."

Students also will benefit by realizing the wider array of career options, she said.

Mary Uscian, director of NIU's Tri-County Community Health Center, said "A Day for Latino Women" began as a research study to determine the health-related interests of that population group.

Clinic staff provided Hispanic women with free Pap smears, free pelvic exams and information about the prevention and detection of cervical cancer.

"The program was very well received and well attended," Uscian said. "It demonstrated primarily what we thought—Hispanic women are very interested in health information."

Similarly, on-site prostate screenings were offered to men working at the DeKalb County Farm Bureau, the DeKalb Public Health Department, the DeKalb Senior Center, Driv-Lok, Ideal Industries and the Sandwich Senior Center.

The PRIDE Award, sponsored by the City of DeKalb Citizens' Environmental Commission, is awarded annually to recognize outstanding environmental achievement by DeKalb area residents, businesses, industries and organizations.

The NIU School of Nursing was selected as a winner in the Institutional category for Education and Public Information.

"The program educated people in DeKalb about radon gas, which is a naturally occurring substance but a serious potential health hazard," the environmental commission noted in its award.