Outstanding professional service by nursing faculty member brings opportunities to students

To be a nurse is the opportunity to affect the lives of patients in a positive way. That’s what initially drew Bedelia Russell to the profession. Now as Associate Professor of Nursing in Tennessee Tech University’s Whitson-Hester School of Nursing her potential impact has grown significantly as she helps teach and train other nurses.

Russell, who earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing at Tech before working in Nashville hospitals for a number of years, is in her 17th year at the university and was recently presented with the Outstanding Faculty Award for Professional Service.

“My philosophy about professional service is that we have an obligation to serve,” Russell said. “We serve because we have been given opportunities to gain experience, skills, knowledge and education to impact the greater good. We have God-given gifts and talents we are to use well. Often, this involves self-sacrifice of time or personal gain.”

When called to sacrifice her time for the university, Russell has risen to the occasion, serving as interim dean and director in the School of Nursing and associate dean in the College of Graduate studies during leadership transitions. She has also served on various new course, curriculum and program development committees; is currently coordinator of the School of Nursing’s Doctorate of Nursing Practice program and has served on more than 40 various committees at both the school and the university level.

Outside of Tech and in the larger community, Russell actively offers her expertise and passion for helping others. She currently serves on the Cookeville Regional Medical Center Charitable Foundation Board of Directors and volunteers with Heart of The Cumberland where she is a B.E.S.T. groups co-facilitator. B.E.S.T. groups provide school-based support groups for elementary and middle school children who have experienced loss due to death, divorce, incarceration, deployment, deportation, or other difficult family circumstances.

All of her service has contributed to opportunities for her students and given her experience she brings back to the classroom to make student learning relevant and interesting. Through her work with Heart of the Cumberland, new student clinical experiences are in development and will soon give students a chance to do clinical experience work in schools with B.E.S.T. groups.

Part of Russell’s role as a board member with the CRMC Charitable Foundation is to review and provide input into services rendered at CRMC and to determine which serves need funding by the Foundation. Her input has included being a voice to support and develop continuing education opportunities for professional nursing staff at the hospital, highlighting her work’s benefit to the greater Cookeville community of nurses.

“As an undergraduate alumna of Tennessee Tech, I have valued the opportunity to come back to Tech and serve through such diverse means,” Russell said. “I have learned so much through every service opportunity, but what I have gained the most over 17 years of professional service to the university is the greater appreciation and admiration of all the many talented faculty and staff, who, daily, model service for the greater good when they focus on service as a means for student and institutional success.”

(Original article credit Bailey Phonsnasinh)

Associate Professor of Nursing in Tennessee Tech’s Whitson-Hester School of Nursing Bedelia Russell, center, receives the Outstanding Faculty Award for Professional Service, presented by Provost Lori Mann Bruce and President Phil Oldham.

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Dr. Melissa Geist Receives ANCC 2018 Board Certified Nurse Award

Congratulations to Dr. Melissa Geist!  She is the recipient of the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s (ANCC) 2018 Board Certified Nurse Award in the Pediatric Primary Care Nurse Practitioner category. She will be publicly recognized using the ANCC Certification social media platform. Please visit the ANCC Certification Facebook page to view the official announcements in celebration of this year’s Certified Nurses Day.

Thank you for making us proud Dr. Geist!

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Dr. Ann Hellman featured in TTU’s Donor Spotlight

Whitson-Hester School of Nursing graduate helped sisters Ann Hellman and Lisa Russell say goodbye to their father during one of the most difficult moments of their lives.  As a thank you to this graduate, and to help future generations of nursing students, Hellman and Russell established the Bethel R. Norrod Memorial Scholarship in memory of their father.

Hellman, an associate professor in the Whitson-Hester School of Nursing, and Russell, assistant director of advancement services in University Advancement, both graduated from Tennessee Tech and say that as Cookeville natives, the University has always been a part of their lives.

“I get my greatest enjoyment from working closely with students,” said Hellman.  “Encouraging them to see nursing from a holistic viewpoint, seeing them explore patient population groups, and watching them grow in confidence from scared new nursing students to new nursing professionals is greatly rewarding for me.”

“My current position in Advancement doesn’t allow me the opportunity to deal directly with students,” said Russell.  “However, I feel my unit is very instrumental in making life better for TTU students.  We work diligently securing gifts, stewarding our donors, and promoting alumni relations.  We see lives changed because of the work we do.”

Hellman’s and Russell’s father, Bethel Norrod, spent the last week and a half of his life at Cookeville Regional Medical Center, and many great nurses cared for him.  But one nurse, Tennessee Tech graduate J.C. Palfreyman, stood out above the rest.

“J.C. Palfreyman went beyond the normal assignment of his duties to provide excellent physical and emotional care for my dad,” said Russell.  “He saw him for the man he was:  a husband, father, grandfather, brother, and uncle–not just a dying patient.  He treated him with respect.”

Hellman and Russell say they established the scholarship to honor their father and his love for learning.  They hope to give students a helping hand and allow them to ultimately help others, just as their father did and just as Palfreyman did for him.

“My dad only had an eighth grade education, having to drop out of school to help support his large family,” said Russell.  “However, he was an avid reader and loved learning.  I have so many memories of walking into his house, and he’s sitting there with a book in his hand and a dictionary right beside him, in order to look up the words that he didn’t know.”

Hellman added, “Daddy was a man who believed in hard work.  Although he came from a very poor upbringing, he also strongly believed that you always gave to others and helped others as the need presented.  I can only imagine, had his circumstances been different and education been more accessible to him, how his life might have been different.”

The Bethel R. Norrod Memorial Scholarship is awarded to nontraditional upper division nursing students from Overton County.

“We want all of the recipients of Dad’s scholarship to know the work they do makes all the difference in their patients’ lives,” said Russell.  “We want them to realize the importance of paying it forward and to realize that all gifts, regardless of size, make a difference.”

Write a message of thanks to Ann Hellman and Lisa Russell

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Welcome Back Pizza Party Today!

Welcome Back Upper Division Students! Don’t forget the Welcome Back Pizza Party is today (Tuesday the 29th) at Dead Hour in our Rotunda!

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Interim Dean Announced

The Whitson-Hester School of Nursing is pleased to announce that TTU faculty member Dr. Kim Hanna has been appointed as our Interim Dean beginning August 7th.

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Joint doctor of nursing practice program established at Tennessee Tech, ETSU

Addressing the changing health care system and the increasing need for nurses prepared at the baccalaureate and graduate levels, Tennessee Tech’s Whitson-Hester School of Nursing and the College of Nursing at East Tennessee State University have established a joint program to provide an opportunity for nurses to earn a doctor of nursing practice degree.

Admitting students at both campuses beginning fall 2017, the program aims to prepare graduates to meet the health care needs of Tennesseans.

“I am so grateful that TTU Whitson-Hester School of Nursing is partnering with ETSU to provide this innovative program to educate future advanced practice nurses to serve the residents of the Upper Cumberland region and beyond,” said Huey-Ming Tzeng, dean of Tech’s Whitson-Hester School of Nursing.

This joint doctor of nursing practice program consists of six concentrations: family nurse practitioner, psychiatric/mental health nurse practitioner, executive leadership, adult-gerontology acute care nurse practitioner, pediatric nurse practitioner-primary care and women’s health care nurse practitioner.

“The ETSU College of Nursing has long valued its clinical programs that have graduated advanced practice nurses ready to serve their communities,” said Wendy Nehring, dean of ETSU’s College of Nursing. “We are thrilled that, through this partnership with TTU, we’ll now have a way to offer the concentrations of women’s health care nurse practitioner, pediatric nurse practitioner-primary care and adult-gerontology acute care nurse practitioner.”

For Tech, this DNP program provides the Whitson-Hester School of Nursing’s first doctoral program and the opportunity to graduate advanced practice nurses specializing as a family nurse practitioner, executive leader or a psychiatric/mental health nurse practitioner, areas of expertise for ETSU.

The joint program will utilize an online and blended delivery format including on-campus work at the beginning of each semester and online learning throughout the remainder of the semester. At least once a year, all enrolled students will meet together. The program is designed to allow working professional nurses and students the opportunity to complete clinical requirements in or near their home city.

This collaborative will provide opportunity for study and concentration not currently available in northeast and mid-upper Tennessee, addressing a shortage of primary healthcare services that advanced practice nurses with DNP degrees can help meet. These graduates would also be capable of filling a shortage of nursing faculty in Tennessee.

Students may enroll for any concentration at the institution of their choice. For more information on the program, contact Myra Clark, ETSU’s associate dean of Graduate Programs, at CLARKML2@etsu.edu or 423-439-5626, or Bedelia Russell, assistant professor in Tech’s Whitson-Hester School of Nursing, at BHRussell@tntech.edu or 931-372-6006.

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Tech students team up with Cuban students to help elderly

Cary Hitchcock Cass, a graduate nursing student, and McKenzie Hodge, a graduate chemical engineering student, talk to senior citizens in Havana.

Faculty, staff and students from Tennessee Tech and the Universidad Tecnologica de La Habana recently teamed up to help senior citizens in Cuba.

With funding provided by a U.S. Embassy Mission to Cuba grant, nursing and chemical engineering students in Tech’s Clinical Immersion at Disciplinary Interfaces course traveled to Havana, Cuba, and spent a week identifying problems that impact healthcare and developing prototypes through reiterative design.

“We submitted a proposal to the American Embassy in Cuba about sharing the clinical immersion experience with the engineering school in Cuba. Of the 250 proposals that were submitted, only 15 were funded, and we were one of those,” said Tech nursing professor Melissa Geist. “Not only was it interdisciplinary, it was also cross-cultural with students having to cross cultural boundaries.”

Geist, along with assistant professor of chemical engineering Robby Sanders, engineering specialist Marbin Pazos-Revilla and director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Michael Aikens, led Tech students Yocelyne Angulo, Whitley Battles, Sarah Beth Cain, Cary Hitchcock Cass, Jennifer Condra, Mackenzie Hodge, Sergio Ramirez and Ashley Wheeler in helping discover problems common to elderly including chronic pain, loss of functional independence, fear of falling and so on.

“Often with cultural exchanges, we only get to see one part of the people,” said Cass, a nursing graduate student. “With this one, we got to see students and older people in the community.”

The Tech and UTH students spent the week collaborating and using low-budget prototyping and reiterative design to come up with concepts for devices to solve the identifiable problems.

“Their students were so eager to learn,” Sanders said. “There were so many commonalities that really stood out.”

After spending time in the community and speaking with several Cuban senior citizens, the students discovered that the older adults suffered from chronic pain due to musculoskeletal fatigue and arthritis. This became the focus for several of the teams.

“The cultural experience was very rewarding,” Cass said. “I don’t think at any point I felt unwelcome. They were very candid, respectful and curious as much as we were.”

After overcoming cultural barriers and identifying the target problems, the Tech and UTH teams spent the rest of the week designing prototypes for their healthcare devices. One of the prototypes included gloves for stiff joints in arthritic hands.

All of the teams presented their prototypes in English and Spanish to Ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis, deputy chief of mission Scott Hamilton, and other U.S. Embassy staff. The response was overwhelmingly positive.

“The staff at the embassy were wowed,” said Geist. “We had no idea how this was going to play out.”

The result of the trip could be felt for years to come. The faculty and administration from both universities discussed detailed plans for another project to take place in May 2018. There are also plans among Tech and UTH faculty to produce manuscripts documenting the experience for publication and presentations. There is also interest among two of the groups to enter Tech’s Eagle Works competition with their prototypes.

“It was an amazing experience. I got outside of my comfort zone,” Cass said. “With this globalization we have now, the class and this project sets up engineering and nursing students for success. You never know what experience it may give them to broaden their horizons.”

“The impact that it has left on the students is tremendous,” Sanders said. “To be able to have a better appreciation for how the world works is a tremendously valuable experience.”

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Spring 2018 Upper Division Application is Now Available

The Spring 2018 Upper Division/Traditional BSN application is now available online.  Applications are due no later that August 1st!

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TTU Nursing Alum Makes the News

Check out how TTU Nursing Alum Cecilia Anderson made the news by going above and beyond for one of her patients!

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School of Nursing Honors Outstanding Individuals

Thomas Lawrence,  Barbara Reynolds, and Karen Lynn were recently honored for the contributions to the Whitson-Hester School of Nursing.

See the write-up from the Herald Citizen!

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