Nursing | Penn Today

WHYY (Philadelphia)

How to keep teen drivers’ eyes on the road, and their fingers off the keyboard

Kate McDonald of the School of Nursing discussed efforts to reduce teen car crashes, including in-school training. “What we’ve seen to be successful in getting people to use seat belts, or reducing cigarette use, we want to be able to shift that over to reducing distracted driving and changing the social norms around what’s acceptable and what’s not,” she said.

Child in a white shirt sleep on a paper-covered desk in a classroom, with three students in the background.

Children who nap midday are happier, excel academically, and have fewer behavioral problems

A Penn study of nearly 3,000 fourth, fifth, and sixth graders in China revealed strong connections between 30 to 60 minutes of shuteye at least three days a week and positive outcomes in a handful of areas.

Three people sitting at a small, round table outside, with greenery in the background.

Kurdish is the newest class on the global language roster

A course taught by Annenberg doctoral student Mohammed Salih offered, for the first time at Penn, entrée into the basics of a language spoken by 30 million people worldwide.

Al Día

Our Nurses: the best-kept secret in Medicine today

Dean Antonia Villarruel of the School of Nursing was highlighted as an “enlightened woman who worked the hardest to give fair recognition to the many women and men of Hispanic origin anxious to make a contribution to the quality of American health care through their yet to be valued profession of nursing.”

Nature

Breastfeeding mums are finally getting spaces to pump at some U.S. institutions

Diane Spatz of the School of Nursing discussed her research about on-campus lactation spaces. “The research is indisputable that breastfeeding improves the lives of individual mothers and infants and results in overall better societal outcomes,” said Spatz.

Full circle

Jennifer Toth was treated for hepatoblastoma as a young child at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where she returned to work as an oncology nurse following her graduation from Penn Nursing in 2015.

Two men sitting cross-legged on a wooden bench.

For Kennett Square’s mushroom farmworkers, healthy interventions come directly to the workplace

With the President’s Engagement Prize, seniors José Maciel and Antonio Renteria plan to bring subjects like nutrition and sleep to the workers, reinforcing preventive screenings already provided by a local, federally qualified health center.

With a second patient free from HIV, what’s next?

Scientists have succeeded in sending an HIV patient into long-term remission, only the second time such a feat has been documented. Pablo Tebas and Bridgette Brawner discuss what this means for HIV research and for people living with the virus.

Person in a black dress standing on stairs for a portrait.

College campuses are thinking about lactation spaces—but could be doing more

Breastfeeding mothers in higher-education environments can typically find a place to pump, but only recently have institutions begun to prioritize access to this resource.

NBC Philadelphia

Virtual reality helping in fight against opioid deaths

The School of Nursing offers a virtual reality (VR) simulation to train responders how to administer Narcan, an overdose-reversing drug. The simulation demonstrates that VR training can be “low cost, high efficacy, and that it’s just as good as the gold standard of medical training,” said Clare Whitney, a doctoral student in the Hillman Scholars Program in Nursing Innovation.

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