Nursing | Penn Today

Is bias keeping female, minority patients from getting proper care for their pain?

Salimah Meghani of the School of Nursing spoke about physician bias in treating minority patients for pain. “Since pain is subjective and relies on patients’ own testimony,” she said, “disproportionately trusting the self-reports of some groups over others can result in discriminatory care.”

Two people, one older, one younger sitting and looking at their phones.

What influences how parents and their gay adolescent sons talk about sexual health at home?

Research from Penn found that even when parent-child conversations avoid heteronormative stereotypes, outside factors like mass media and religion—those beyond the parents’ control—can reinforce them.

Two students sitting on a stone statue, one on a computer, the other on a phone.

A push for emergency texting services across the United States

Today, fewer than half of U.S. counties have this capability. Rising juniors Anthony Scarpone-Lambert and Kirti Shenoy want to change that with their nonprofit Text-911.

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Predicting post-injury depression and PTSD risk

Up to half of all acute injury patients experience post-traumatic stress disorder in the months after injury. For urban black men, some of whom have experienced prior trauma, childhood adversity, and neighborhood disadvantage, acute post-injury stress responses are exacerbated.

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.

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.”

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.

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