TAKE THE STAIRS TO STEP-UP

Emory University and the Wellness Center are beginning “Step-up at Emory,” aimed at encouraging people to use the steps (and walk) to burn calories, save time, conserve energy and feel better. Faculty and staff should have your pedometers, and to encourage you to use them, we are having the stairwells in the SON enhanced. The stairs will be outfitted with a new step covering, the landings will be carpeted, the stairwells painted, and lighting will be upgraded.

A big welcome to three new faculty members: Catherine Vena, Susan Bauer-Wu, and Ron Barrett. Cathy is already here and recently completed a two-year interdisciplinary postdoctoral fellowship in sleep research with the Emory School of Medicine Department of Neurology, the Emory Program in Sleep Medicine, and the School of Nursing. Her research focuses on sleep disturbances in patients with lung cancer.

Bauer-Wu will arrive in the summer from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, where she served as director of the Phyllis F. Cantor Center for Research in Nursing and Patient Care Services. She is a Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Cancer Scientist and currently is the principal investigator of a National Institute of Nursing Research R01 grant on “Mindfulness Meditation in Bone Marrow Transplantation.”

Barrett, a medical anthropologist and assistant professor in anthropological science at Stanford University, also will arrive in the summer. His teaching experience included overseas seminars in religion and healing in Tibet, Nepal, and India and service learning courses on the anthropology of death and dying in which he trained students as hospice volunteers in greater San Francisco. Currently, he is conducting an extensive study of the original hospice program in Great Britain.

Dunbar hopes all the interesting projects she has worked on will both make a difference in the lives of cardiac patients and families as well as serve as an impetus to young nurses to become nurse-scientists. She’s been active in cardiovascular research for more than two decades, conducting psychosocial and outcomes research with high risk cardiac patients and was appointed in September director of Center for Research on Symptoms, Symptom Interactions, and Health Outcomes.

In addition to her current study testing a family based intervention in heart failure, she’s also working on META-Health (Morehouse and Emory Teaming up to eliminate health disparities), an NIH-funded project to address health disparities between African Americans and Caucasians at high risk for developing cardiovascular disease. “We’ve learned a lot about the beliefs and misconceptions that patients have about their health,” she says. “There is a lot of interest in improving health, but many people need to learn the skills to do so.” The aim of the project which Dunbar leads tests an intervention designed to improve physical activity and diet behaviors by teaching participants with Metabolic Syndrome how to self monitoring and use pedometers, interpret food nutrition labels, especially sodium levels, and make culturally relevant dietary changes.
 
In July, she will assume vice-chair of the Council of Cardiovascular Nursing at the American Heart Association. The organization encourages recruitment of nurses into cardiovascular nursing and science. She hopes more young nursing students will pursue their doctorate degrees and develop a research career. “Emory has been a wonderful site for me to grow a research career and interdisciplinary research relationships.”

The Jacksonville, FL, native has been teaching at the SON since 1988. Before coming to Emory, she taught at the University of Miami. She and her husband now call Alpharetta home. Their 19-year-old daughter, a student at Valdosta State University, is following her mother into the education field—she wants to be a high school Spanish language teacher. Dunbar and her husband, meanwhile, are busy training people at their church to lead service missions to Costa Rica. They’ve led missions there before, taking teams to work on church construction, youth activities, and health outreach projects.

STAFF PROFILE: ERNESTO INCE, MANAGER OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES

Ince has been managing the SON’s computer systems for almost six years and says, “I like that the people we’re supporting are helping the sick and underserved.” He keeps SON servers, file sharing, and network printers working, along with computing support specialist Otis Head. “The challenge is keeping up with new technology,” he says.
 
Ince got interested in computers at an early age. His father, who worked in data processing at AT&T in northern New Jersey, would bring computers home. Ince would take them apart and put them back together. (Now his parents or his older brother call him when they have a problem with their computers.)

Along the way Ince also got interested in biology and neuroscience. He earned a doctorate in neuroscience and worked at Emory briefly as a post-doctorate student, but he says he’s not interested in pursing a career in the field. Working around computers is where he wants to be.

The first thing Lee will tell you about his life is that he doesn’t have one. “I have no life and study whenever I’m not at school or work.” Lee works as a patient care assistant in Emory University Hospital’s cardiovascular intensive care unit and works all kinds of hours—days, nights, and weekends. But the experience is great, he says, and he enjoys working with patients with complex conditions.

The Honolulu native became interested in nursing after talking to several nurses and learning about the vast opportunities within the field. His advice to those considering nursing: “Shadow nurses and really know what they do. I think a lot of people underestimate the duties of an RN and all the responsibility they have.” He hopes nursing schools will commit more scholarship resources for male students to encourage more men to go into nursing. He says of attending a school that is predominantly female, “The good part is going to school with all women. The bad part is going to school with all women.”

Lee expects to start his career after graduation this year in California but expects he will return to Hawaii in the future. He says he enjoys the surf, the food, and the people in Hawaii, but the cost of living there can be challenging.