CUSON Welcomes its First Four Graduates of the PhD Program
Sarah Collins '09 is a National Library of Medicine post-doctoral research fellow at Columbia University's Department of Biomedical Informatics. This is a two-year position funded by a National Library of Medicine Trainee Grant. Her background is as a critical care nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. Dr. Collins received a PhD in nursing informatics from the School of Nursing. With the acknowledgement that interdisciplinary communication is essential to safe and high quality patient care, she will use the electronic health record to build tools that support interdisciplinary communication and improve patient safety in the hospital setting. This work involves two foci: analyzing clinician-clinician handoff of patient care and how computerized tools can support that process, and using data mining to derive knowledge from electronic nursing documentation that may be early indicators of inpatient complications.
Kelli Stidham Hall '10 is a post-doctoral research fellow at Princeton University's Center for Health and Wellbeing, where she plans to further study social determinants of reproductive public health disparities. During her first year of fellowship at Princeton, Dr. Hall will submit multiple manuscripts for publication based upon her doctoral work, which included a National Institutes of Health-supported interdisciplinary dissertation that examined eating disorders, depression, and stress as mediators of oral contraceptive-attributed side effects and discontinuation in young minorities. Dr. Hall will also begin an epidemiologic research project using large national datasets and advanced analytical methods to investigate new psychological, bio-behavioral, socio-economical, and political determinants of negative population-based reproductive health outcomes. She hopes to identify risk factors for poor contraception use and lay the groundwork for relevant public health approaches to reduce disparities and sociopolitical barriers to adequate family planning and evidence-based reproductive health care.
Rebecca Schnall '09 is an associate research scientist at Columbia University School of Nursing. Her time is divided between Wireless Informatics for Safe and Evidence-Based Advanced Practice Nurse Care project, a Health Resources and Services Administration-funded grant whose purpose is to include patient safety in clinicians' curricula, and research and administrative activities related to the Center for Evidence-Based Practice. Dr. Schnall also teaches the Doctor of Nursing Practice course, Informatics for Practice. Her clinical expertise is in pediatrics and HIV care and her research interests include patient safety, personal health records, care coordination, decision support, and HIV/AIDS.
Po-Yin Yen '10 is working with Suzanne Bakken, DNSc this summer as a research associate in the Center for Evidence-Based Practice in the Underserved while she considers several academic nursing opportunities related to nursing informatics. During her employment at the Center, Dr. Yen plans to submit multiple manuscripts for publication based upon her doctoral work, which concerns health information technology usability evaluation. She will also coordinate the summer education program for Gregorio Luperon High School. The program funding is provided by the U.S. government's economic stimulus plan. In addition, Dr. Yen participates in other Center-funded projects including video podcasting for Symptom Self-Management and Adolescents with Diabetes Engage in Problem Solving through Tailored Intervention.