COMMUNITY
Curbing childhood obesity
Sharon Canclini, a clinical instructor in TCU’s Harris College of Nursing & Health Sciences, wants to help south Arlington students safely walk to school.
Building sidewalks might not be the first thing people think of when they consider ways to decrease childhood obesity, asthma and other health problems associated with an urban lifestyle. But that’s exactly where Sharon Canclini, a clinical instructor in TCU’s Harris College of Nursing & Health Sciences, says we need to start.
Canclini lives in an area of south Arlington that features plentiful commercial development, several high-density residential subdivisions and three Mansfield school district campuses with 1,000 students each. What this bustling enclave lacked were sidewalks, bike paths and walkable shoulders. And that’s a big problem, according to Canclini.
“If you don’t have sidewalks, what are you going to walk on?” she said.
Thanks to Canclini and her students, the south Arlington landscape is changing. Since 2007, Canclini and her public health nursing class have worked to implement features recommended in the federal Safe Routes to School initiative. (more)
TCU model improves disaster response initiatives
“Something needs to be done to better prepare for disaster response.” Those words echoed in the ears of Harris College of Nursing & Health Sciences instructor, Sharon Canclini, and Faith & Life @ TCU program director, Judy Shannon. In the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, community concern over disaster preparedness was heightened, however there were no clear answers on how to improve response initiatives.
In the summer of 2007, Canclini and Shannon met with leaders from Volunteer Center North Texas (VCNT) and Tarrant Area Community of Churches (TACC) to discuss the issue. Lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina indicated that the faith community has reservoirs of volunteers and resources and is willing and eager to help in response to disasters but may not know how to best engage. It is clear that faith communities need to be better informed and prepared to respond to disasters efficiently, effectively and safely. However, disaster response agencies have not developed ways to connect with and engage their local faith communities and many faith leaders are disheartened when their desire to help in relief efforts is met with roadblocks, red-tape, or processes that discouraged the very beliefs that are calling them to serve. Beyond Canclini’s work with TCU nursing students, there appeared to be no effective initiatives, to engage members of the faith community in disaster response.
With the mission: to help prepare the Tarrant County faith community to mobilize volunteers and resources efficiently in response to disaster situations, TCU and its partners sought to create a model for a community-based approach that could engage disaster response agencies with members of the faith community in advance disaster preparation. (more)
TCU's nurse anesthesia students lobby national lawmakers on behalf of the profession
As a student representative for Oklahoma Association of Nurse Anesthetists, senior David White understands the importance of getting politically involved in state and local issues. Many times he’s voiced support for issues affecting nurse anesthetists in Oklahoma and has even gone to the state capitol in Oklahoma City.
But, recently, he and other TCU nurse anesthesia students received an opportunity to lobby on a national scale, speaking to Congressional representatives in Texas and Oklahoma on behalf of the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists.
The students, accompanied by Terri Jones, clinical assistant professor in TCU's School of Nurse Anesthesia, spoke to lawmakers such as Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla.), a TCU alumnus, about issues ranging from providing more educational funding for nurses in an effort to encourage more people to become certified registered nurse anesthetists to showing support for a Medicare anesthesia payment bill that asks for equitable reimbursement for nurse anesthesia students in comparison to what’s received by physician residents. (more)
TCU’s athletic training program goes international
The Horned Frogs from the Athletic Training Education Program in the kinesiology department will soon be able to savor sushi and study in the land of the rising sun. The AETP, in conjunction with the Nippon Engineering College of Hachioji in Japan, is working on the International Athletic Training Experience in Japan exchange program, beginning next year.
“If we go, it will be through an athletic training course at TCU like international sports medicine,” said Sean Willeford, program director of TCU’s athletic training education.
During the three-week program likely to begin in May 2010, the first week will be instruction and cultural training at TCU, Willeford said. The remaining two weeks will be in Japan where students will learn about Eastern medicine, visit organizations like the Japan Athletic Trainer’s Organization, sit in courses and see Japanese students in clinical rotations and observe the differences.
Willeford said it is interesting to see how Eastern culture and Western medicine can be incorporated—an example of which he has seen through Ryuji Mita, former TCU student from Japan who is also an acupuncturist.
Although TCU will be sending its students next year, the first Nippon group will start their studies here this fall in the Intensive English Program. They will also attend athletic training lectures along with observations of TCU students in clinical setting, Willeford said.
Masaki Komatsu, international program coordinator and instructor at the Nippon Engineering College and TCU alumnus, said in an e-mail that he also wants his students to see the profession of athletic training in the U.S. and learn the differences. (more)
