Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Columbia University. Department of Nursing'

This doctoral report details the findings of a ten month project conducted in a university nursing department. The project used cooperative inquiry to engage teachers of professional occupational courses in research. This project has relevance for all university departments exploring ways to develop a research culture in a predominantly teaching environment. The New University, where the project was set, committed the organisation to raising income through research and teaching where previously it had been through primarily teaching contracts. The inclusive research strategy required all teachers to become 'research active' and produce research outputs that met the Research Excellence Framework (REF) benchmarks. This approach was part of the university strategy of 'authority to teach' that required all teachers credibility to be provided through the primary research the academics were engaged in. This was a significant change for teachers whose credibility came through occupational professional qualifications and expertise and who had little experience of research. The project focused on the collaborative development of a departmental applied research. It was hoped staff would have ownership of the strategy that would facilitate the engagement in research and create a cultural change. The project findings highlighted that an occupational teacher identity was deeply imbedded as part of an occupational career trajectory. This led to a recognition that change would need to address the teacher identity not simply focus on raising the status of research as part of an academic role. The project addressed this through the development of a research strategy that incorporated a 'Scholarship Model' that broadened the notion of scholarship. Instead of research providing academic credibility, the model valued teaching and a variety of scholarly endeavours that included research to provide academic credibility. This was used to create a scholarly culture that moved the department towards a longer term goal of developing research active staff for the REF submission.

The practice of obtaining blood as part of the placement of a new peripheral venous access device (p-VAD) is a frequent practice in the emergency department (ED). Of the concerns related to this practice is the possibility of laboratory specimen rejection due to p-VAD catheter size, use of the wrong collection device, and the absence of a standardized collection process. The objective of this study, therefore, was to examine the effect of the use of evidence-based venipuncture and p-VAD blood collection protocols on the rejection rate of blood specimens drawn by staff in the adult areas of an urban academic medical center ED. A convenience sample of 28 ED nurses and 39 ED technicians (51.94% of all eligible ED employees) consented to using these evidence based protocols when they collected blood from adult ED patients. Blood specimen rejections rates were measured for four consecutive weeks prior to and at weeks 1-4, 5-8, 9-12, and 1-12 after the evidence-based blood collection practices training intervention. Laboratory analysis of all specimens was automated with rejection results provided in the form of computerized reports. There was a significant decrease in the 12-week rejection rates for two of the three ED adult care areas, with the overall ED adult area rejection rate significantly decreased from 3.19% to 2.38% (X2at Df1, p < .05). The most common reasons for rejection were hemolysis (65.39%) and clotting (10.68%) followed by specimen mis-labeling, tube missing, insufficient quantity for testing, incorrect packaging, specimen contamination or dilution, and label missing, Though the use of theses evidence based blood collection protocols significantly decreased the overall rejection rate, the high percent of rejections due to hemolysis may further be reduced by having all ED staff use these protocols, and by exploring other collection techniques in the literature that have been found to significantly decrease rejection rates.

It has been said that the character of an institution is largely determined by its history and the personalities that shaped it. If this is so, the Frederic Wood Theatre has much to draw on, for it was founded in the spirit of cooperation and promise. This thesis traces the beginning of the university from the original petition for its formation, through its early struggle to be established. Concurrent with this expansion is the growth of theatre at the university, a development which helped to introduce the institution throughout the province. The current Frederic Wood Theatre is the outgrowth of a tradition of theatre at the University of British Columbia. The beginning of this historical retrospective is the original petition for the founding of the university. Subsequent to that initial and failed attempt, the University of British Columbia was created by legislation through the efforts of Henry Esson Young, the "Father of the university", and by organization through the works of Frank Fairchild Wesbrook, its first President. Professor Frederic Wood, a founding member of the faculty in 1915, formed the Players'Club which provided the university its theatrical foundation for the next thirty years. Dorothy Somerset, a Director of the Players'Club and the Vancouver Little Theatre (also co-founded by Prof. Frederic Wood) established accredited theatre courses at the university and founded the Summer School of the Theatre. In 1952, these achievements won her the university's first legitimate theatre: the Frederic Wood. With single-minded purpose, Dorothy Somerset further established the Department of Theatre in 1958, building the present 410 seat Frederic Wood Theatre five years later in 1963. More than a physical building, the Frederic Wood Theatre is a dynamic process responding to the energies and influences of its principals. Seven individuals (out of hundreds) who were fundamental in contributing to the accomplishments of the Frederic Wood Theatre are introduced: Henry Esson Young, ''Father of the University'; Frank Fairchild Wesbrook, first President of the University of British Columbia; Professor Frederic G.C. Wood, founder of the Players' Club; Dorothy Somerset, founder of the Department of Theatre; Jessie Richardson, in whose honour years later, the Jessie Awards were created; Norman Young, stage manager, publicizer and lobbyist, and John Brockington, Head of the Theatre Department for 23 years, the man who guided and developed its academic and degree granting programs. Few people realize how great a role the theatre has played in the establishment of the University of British Columbia.
Arts, Faculty of
Theatre and Film, Department of
Graduate

Research report (MPhil (Curriculum Studies))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010.
Bibliography
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this research report I have argued that postgraduate student retention and completion rates in nursing education can be enhanced by attending to the following actions: increased institutional support, initiating students into an ethics of care, and engaging students and lecturers in some form of dialogical communication. In order to ensure that students do not prematurely depart from their programme of study, I have shown that it is not sufficient to offer merely institutional (mostly administrative) support to students, but also cultivating caring and dialogical communication in teaching and learning activities. My argument in defence of caring and dialogical communication is corroborated by an empirical investigation which confirms students’ non-completion and retention in the non-clinical postgraduate nursing education programmes offered by Stellenbosch University’s Nursing Division in 2008.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In hierdie navorsingsverslag het ek geargumenteer dat die nagraadse studentebehoud- en voltooiingkoerse in verpleegonderwys versnel kan word deur aandag aan die volgende aksies te skenk: toenemende institusionele ondersteuning, inisi¸ring van ’n etiek van omgee ten opsigte van studente en die betrokkenheid van studente en dosente in ’n vorm van dialogiese kommunikasie. Om te verhoed dat studente nie voortydig die studieprogram verlaat nie, het ek aangedui dat dit nie voldoende is om slegs institusionele (meesal administratiewe) ondersteuning aan studente te verskaf nie, maar ook om ’n kultuur te skep van omgee en dialogiese kommunikasie in onderrig- en leeraktiwiteite. My argument ter stawing van omgee en dialogiese kommunikasie word ondersteun deur ‘n empiriese ondersoek van studente se nie-voltooiings- en retensiekoerse in die nie-kliniese nagraadse onderwysprogramme wat deur Universiteit Stellenbosch se Verpleegkunde-afdeling in 2008 aangebied is.

Attrition from schools of nursing continues to affect almost one third of students enrolled. Attrition is costly financially and personally to the student, to the educational institution, the health care consumer and the profession. The purpose of this study was to identify variables measurable at time of admission which might alone or together be predictive of successful persistence until graduation from a nursing program. The variables included cognitive and noncognitive characteristics measured by the Nurse Entrance Test (NET) as well as demographic and other academic achievement measurements. A convenience sample of associate degree nursing students admitted into two successive classes of a large, urban community college was used. Two hundred sixty seven students participated, with successful students defined as those who succeeded in each course of the program and continued in enrollment in an uninterrupted fashion until graduation. Cognitive factors included preadmission grade point average (GPA), California Achievement Test score, and measurements on the Nurse Entrance Test (NET) for Math Skills, Reading Comprehension and Rate, Testtaking Skill and Preferred Learning Style. Noncognitive factors were NET self-perceived scores on five areas of Life Stress and a Social Interaction Profile of passive and aggressive styles. Demographics were age, gender and race. Using univariate analysis of variance and discriminant analysis, the same six characteristics were found to be significantly different between the groups of successful and nonsuccessful students and predictive of success or nonsuccess: Reading Comprehension, preadmission GPA, age and stress in three areas -academic, family and social. When a discriminant analysis using a stepwise inclusion procedure was performed, these six were included among the ten variables found together to be useful in a prediction equation. Added to these six were Testtaking Skill, Money Stress, Social Interaction Profile and gender. By measurements in all types of analyses used, Academic Stress and Reading Comprehension were consistently the strongest of the predictors of group membership. Group membership was successfully predicted in 74.33% of the cases when the reduced set of ten variables was used. Findings from this research could be used as a basis for developing a risk profile for students either for use in making admission decisions or for identifying students at risk for nonsuccess. Nursing educators should become alert to the finding that the students in this study were at risk for failure because of noncognitive as well as because of cognitive characteristics. Future research could focus on the multifactorial influences in a student's life which affect success. Research could focus also on the examination, implementation and evaluation of intervention strategies designed to increase retention and improve academic performance.

Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Technology: Diagnostic Radiography, Department of Nursing and Radiography in the Faculty of Health Wellness Sciences at Cape Peninsula University of Technology 2014
Aim: The aim of this study was to record the values of CTDIw and DLP displayed on the Computed Tomography (CT) scanner monitors of patients undergoing CT examinations of the head as Diagnostic Reference Levels (DRL) for dose optimisation in Northern Nigeria. Background: A brain CT scan is the most common CT examination performed, and this modality is recognized as delivering a high dose. CT, therefore, contributes significantly to the total collective effective dose to the population. Elimination of unnecessary or unproductive radiation exposure is necessary. To achieve this, practitioners must adhere to the principles of the justification of practices, and optimisation of radiation protection. Furthermore, the development of DRLs for the local context is advised. These reference doses are a guide to the expected exposure dose from a procedure and are useful as an investigation tool to identify incidences where patient doses are unusually high. Methodology: The study was conducted in three radiology departments with CT centres in Northern Nigeria. Data was collected, using a purposive sampling technique, from 60 consenting adult participants (weighing 70 ±3 kg) that had brain CT scans on seventh generations 4&16-slice GE and 16-slice Philips CT scanners. Prior to commencement of the study the CT scanners were certified by the medical physicists. For each brain scan, patient information, exposure factors, weighted computed tomography dose index (CTDIw), volume computed tomography dose index (CTDIvol) and dose length product (DLP) values were recorded. The data were analysed using SPSS version (16) statistical software. The mean, standard deviation and third quartile values of the CTDIw and DLP were calculated. An inter-comparison of the measured doses from the three research sites was conducted. A combined dose for the three centres was calculated, and compared with the reported data from the international communities where there are established DRLs. Results: The mean CTDIw and DLP values were: centre A (88 mGy and 713 mGy.cm), centre B (68 mGy and 1098 mGy.cm), and centre C (70 mGy and 59 mGy.cm). Comparison of CTDIw and DLP for the scanners of the same manufacturers showed statistically significant differences (p=0.003) and (p=0.03) respectively. In the case of the scanners of a different model but the same number of slices, the comparison of DLP was statistically significant (p=0.005) while no significant difference was noted in the measured CTDIw. Third quartile values of the cumulative doses of CTDIw and DLP, for Northern Nigeria were determined as 77 mGy and 985 mGy.cm respectively. Conclusion: The study has established Local DRLs (LDRLs) which are significantly higher than most of the reported data in the literature. Also dose variation between centres was noted. Optimization is thus recommended. Keywords: Head Imaging, Radiation Dose, Dose optimization, Computed Tomography, Local Diagnostic Reference Levels, Radiation Protection

Purpose: The aim of this study was to identify factors that contribute to stress for emergency departments (ED) nurses. In addition, this study identified some preferred strategies for ED nurses to minimise stress. Method: The research methodology is a cross-sectional survey. This survey was sent to a sample of ED nurses working in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. Two standardised scales were used in the survey, the Expanded Nursing Stress Scale (ENSS) and Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). The sampling method for this research is a non-probability purposive sampling approach. Results: The results of the study indicated that ED nurses in NSW experience stress in their work settings mostly because of problems in dealing with patients and their families, high workload, and uncertainty concerning treatment. In addition, the results outlined some of the preferred strategies that ED nurses in NSW use to minimise stress such as seeking workplace support, spending some quality time with friends and families, and implement self-regulation techniques like exercise, humour and meditation. Furthermore, the results showed that ED nurses in NSW experience high levels of burnout at their work settings. Conclusion: The results of this study provide useful implications for nurses, managers and educators in NSW, Australia. These implications can be used as one part of a suite of initiatives to minimise stress and a better working environment for ED nurses in NSW. Moreover, the study results can provide nursing students and newly graduate nurses who might start working in ED with useful insight and tips in dealing with stress at their work settings.

Simulation is a powerful technique to study complex problems and systems. This thesis explores two different problems. Part 1 (Chapters 2 and 3) focuses on the theory and practice of the problem of simulating graphs with a prescribed degree sequence. Part 2 (Chapter 4) focuses on how simulation can be useful to assess policy changes in emergency medical services (EMS) systems. In particular, and partially motivated by the COVID-19 pandemic, we build a simulation model based on New York City’s EMS system and use it to assess a change in its hospital transport policy. In Chapter 2, we study the problem of sampling uniformly from discrete or continuous product sets subject to linear constraints. This family of problems includes sampling weighted bipartite, directed, and undirected graphs with given degree sequences. We analyze two candidate distributions for sampling from the target set. The first one maximizes entropy subject to satisfying the constraints in expectation. The second one is the distribution from an exponential family that maximizes the minimum probability over the target set. Our main result gives a condition under which the maximum entropy and the max-min distributions coincide. For the discrete case, we also develop a sequential procedure that updates the maximum entropy distribution after some components have been sampled. This procedure sacrifices the uniformity of the samples in exchange for always sampling a valid point in the target set. We show that all points in the target set are sampled with positive probability, and we find a lower bound for that probability. To address the loss of uniformity, we use importance sampling weights. The quality of these weights is affected by the order in which the components are simulated. We propose an adaptive rule for this order to reduce the skewness of the weights of the sequential algorithm. We also present a monotonicity property of the max-min probability. In Chapter 3, we leverage the general results obtained in the previous chapter and apply them to the particular case of simulating bipartite or directed graphs with given degree sequences. This problem is also equivalent to the one of sampling 0–1 matrices with fixed row and column sums. In particular, the structure of the graph problem allows for a simple iterative algorithm to find the maximum entropy distribution. The sequential algorithm described previously also simplifies in this setting, and we use it in an example of an inter-bank network. In additional numerical examples, we confirm that the adaptive rule, proposed in the previous chapter, does improve the importance sampling weights of the sequential algorithm. Finally, in Chapter 4, we build and test an emergency medical services (EMS) simulation model, tailored for New York City’s EMS system. In most EMS systems, patients are transported by ambulance to the closest most appropriate hospital. However, in extreme cases, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, this policy may lead to hospital overloading, which can have detrimental effects on patients. To address this concern, we propose an optimization-based, data-driven hospital load balancing approach. The approach finds a trade-off between short transport times for patients that are not high acuity while avoiding hospital overloading. To test the new rule, we run the simulation model and use historical EMS incident data from the worst weeks of the pandemic as a model input. Our simulation indicates that 911 patient load balancing is beneficial to hospital occupancy rates and is a reasonable rule for non-critical 911 patient transports. The load balancing rule has been recently implemented in New York City’s EMS system. This work is part of a broader collaboration between Columbia University and New York City’s Fire Department.