Academic literature on the topic 'University of Virginia. School of Nursing'

Meeting the wellness needs of high school students reporting high-risk behaviors above national averages was the purpose of a community partnership between the county school district and West Virginia University School of Nursing. Although the school district and School of Nursing were the primary partners, other programs in the university provided additional support. The school nurse, school of nursing faculty, and nursing students provided wellness programs to students, faculty, and staff. Positive evaluations and high demand for the services demonstrated the school community’s need for the program and the success of the partnership.

Over the past decade, the University of Virginia has been experiencing a culture change towards becoming a more contemplative and compassionate institution. The leaders of this change seek, ultimately, to enhance and influence every aspect of the mission and community of this large, prestigious public institution. Of course, multi-layered and pervasive culture change does not occur instantaneously. Rather, the establishment in 2009 of the UVA School of Nursing’s Compassionate Care Initiative, followed by the launch in 2012 of the pan-university UVA Contemplative Sciences Center have led to an array of targeted initiatives that incorporate both the health system – consisting of the School of Nursing, School of Medicine, and the UVA Medical Center – and the university’s academic division, consisting of nine additional schools as well as the ancillary units that support the wider university.
 This article provides a set of detailed examples of efforts implemented by these two centers in support of a culture change towards more compassionate teaching, research, patient care, and service. Examples will include:
 
 supporting compassion and self-care through retreats in the School of Nursing and research assessing the impact of this and additional co-curricular programming via cross-sectional survey of nurses
 discussion of student, faculty and clinical Ambassadors who serve as compassion mentors across the UVA Health System
 consideration of contemplative pedagogy within the UVA undergraduate course Mindfulness & Compassion: Towards Living Fully, Personally & Professionally
 discussion of pan-university co-curricular programming serving the university community that seeks to create impact at an institution-wide level.
 
 The impact and outcomes of each example will be considered, individually and as part of a larger shift towards creating a compassionate, contemplative university for the modern era.

Medical students and health professions students may be at high risk for occupational exposures to blood-borne pathogens. This retrospective chart review explored the rates and types of self-reported blood and body fluid exposures among medical students and health professions students at Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS), the University of Virginia School of Medicine, and Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine between January 1, 2001, and December 31, 2005, to determine an average rate of exposure reported by the student population at EVMS and in Virginia. Students at EVMS reported 126 exposures: 105 were needlestick and sharps injuries and 21 were blood and body fluid exposures. Fifty-one percent of the EVMS students reported not being the original user of the device causing their exposure. Students in Virginia reported 519 exposures. The majority of the exposures occurred in the operating room. Limitations of this study included student curricula not being reviewed and the medical schools' data collection methods not being compared. Student blood and body fluid exposures should be considered a serious and possibly deadly occupational hazard. Students must be deemed competent in basic health care procedures, universal precautions, and suturing techniques before being allowed to assist with or perform patient procedures.