Trailblazer Alumni Magazine 2021

2021 ISSUE

Nursing professor selected as USF’s Distinguished University Professor of 2021 In Loving Memory of Ona Riggin 2021 USF Alumni Award Recipient

contents FEATURES 41 2021 USF Alumni Award Recipient 47 Nursing professor selected as USF’s Distinguished University Professor of 2021 65 In Loving Memory of Ona Riggin

RESEARCH 26 2021 Research Enterprise Funding projects 28 Dr. Constance Visovsky first to research exercise program to help cancer patients suffering from CIPN

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Dr. Susan Perry, the original principal investigator for the Peds to Succeed program

STUDENTS & ALUMNI 39 Emerging Nurse Scientist Fellow 51 Scholarships & Fellowship Recipient Spotlights 58 Class Notes

Contributors: Audrey Holtzman, Brittany Sheehy, Cassidy Delamarter, Saundra Amrhein, Jessica Brightman and Usha Menon

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Dr. Maureen Groer, USF’s Distinguished University Professor of 2021

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“In every profession, there are individuals who stand out above the rest, who are driven to improve their field, L ETTE R F R O M T HE DEAN

Blazing New Trails

create change, and press forward into the unknown for the greater good. We call them trailblazers, and they call USF College of Nursing home.”

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The start of any academic year is a time of renewal and resetting. New students arrive bringing fresh energy and enthusiasm. Like a budding spring season, we are filled with a sense of beginnings. There are new projects to manage, new problems to contemplate, new queries to ponder and discoveries to pursue. The possibilities seem endless, opportunities plentiful, and our goals—written out with care—all seem within reach. I have pledged for this year to be one of reinvention for the College of Nursing. It’s our time to blaze new trails. Resurgences are always magical because they offer us all the chance to start fresh and to refocus ourselves on the future. The present—this year—will be defined, by big dreams,

@usfhealthnurse

accomplished goals and new destinations. We are ready to face any difficulty with ingenuity, flexibility and compassion. Indeed, we have already done so over the 19 months, dealing with personal and professional challenges and tragedies in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. We will persevere and persist, our faith in significance of our mission and our impact on the nursing profession, unshaken. The academic year is already underway, and I have so much good news to share.

Feeling burned out?

In our Frontline Nursing During COVID-19: A New

We started the year with an exciting announcement that the Florida

Paradigm podcast, Dr. Rayna

Nurses Association will partner with the USF College of Nursing to house

Letourneau shares advice,

the Florida Center for Nursing on the Tampa campus. Additionally, the

self-care strategies and

Seafarer’s Mission at the Port of Tampa Bay offered us an opportunity to

how to navigate difficult

vaccinate sailors from all over the world. You’ll read more about this story

situations nurses face in

but overall, this has been a labor of love for the college. Another new trail

the pandemic.

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being blazed is between the college and Edgility Cognitive Healthcare, Inc. This partnership will be a catalyst for digital nursing by providing education to nurses in innovative healthcare technology and serving multiple student levels, active practicing nurses and nursing faculty. Furthermore, the college is quickly moving forward with plans to launch the Office of Wellness, Innovation, Resources, Education and Support (WIRES) for the Healthcare Workforce to ensure a healthy, competent, empowered workforce that will advance the well-being of our local, national and global healthcare worker communities. Finally, we have reimagined our undergraduate program to have a greater impact on reversing nursing shortage trends. These changes will significantly increase the pipeline of new nurses into the workforce.

I cannot be more thrilled about these new trails we have started down and our new and sustained partnerships.

All of these goals and relationships come from the outstanding faculty, staff and students that call the College of Nursing their home. I am so proud of our students, not only for their academic excellence, but for their service and agility during these past several months. Their thirst for knowledge and their care for their peers and community are contagious. Lastly, I would like to acknowledge the hard work of our faculty. We have some of the most outstanding research and teaching nursing and interdisciplinary who not only have relentlessly worked to keep the college running and students excelling, but who have volunteered many hours in the community, and continued to dream big with me on what’s next for the nursing workforce and research. As nurses, we understand the work we do is for a greater purpose and worth the effort.

Let me end by inviting you to join me in committing to our new message, which speaks to who we are at the USF College Nursing, “In every profession, there are individuals who stand out above the rest, who are driven to improve their field, create change and press forward into the unknown for the greater good. We call them trailblazers, and they call USF College of Nursing home.”

U SH A M E N O N , PHD, RN, FAAN Dean and Professor, College of Nursing Senior Associate Vice President, USF Health University of South Florida

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 Since June 2021, our alumni and faculty have been visiting Port Tampa Bay to offer COVID-19 vaccines to thousands of seafarers whose global maritime routes bring them to Tampa Bay. This on-site clinical outreach is the first of its kind at a port!

Read more on page 21

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Welcome

New Faculty Leaders

Dr. Catherine Belden remembers like yesterday the “trial by fire”

Catherine Belden, PhD, DHSc, RN Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Programs, USF Health College of Nursing

that was her first year out of nursing school.

A new registered nurse, her first day on the job at a rural hospital in Louisiana, she was assigned as charge nurse to run a 40-bed unit. No workforce development. No coaching. She had to hit the ground running.

“I had no clue what I was doing. I had 40 people’s lives in my hands. I was the only RN. I had to work nights, and there were not a lot of people to ask questions,” she recalled.

“I went home pretty much every night and cried,” she added.

After about a year, she made up her mind to commit herself to improve the profession – to fight for the development of nurses between graduation and the start of practice.

“I decided I will never allow this to happen to another nurse or anyone, if it’s in my power, ever again,” she said.

This spring, Belden assumed the role of assistant dean of undergraduate programs at USF Health’s College of Nursing after 26 years of working to carry out that lifelong mission, revolutionizing nursing units through extensive experience in clinical care and high-level administrative posts.

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The timing couldn’t be more urgent. Her arrival at the College of Nursing coincides with a nationwide crisis in a shortage of nurses, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and as the college responds to that emergency by overhauling its undergraduate nursing program to help meet what the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates is a need for 1.1 million new nurses by 2022.

If anyone is up for that challenge, it’s Belden. After that first taxing year in the workforce, she rose up the ranks into management at a home-health agency and then found herself back at the original rural Louisiana hospital.

There, she instituted a mini-nursing residency in which new nurses could work under her supervision or under other trusted RNs. The unit’s on-the-job training and deep support became so popular that the unit went from being “avoided like the plague,” she said, to being fully staffed and attracting an additional two dozen PRNs. Hospital administrators copied the model to the ICU and for medical-surgical nurses.

From there, leading up to her arrival at USF, Belden has not only held executive-level positions in the post-acute care industry but also worked as a field surveyor with The Joint Commission. In the academic realm, as an associate professor and director of a new nursing program at William Carey University’s Baton Rouge campus, she built it from six graduates in the first cohort to about 150 students matriculating through and over 50 graduates to date.

Along the way, she earned two doctoral degrees – in nursing education and health sciences – and master’s and bachelor’s degrees in nursing. She also worked for years as an assistant professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

At USF, Belden brings her same passion for workforce development to oversee the college’s undergraduate program and ramping up of its baccalaureate licensure program to help feed new nurses into the workforce pipeline while phasing out the RN to BSN program.

She envisions a prominent place for nurses in health care policy.

“We are one of the largest professions in health care,” she said. “If nurses worked together simultaneously, there is no telling what we can do. We could re-write the face of health care. That’s the power that we have.” ■

Cheedy Jaja, PhD, MPH, MSN, PMHNP-BC, APRN Associate Professor and Assistant Dean of Global Engagement, USF Health College of Nursing

When the global call for help sounded during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014, Dr. Cheedy Jaja didn’t think twice.

As a nurse, he knew he needed to stand up and contribute, he recalled.

During two humanitarian tours of duty in Sierra Leone, Jaja, who is also trained in psychiatry and mental health, would feel overwhelmed, unprepared, depressed and panicked – left long afterward profoundly traumatized.

But the experience also forged a new direction and purpose in his life, one coming to fruition during the current COVID-19 pandemic, in which he sees disturbing parallels to the Ebola crisis.

It was a direction that would lead him to his new post this August as associate professor and assistant dean of global engagement at USF Health’s College of Nursing.

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“For me, what I really find very difficult to embrace, to make sense of,” he said, “is the fact that the same issues that we had experienced as volunteers in Sierra Leone with Ebola, I noticed the same issues here in the United States, even having one of the best health care delivery systems in the world.”

That includes the lack of preparation, protective equipment and support for nurses–physically and psychologically–on the front lines of care.

It also includes the social view of pandemics as “cultural problems” – like eating bush meat or animals from wet markets as the cause of disease outbreaks – as opposed to weaknesses or breakdowns in public health systems.

Jaja, originally from Sierra Leone, has more than 12 years of experience providing clinical and psychosocial care primarily to patients with sickle cell disease, and three decades teaching in nursing, social sciences and the humanities across the United States. He arrives most recently from a position as an associate professor in the College of Nursing at the University of South Carolina.

At USF, Jaja will be taking a leading role as the College of Nursing aligns a vision for global health engagement with its strategic plan. He will be looking into establishing partnerships with institutions in South America, Africa and Europe where USF students can study how health care is delivered in diverse settings with varying levels of care and resource availability.

He’s excited to support faculty in extending their research in multiple global settings.

Additionally, he wants to help prepare nurses for future pandemics and natural disasters in ways that balance their professional responsibilities with personal care and safety.

To all these ends, it is essential that nurses have a seat at the table in leadership posts and policy making decisions, he said.

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Given nurses’ enormous presence in the health care workforce, he noted, nurses are in the perfect position for to be trained and empowered with new skills to meet emerging healthcare challenges.

“We need to upskill nurses,” he said. One example is training nurses to perform genetic counseling or to screen infants for sickle cell disease in delivery rooms. Nurses can also be trained more to provide these independent specialized care services in limited resource settings.

Jaja will be bringing with him almost $1 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health to train nurses to provide these specialized health services in Sierra Leone.

His professional and personal experience has all led him to this point, where he can channel a vision of nursing education into a global framework.

Reflecting on his new USF position, he added: “Not everyone has a luxury of choice. We all have dreams. Now and then our dreams gain wings, and when they gain wings, you soar and fly.” ■

Marhefka immediately felt pulled to work with the teenagers, for whom little research existed at the time.

“This is my calling. This is what I have to do,” she recalled thinking, recognizing a chance to make a difference. “They really captured my heart.”

That calling and career path would take her through an internship and postdoctoral fellowship in Baltimore at the University of Maryland and then more postdoctoral research at the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University.

And it would ultimately lead her back to Florida, where Marhefka joined USF Health in 2007, working up through various positions – and where this past June she was appointed the new senior associate dean of research for the College of Nursing.

Stephanie Marhefka, PhD Senior Associate Dean of Research, USF Health College of Nursing

Stephanie Marhefka remembers going through her college years unsure what her career path would be, knowing only that she wanted to make a difference.

Then, one day in the 1990s, while pursuing a PhD in clinical and health psychology from the University of Florida, she was presented with an opportunity to work in a pediatric HIV clinic. It would be with adolescents living with perinatally-acquired HIV. Marhefka remembered the pain she’d felt having watched years earlier as an older cousin suffered mostly alone with HIV in his final days, as religious family members hesitated even to visit him in the hospital.

“They were afraid to support him because he was gay,” she said.

Marhefka brings to the post more than two decades of experience as a behavioral scientist in mixed-methods research, focusing on social determinants of health and improving HIV-related care and treatment.

That includes groundbreaking work in telehealth – long before the current COVID-19 pandemic made such work so essential.

That work stemmed from a turning point in her research.

As treatment outcomes improved dramatically over the years, largely preventing perinatal HIV in the U.S., Marhefka shifted her focus to helping adults with HIV live healthier and longer lives.

In 2009, she was funded by NIH to test a group telehealth program designed to help people with HIV who were isolated in rural areas or hours from an in-person clinic. The popular technology at the time was Skype.

Then in 2012, already steeped in telehealth research, she and a collaborator began adapting a smoking cessation program for group video conferencing. With smoking now the number one cause of death among people with HIV, Marhefka hoped to add years to their lives by helping them quit smoking.

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Within a few years, Zoom provided another great tool for her telehealth work, and in 2019, Marhefka received a five-year $2.9 million R01 grant from the National Cancer Institute to address disproportionate smoking rates among people living with HIV. When the pandemic hit, she realized her team’s telehealth experience could help fellow scientists.

“We have something special to share with other researchers regarding how to do this,” she said.

Marhefka is excited about her new role helping the college reach its goals to rise in rankings, to attract more grants and researchers, and to increasingly stand out in excellence in interdisciplinary and nursing science. “This college offers even more than a great place for nursing students to further their careers.”

“Our researchers,” she said, “are conducting cutting edge, trailblazing science that will make a real difference in the lives of nurses as well as the lives of all of us who are patients.” ■

Deleise Wilson, MA-ED, PhD, RN, CSSGB Associate Professor, Senior Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs, USF Health College of Nursing

Whether it’s a hospital or university program or a faculty member’s career, Dr. Deleise Wilson loves to help people build a well-oiled machine.

With almost three dozen years of experience in leadership, teaching and nursing clinical practice, Wilson has joined USF Health this year as the new senior associate dean of faculty affairs at the College of Nursing.

Wilson’s research expertise is in health care systems effectiveness and reduction of hospital-acquired conditions – particularly fall preventions. She arrives from Kettering College in Ohio, where she was director of nursing and where she implemented a fall prevention intervention system at the 508-bed Kettering Medical Center.

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Leading to her research, during her work in a pediatric ICU unit, she found that despite the high level of expertise within nursing and medical teams, specialized supportive devices and technical skills, unfortunate preventable accidents and errors still occurred.

“Moments of uncertainty when we are caught flat-footed, can be precursors of preventable mistakes,” she said.

Falls are one of the most common mistakes in hospitals, with serious consequences for patients, from hematomas to broken bones and death. In a six-month pilot study, she set about to develop principles and protocols that hospital teams could employ until they became knee-jerk in an urgent and unpredictable context.

It involved nurses studying patients’ fall risks beyond the most immediate reasons they were admitted: what were their histories of falls and likelihood for reoccurrence? Were they on medications such as sedatives or blood pressure pills that could affect their balance or increase their urge to use the bathroom? Did they just have a stroke? What types of specific interventions could be put in place: glasses within reach, a walker at the bedside? What is the post-operative risk for patients with anticoagulants? What can be substitutes for medications that cause drowsiness?

Critically, the nurses were provided training and support on the protocol and developing and employing the interventions.

The results were dramatic: an 86% overall reduction in fall injuries and 49% reduction in falls in the units using the system; and a 21% drop in moderate and 7% drop in major injuries – the numbers in the latter two categories falling to zero.

While Wilson’s experience includes a heavy emphasis on research, she is also an educator, and her new role at the College of Nursing will involve strengthening supportive opportunities for faculty.

“Most of our nurses were taught to be nurses, they were not trained to be educators,” she said. With her background in education and managing nursing programs, she plans to lead and facilitate opportunities for faculty support and development and mentorship.

Wilson is ecstatic about joining USF’s College of Nursing at this moment, given the vision and high energy regarding its programs and its commitment to teaching, scholarship, scientific inquiry and community service. The college’s mission, she said, matches her goals for her life’s work in system effectiveness – whether that be in a hospital setting or academia.

“There is an alignment and congruence between my own professional passions and the vision of the College of Nursing here,” she said. “How can we make our systems and environment effective and how can we empower the professionals within these systems to do their best work?” ■

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Peds to Succeed Program Will Continue Through Concurrent Courses

The USF Health College of Nursing is excited to continue the Peds to Succeed Improving Health Outcomes for At Risk Communities program through a tie in with two concurrent undergraduate courses. The program was originally set to conclude at the end of 2021, the final year of the grant.

Peds to Succeed was initially started as a three-year partnership between the college and the City of Tampa Police Department (TPD) in 2018. It was funded by Leaders in Care, a foundational campaign that provides grant funding for faculty-led community projects through donations from nursing alumni and donors. Now it will continue through the college’s pediatric and community health courses.

Dr. Susan Perry was the original principal investigator for Peds to Succeed.

“The vision came simply from riding around the Tampa area with the police department one night, seeing the things that were going on and realizing what our nursing students could learn from the community engagement,” said Perry.

Perry retired in August 2021 from the college as a senior associate dean. When she retired, Dr. Ann Joyce took over as principal investigator to ensure the program was completed.

“My favorite part of the program is the symbiotic learning,” said Joyce. “The Resources in Community Hope (RICH) House

kids thought they were learning from the nursing students.

The nursing students thought they were learning from the faculty, but it was really interdependent education and learning.”

The goal of the partnership is to help train pediatric nursing students in a community setting while also providing wellness education programs to underserved neighborhoods through TPD’s RICH Houses. The RICH Houses, located in Sulphur Springs and Robles Park, are considered a haven for at-risk children. Through those locations, officers offer free educational and social enrichment activities to children living in high-crime, impoverished neighborhoods.

In 2019, the Peds to Succeed program was officially integrated into the RICH Houses. Since then, our trailblazer nurses have presented more than 15 health and wellness education topics to the children each year through weekly visits, focusing on a new topic each visit. The education highlights crucial subjects like stranger danger, sex ed and more recently, the importance of self-care during COVID-19.

Since the start of the program, approximately 60 children have participated.

“My hope was that those children would see the value that nurses bring to the community and they would go into the profession as well,” said Perry.

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On September 23, 2021, Tampa Police Department Assistant Chief Lee Bercaw presented Perry the Outstanding Community Service Award for her efforts with the Resources in Community Hope (RICH) Houses and the Tampa Bay community.

Perry says she felt working with the children and TPD was a calling. Looking back now, she said, “I am glad the College of Nursing supported me and our team in being able to do this and bring this experience to our nursing students and the community.”

College of Nursing Dean Usha Menon said, “In the three years I have known Susan, I have been so impressed and inspired by her dedication to community service. She has been critical in the development of our partnership with the Tampa Police Department and the success of the Peds to Succeed program. We look forward to sustaining her legacy through this collaboration.” ■

In partnership with Tampa General Hospital (TGH) and driven by community demand, the College of Nursing has launched the first Registered Nurse First Assist (RNFA) training program in the region.

The 12-credit RNFA Certificate Program will provide specialty certification and training for perioperative nurses to function as a first assistant in the operating room. TGH has generously offered to underwrite the cost of the first four TGH employees who are accepted into the program.

The RNFA program will be led by Dr. Marcia Johansson, associate professor and director of clinical affairs at the college.

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The DAISY Foundation In September of 2019, Bonnie and Mark Barnes visited the USF College of Nursing and presented on The DAISY Award of Extraordinary Faculty.

DAISY is an acronym for Diseases Attacking the Immune System.

The DAISY Foundation was created in honor of Bonnie and Mark Barnes’ son, Patrick Barnes, who was diagnosed and passed away from an auto-immune disease called Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura.

Through their foundation they developed the DAISY Award to honor nurses who provide above-and-beyond compassionate care to patients and families and to honor their late son.

They stated their goal was to ensure that nurses know how deserving they are of our society's profound respect for the education, training, brainpower, and skill they put into their work, and especially for the caring with which they provide patients.

After recognizing nurses currently in clinical practice, the Barnes family decided to next honor those who educate the nurses of tomorrow: nursing faculty. With the DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurse faculty, their mission is to implement a meaningful recognition program to recognize and celebrate the impact that nursing faculty have made on the nursing profession and patient outcomes.

Since then, the DAISY Planning Committee developed a meaningful recognition program and honored their first honoree. The DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nursing Faculty is presented by The DAISY Foundation in collaboration with the USF College of Nursing. It is created to recognize and celebrate the impact of nursing faculty have made on the nursing profession and patient outcomes. The selection process was undertaken by a team of alumni, student leaders, and select faculty. After very careful deliberation, there was one person, who consistently rose to the forefront of the nominations, and this individual had many nominations from current and former students.

The DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nursing Faculty was presented to Brittany Hay, DNP, APRN, ANP-BC, FNP-BC to honor her exceptional impact on your students and your inspirational influence on their future.

Nursing faculty members are nominated monthly by students and alumni. We hope you will consider honoring a faculty member who has impacted your career and exhibited extraordinary teaching skills, leadership, and commitment or a faculty member who instills strong patient care and compassion in their students. ■

After their presentation, Dr. Susan Perry agreed to form a USF College of Nursing DAISY planning committee to implement an Extraordinary Nurse Faculty award ceremony and to join a multi-institutional research study to research the effects of meaningful recognition.

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Community Partners

In April 2021, the College of Nursing initiated a partnership with Edgility Cognitive Healthcare to train nursing students and faculty to make the best use of technology across their careers in patient care and research. Through this partnership, the college strives to prepare nurses to be digital trailblazers. With the help Edgility CEO Balajii Ramadoss, Dean Usha Menon was able to initiate this partnership. The partnership continues to grow and thrive under the leadership of Dr. Elizabeth Jordan and Carmen Mitchell.

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“An academic and industry partnership is critically important to create opportunities for nurses to gain digital preparation and deeper specialization in innovative technology,” said Jordan. “Partnerships are key to help better prepare students and faculty to examine concepts and real-world applications.”

The initiatives of the college’s partnership with Edgility are labeled “Health Re-Imagined: The Digital Incubator.”

The incubator serves as a catalyst for digital nursing by

educating, promoting and preparing nurses to lead innovative healthcare technology and solutions. The incubator provides interdisciplinary education, research and practicum opportunities with the Edgility team. Nursing students, faculty and alumni gain knowledge and skills to take on healthcare’s biggest challenges by incorporating proven technology into finding solutions.

Through this partnership, we hosted the first “Disruptive Digital Transformation in Nursing” symposium on October 14, 2021. During the event, we discussed outcomes from the “Health Re-Imagined: The Digital Incubator,” promoted design thinking, analyzed functionality of our interprofessional teams and engineered principles to optimize patient centered care.

The long-term goal of this partnership is to continue to foster educational opportunities and develop a certificate program to discover how digital technologies can change how information is transmitted and processed to optimize patient flow. ■

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Port Tampa Bay handles one of the most diversified portfolios in Florida and perhaps the nation. As the largest port in Florida and one of the largest in the country, the port is a vibrant city within a city handling over 37 million tons of cargo per year. A favorite port of both oceangoing cruise lines and bustling trade ships, the port impacts over 80,000 jobs and $15 billion in economic impact.

Amidst the buzz, a lone figure in a white lab coat hauls a cooler across the cement lot. Denise Maguire, associate dean of alumni, community, and global engagement at the College of Nursing has a cause and purpose. She struggles up the slippery ramp, one hand braced against the wet railing, her cargo precious and one that may say lives. Maguire is one of the senior faculty from the college that answered the call from Port Tampa Bay Seafarer’s Center to provide COVID-19 vaccines to seafarers docking in Tampa. Somedays she works alone, other days she brings along faculty or students. But always with a smile on her face and strong conviction in her heart, she vaccinates sometimes four, sometimes 20 sailors. Some have no options in their home country, while others may be at sea for many months unable to avail themselves of the opportunity.

Called on to explain the importance of this initiative, Maguire says, “Providing vaccine to foreign seafarers is a unique contribution that the College of Nursing makes to fight the pandemic worldwide. Many of these men and women cannot get vaccine in their home country, or have been on a container ship for eight to ten months before it became available. They are very grateful, and we get many thanks, and sometimes applause.”

Dennis Martin was the manager of Port Tampa Bay for six years and recently retired back to his native Scotland from where he remains actively engaged in the planning. Martin is eager to see this partnership come to fruition, and quick to respond with his thoughts: “As a retired seafarer, I cannot emphasize enough the need for quality medical care for seafarers who spend many months on vessels, the majority of which have no trained medical personnel onboard,” says Martin.

“Once in port, the crewmember without a visa runs the risk of not being able to see a doctor or nurse because his company is reticent to pay for the necessary security guard to accompany him to the appointment. The fact that our partnership enables us to visit the vessels contributes greatly FALL 2021 | 21

 Our initiatives at Port Tampa Bay are funded by this year’s featured Leaders in Care project, Port of Tampa: Supporting Health Infection Prevention Practices (SHIPP) Program.

Through the SHIPP program, our Trailblazers get a view of the world outside of the textbook and medical center walls, while providing necessary on-site care to our vulnerable maritime community.

Nursing alumna Dr. Janet Fansler MS ’88 and her husband, Richard Fansler M.Ed. ‘00, have generously offered to match all gifts up to $15,000, dollar for dollar, to the Leaders in Care program this year.

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to the physical and mental wellbeing of the crew.” Martin will continue to engage through his membership on the Board of the Seafarers Center.

Maguire is on call every day of the week. Usually with 24-hour notice, she picks up the vaccines from the USF Morsani Clinic and heads to the port. Worried about exposing her colleagues to the virus, she engages in meetings virtually from her home computer.

“Port Tampa Bay is the only port in the world offering on-site COVID-19 vaccinations to seafarers. The College of Nursing is proud to exemplify our engagement with the Tampa Bay community by lending our skills to this initiative,” said Usha Menon, dean of the college and senior associate vice president at USF Health. “I only wish we had more bodies to help Denise out.”

Steve Finnesy is executive director and chaplain of Tampa Port Ministries and one of the early supporters of this partnership.

“Seafarers on international cargo ships are in a dangerous situation,” says Finnesy. “They can be at sea for 30 days between ports with no medical services available. In that time, COVID-19 could jeopardize an entire crew. The vaccine is critical for these men.”

Maguire makes regular pleas for help on the college listserv and to alumni, and on some days, she has help. Undeterred, she continues, her commitment fueled by the gratitude of the sailors and the stories they tell about the lack of availability otherwise. For many of them, this is the only chance they will have to be vaccinated against the deadly virus.

“The nurses and nursing students have shown great dedication and compassion in difficult situations, says Al Koot, chairman, Board of Directors, Tampa Port Ministries. “They respond to every need and spend hours on a daily basis boarding cargo ships to administer vaccines for crews anywhere from five to 25 on each ship.”

Maguire and colleagues have given 550 vaccinations to date, and currently show no signs of slowing down. The College of Nursing plans to extend this to develop a nurse-managed clinic at the port. The board has agreed to provide space for a clinic with two examination rooms, and renovations are

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underway. Graduate students Audrey Blake and Lindsey Swank have been regular volunteers at the port. “My participation with vaccinating seafarers has been extremely valuable,” says Swank. “USF is a large contributor to community-wide programs across the Bay area but being able to have an impact on a global scale has been extraordinary. We all have a part to play in this COVID pandemic and I am glad to have been a part of this initiative.”

Blake is a family nurse practitioner studying to graduate with a doctoral degree in nursing practice in 2023. She is struck by the impact of her actions for the sailors: “…these seafarers are at sea for months at a time without the ability to leave the vessel, even when docked at a port. Giving out a COVID shot, it seemed like, was like handing them a ticket to freedom. They were so happy, celebrating with each other, taking pictures.

I appreciate Port Tampa Bay and USF for providing this amazing opportunity.”

Supported in part by a Leaders in Care grant (funded by College of Nursing alumni), the clinic will provide basic primary care and urgent care services. Tracey Taylor recently accepted the role to lead the implementation of the nurse-managed clinic at the port. As the founding executive director for practice and interprofessional partnerships at the college, she is eager to lead this trailblazing partnership. “The College of Nursing is excited to open this nurse-driven clinic in the heart of Port Tampa Bay,” says Taylor. “Seafarers and maritime workers are underserved populations and deserve timely, quality health and wellness care. The first of its kind in the country, this clinic embedded in the Port will strive to close this gap.”

While allowing nurse faculty and the college a unique opportunity to serve the Tampa Bay community and nursing students a plethora of diverse clinical experiences, this unique partnership could make the Port Tampa Bay the only one in the world to offer an on-site healthcare facility. ■

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Research Funding The Research Enterprise for the College of Nursing (RECON) serves as the administrative center for research in the college and is led by the senior associate dean of research. RECON facilitates the growth of research initiatives and provides administrative support, consultation and expertise in research design and measurement, data and project implementation and management, statistical analyses, and pre- to postaward proposal services.

RECON houses the associate director of research administration, two doctorally prepared statisticians, four post award and pre-award staff, and an IRB coordinator. The primary research goal of the college is to develop future nurse scientists and facilitate the scientific work of current faculty. The college ranked 34th among nursing schools nationwide in funding from the National Institutes of Health for 2020 with additional funding from foundations and nursing organizations.

This fiscal year the college had a total of 23 active projects with a total funding amount of $2,249,481 from all sources. Our faculty and students received funding from foundations and scholarships in the amount of $173,316 for more than nine projects for fiscal year 2021.

The college also received federal funding in the amount of $1,983,307 from nine projects, including the five active R01 projects in fiscal year 2021 as follows:

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1

Dr. Maureen Groer, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute, “Chronic Toxoplasma gondii, pregnancy reactivation, and perinatal depression”

2

Dr. Maureen Groer, National Institute of Nursing Research, “The Preterm Infant Microbiome: Biological, Behavioral and Health Outcomes at 2 and 4 years of Age”

3

Dr. Cecile Lengacher, National Cancer Institute, “Efficacy of MBSR Treatment of Cognitive Impairment among Breast Cancer Survivors”

4

Dr. Constance Visovsky, National Cancer Institute, “Home-Based Physical Activity Intervention for Taxane-Induced CIPN”

5

Dr. Hsiao-Lan Wang, National Cancer Institute, “A Motion Exergaming Approach to Promote Self-Managing Fatigue and Pain after Head and Neck Cancer Treatment”

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RESEARCH FEATURE Dr. Constance Visovsky first to research exercise program to help cancer patients suffering from CIPN

Dr. Constance Visovsky remembers the time when she was a young instructor and doctoral student teaching at Case Western Reserve University and an undergraduate student of hers conducting physical assessments at the VA hospital came to her with a problem.

The student was embarrassed, explaining that he realized he should know how to obtain a patient’s reflexes, but he was having trouble getting a response from one man in particular. Could she help?

Visovsky readily agreed, but when she arrived at the VA to observe the patient she was stunned. Just the semester before, the man—a cancer patient in his sixties—had been walking independently around the unit. After undergoing chemotherapy treatments for lymphoma, he was experiencing horrible neuropathy. Now he could barely walk. (continued next page)

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“The difference was astonishing,” Visovsky recalled.

“We saved his life maybe, but we left him with terrible impairment.”

It was a pivotal moment in her career.

“I’m going to study this,” she decided about neuropathy and the neurotoxic and myotoxic effects of chemotherapy.

The commitment deepened further a short while later after she graduated from Case Western with her PhD in nursing, and a woman in the community wrote to thank her for her research focus after reading about her in the newspaper.

The woman suffered neuropathy after receiving treatments for breast and lung cancer. She had been an avid gardener and seamstress who made her daughters’ pearllaced wedding gowns by hand, she wrote, sharing the information with Visovsky as if they were old friends. Now she could no longer do either.

“Whenever I got discouraged, I would re-read that letter,” Visovsky said about the 22 years that have passed since receiving it. The letter helped her “understand the importance of the day-to-day things that we take for granted, and the things we can do, and how important it is to a person’s quality of life.”

In those more than two decades, Visovsky, a faculty member at the USF College of Nursing since 2011, has become a renowned researcher and nurse scientist in the area of oncology and exercise.

She is currently in the middle of a five-year study to help cancer survivors improve balance, gait and strength following chemotherapy treatments—part of a $2.2 million grant awarded in 2019 from the NIH’s National Cancer Institute.

The research is the first to test the effects of a home-based exercise intervention for cancer patients suffering from CIPN—chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy.

“There really are no good evidence-based treatments for this problem,” she said. One small past study addressed pain, but not function.

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“So we believe that with our interventions, using exercise we are bringing blood flow to the peripheral nerves and oxygen to the peripheral nerves,” she said – in the process, preventing further impairment of the neurons.

The research includes very sophisticated measurements using sensors on a mat as well as on a person’s knees and ankles to record aspects of gait, balance and muscle strength.

While the pandemic slowed the recruitment of participants for the study, Visovsky said, so far more than 40 people had been enrolled by this fall for the 16-week regiment, with the end goal of 312 people. Materials are being translated into Spanish to help recruit non-English speakers as well.

While it’s too soon to draw conclusions, she said, anecdotally patients have told her team that they are enjoying the program and feeling benefits from it.

Visovsky is also working on a study with previous COVID-19 patients, to research people with long-term respiratory effects such as shortness of breath. Her team is designing a pulmonary rehabilitation program that consists of external muscle exercises and pursed-lipped breathing to help expand chests and bring up mucus with the goal of preventing reinfection.

For Visovsky, it’s important to practice what she researches —developing a regular exercise routine for herself later in life—from cycling to kayaking to running.

“To stay moving, you have to move,” she said. “I like to do a lot of things, so I want to have the energy to do them.” ■

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Constance Visovsky, PhD, RN, ACNP, FAAN, Professor and Lewis and Leona Hughes Endowed Chair in Nursing Science, USF Health College of Nursing

In the fall of 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic was raging with no vaccine or effective treatment in sight, Dr. Rayna Letourneau and other leaders at the USF Health College of Nursing asked themselves what they could do for members of their profession in the trenches.

“We have an opportunity to help our nurses in the community who are providing care to these patients on the frontlines,” Letourneau said recalling the conversation.

“What resources and experiences do we have to help these nurses?”

Letourneau, an assistant professor at the college for a year by that point specializing in workforce development and safety education, shared with the team reports about nurses in the field enduring burnout, shortages in personal protective equipment, and fears of bringing the virus home to loved ones.

Meanwhile, a local philanthropist, David Kotok, approached the dean of the College of Nursing, Dr. Usha Menon, about an idea for a Covid wellness webinar series. The college’s leadership team decided to tackle a needs assessment and then develop an educational webinar program to bring vital support and information to frontline nurses who could also use the series to satisfy continuing education requirements for license renewals. Once the subject concepts were outlined, Letourneau began looking around the country for experts to present the content in the videos.

One of the modules, they decided, had to be about risk mitigation and how nurses could keep themselves safe, beyond behaviors related to hand washing or wearing masks, she said. Another module focused on empowerment and as it relates to working in difficult situations.

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One of the experts she contacted was Dr. David Lindquist from Brown University, who specializes in team building and who presented material for a module on debriefing strategies.

After several months of around-the-clock work to produce and edit the videos, the project was launched in January 2021. They called it: Frontline Nursing During COVID-19: A New Paradigm.

Other expert presenters were closer to home, like USF’s Dr. Amber Gum, professor in the Department of Mental Health Law & Policy, and whom Letourneau approached regarding her specializations in mental health and behavioral health interventions in self-care.

It is a four-part educational webinar series in which participants throughout the United States can earn a maximum of 4.0 Continuing Education Units, or CEUs, toward the renewal of their nursing licenses. One track is for novice nurses and a second track is for experienced nurses.

“We teach our patients how to stay healthy, but yet nurses don’t practice healthy behaviors,” Letourneau said about extremely stretched personnel who suffer high levels of stress, depression and suicide. “So the pandemic has just really exacerbated the problems of an unhealthy workforce.”

The series is available at no-cost to participants, made possible by Kotok and his partner, Christine Schlesinger.

Every single expert jumped at the chance to help, she said.

“Everyone I contacted to present was extremely excited to be able to be a part of the project,” she said. “Everyone made time and made this a priority because nurses need it so much.”

“Covid proves the importance of dedicated and skilled nurses as a critical component in America’s healthcare,” said Kotok. “An important part of fulfilling the public health of the nation is driven by philanthropy. That’s why we are supporting this initiative.”

Want to learn more?

Scan here to sign up for the education credits and here to listen to the podcast.

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For Schlesinger, a retired Advanced Practice Nurse, she has long known that hospitalized patient outcomes improve with optimal nurse-to-patient ratio.

“With increased patient acuity and decreased BSN/RN availability, patient outcomes are severely diminished,” she said.

“COVID-19 plus our aging demographic – which naturally will require more nursing care – has brought this reality home like a hammer to a nail.”

Letourneau said that not only are nurses gravitating to the webinar series for accredited CEUs. But she also has been hearing from colleagues at nursing schools around the country who say they want to offer it to their students, especially those getting ready to graduate into the workforce in the middle of the pandemic.

From January through the end of August, more than 780 participants enrolled in the Frontline webinar series for a total of 585 CEUs, she said.

In addition to the webinar series, the team has developed a Frontline Nursing podcast series, too, with a new topic of discussion each month, from self-care to the state of science.

As for what’s next, Letourneau says she and fellow researchers will be seeking grants to study future steps and also looking at larger systemic issues beyond education and ways to address them.

Letourneau has dreamed of being part of major changes to the health care system all through her career – since acquiring a bachelor’s degree in nursing and a master’s degree in nursing administration from the University of Rhode Island; to obtaining a doctorate in nursing from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth; to working as an ER nurse; and more recently while as an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and now at the University of South Florida.

She feels privileged to be at USF’s College of Nursing at a moment like this and under the vision of Dean Menon.

“This is where I needed to be to do this work,” she said about the college and Menon. “I thank her every day for trusting me to lead this project and for the college’s support.”

Frontline Nursing is all about workforce development, she added, giving nurses the skills to not only enter the field but stay in it safely and then to make systemic changes.

“Our health care system is in crisis. Nurses are the glue holding it together, and nurses need some help to make positive changes,” she said. “I want to be a part of that change.” ■

For Letourneau, the feedback on the webinar and podcast series was deeply satisfying. Among the amazing notes she said she has received from around the country, one text in particular from a nurse colleague stood out: “Thank you for supporting us,” it read. “This means more to us than you will ever know.”

“This is why the hard work is worth it,” Letourneau said. “We are making a difference. We need to support nurses on the frontlines. They need help. This is one way the USF College of Nursing can contribute.”

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Florida Center for Nursing to be housed at USF College of Nursing The State of Florida has awarded the Florida Nurses Association with the funding to reestablish the Florida Center for Nursing (FCN) and USF College of Nursing will be the research partner. The FCN was closed in July 2020 because it was vetoed from the state budget and there were no sustainable alternative funds. Reestablishing the FCN comes at a critical time for our state.

The FCN is a State Workforce Center which provides information, analyzes trends, conducts research, and predict nursing needs for the state. State Workforce Centers, as part of the National Forum of Nursing Workforce Centers, address nursing shortages within states and the nation and work to ensure an adequate supply of qualified nurses to meet the health needs of our nation.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we are seeing nursing leave the bedside and leave the profession at alarming rates. Now more than ever, it is critical to understand the supply and demand of Florida’s nursing workforce. The purpose of the FCN will be to conduct analysis of Licensed Practical Nurses, Registered Nurses, and Advanced Practice Registered Nurse Practitioners every two years to understand the state of the workforce in our Florida. The FCN will collect and analyze data, publish reports and information, and make recommendations to resolve the nursing shortage.

The USF College of Nursing’s faculty experts will collaborate closely with the Florida Nurses Association to guide the FCN’s collection of data, analysis of imbalance between supply and demand, and prediction of needs so that the we can lead efforts that drive nursing workforce development and policy recommendations for the State of Florida. ■

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Excellence in Nursing In collaboration with Sarasota Memorial Hospital (SMH), the College of Nursing is launching a program toaddress the critical shortage of nurses, who are leaving the profession in record numbers.

The Excellence in Nursing During COVID-19 and Beyond program seeks to improve the working environment for nurses facing burnout and stress as the pandemic persists.

The program also includes a clinical preceptorship-to-hire program at SMH for nursing students committed to working at that hospital or the new Venice campus after graduation.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a significant toll on nurses, who spend so much time caring for others,” said College of Nursing Dean Usha Menon. “This program will empower the nurses of Sarasota, while also increasing

opportunities for our students to work in the region.”Philanthropic support was provided by lead donors David Kotok and Christine Schlesinger, whose $115,000 gift completed funding for the pilot following a match challenge. Additionally, a $25,000 grant from Gulf Coast Community Foundation, as well as private gifts, and grants from the USF Foundation helped fund this pilot program. The program is set to launch in Spring 2022 and will continue for two years.

To learn more about the program, scan this QR code to watch a video.

WIRES™, a new office at the CON, will provide help to health care workers exacerbated by the pandemic The USF Health College of Nursing has established a new office dedicated to the health and wellness of nurses and interdisciplinary colleagues. Wellness, Innovation, Resources, Education and Support (WIRES™) for the Health Care Workforce will be recognized at local, state, national and international levels as a resource for the health care workforce.

WIRES™ will continuously assess needs of the workforce and develop, implement and test interventions to meet those needs. WIRES™ will also publish reports and make policy recommendations to improve the workforce from the data gathered during assessment. (continued next page)

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“We hear you,” said Dr. Rayna Letourneau, founding director of WIRES™.

“We hear our nurses, health care workers and patients telling us about the problems they face in our health care system. We know there is opportunity for improvement,” she added.

Letourneau has more than 20 years of nursing experience. She began her career as a staff nurse in one of the nation’s busiest emergency departments, then moved to hospital-based education and then higher education, where she has been for the past 13 years. Letourneau’s scholarship focuses on nursing workforce development, transition to practice, nurses’ health and wellness, and quality and safety education for nurses. She has numerous peer-reviewed and invited poster and podium presentations, several peer-reviewed publications, and commentary and analysis articles published for the public.

Through WIRES™, Letourneau plans to lead a team of experts at the college to transform the health care industry and ensure a healthy, competent and empowered workforce, ultimately advancing the well-being of communities.

The concept of WIRES™ came to her in 2021 after the College of Nursing launched “Frontline Nursing During COVID-19: A New Paradigm,” an educational webinar and podcast series that provides nurses with tools to navigate the challenges of working the frontlines of a pandemic.

“A tired, sick, burned-out workforce cannot provide the best care,” she explained.

“We know the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the health and wellness problems of nurses and our interdisciplinary colleagues.”

WIRES™ will provide hands-on assistance to clinicians, faculty and students.

Assistance will include webinars, continuing education programs, podcasts, well-being programs and workforce development programs that facilitate students’ transition from academia to professional practice. Additional interventions will be identified as data is gathered.

The vision of WIRES™ is an empowered nursing workforce that will lead health care transformation worldwide. The goals and outcomes of WIRES™ are: • Promote healthy lifestyle behaviors that have been found to optimize and improve overall health and well-being of ourselves, our patients, our communities, and our fellow clinicians

• Deliver transdiscipline, specialized programs and consultation regarding workforce development, leadership, education, and well-being to agencies, clinicians, and other scientists • Inform and influence policies • Create a pipeline of healthy clinicians ready to enter the workforce and be known as the national resource for evidence-based retention strategies • Create academic-practice partnerships that will lead change and advance health through collaboration The work of WIRES™ aligns with the recently released 2021 National Academy of Medicine’s Future of Nursing 2020-2030 report. WIRES™ key focus areas of wellness, education, and workforce development will promote health and well-being among nurses, health care professionals, individuals, and communities, and address the systematic inequities that cause persistent health disparities.

The WIRES™ office is located at the College of Nursing on the Tampa Campus (MDN 1002L) and can be contacted at healthWIRES@usf.edu. ■

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Emerging NURSE SCIENTISTS

 The new Emerging Nurse Scientist Summer Fellowship is made possible thanks to a generous donation from alumnus Carl Goff, PhD, RN, ‘86.

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USF Health College of Nursing is not only trailblazing nursing education, but opportunities for research and fellowships that enhance practical and clinical skills of nursing students. One of our many innovative programs available to undergraduate students is our Emerging Nurse Scientist Summer Fellowship, an opportunity made possible by a generous donation from Carl Goff, PhD, RN. This eight-week research experience allows selected students to work closely with interdisciplinary faculty mentors on research projects.

“So many of the things we do today, we couldn’t do without research,” said Goff. “Research truly drives the practice and helps us continue to be better.”

The goal of the program is to encourage and support the training of undergraduate nursing students who are motivated to undertake careers in basic, clinical and/or behavioral research.

Dr. Victoria Marshall, mentor of the fellowship, said, “This program allowed for a rich encounter with various aspects of the research process including responsible conduct in research, the institutional review board process, study protocols, ensuring quality assurance in data collection and literature reviews. Additionally, this program allowed faculty to grow skills and experience in mentorship, and influence enthusiasm and potential among individuals entering the nursing field.”

After earning his bachelor’s in nursing from USF in 1986, Goff wanted to find a way to give back to the university. In 2018, with the passing of his mother, Betty Virginia Goff, he was able to use part of her inheritance as a donation to fund the Emerging Nurse Scientist Fellowship in her name.

“Having raised six boys and her caring attitude, she was very much a nurse, just without the official title,” said Goff.

He hopes the fellowship will get nursing students interested in research. The goal of the program is to encourage and support the training of undergraduate nursing students who are motivated to undertake careers in basic, clinical and/or behavioral research.

The Emerging Nurse Scientist Fellowship training occurs through guided, carefully chosen, didactic and experiential training in USF wet or dry laboratories, research programs and clinics. Each student is assigned a faculty mentor and have the opportunity for hands-on laboratory and/or community experiences, regular lab meetings, clinical observations, and participation in research activities as member of the mentor’s research team.

Mentors are assigned nurse fellows based on the fellow’s experiences and interests, then they are matched to the mentor’s research program. Mentors guide and supervise undergraduate trainees through experiences on their research teams in settings aligned with the mentor’s research program (e.g., College of Nursing Biobehavioral lab; Genomics core; community settings; clinical settings). Fellows are expected to complete required trainings such as biosafety and human subjects considerations.

Fellowship Program Benefits: • Membership in a community of undergraduates committed to nursing research • Invitation to special events and meetings with distinguished guests • Opportunity to submit a poster to USF Health or USF and coauthor a publication

Fellowship Program Requirements: • The Fellows must complete the full 8 weeks, 20 hours per week, of directed research experience • The fellow and the faculty mentor meet at least once per week or more often, depending on the project and the level of faculty mentor guidance needed • Submit a research poster to Health Research Day and/or USF Research Day if they have a program available • Participate in co-authoring at least one research publication (should be submitted by the end of the fellowship) • Presentation of finding and experience during last week of the program • Complete a brief final report related to the fellowship experience

For more information on the Emerging Nursing Scientist Fellowship, contact Carmen Mitchell at carmenmitchell@usf.edu. ■

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Many people aspire to dedicate their lives to a single calling. Dr. Carrie Nero—a 2021 USF Alumni Award recipient—has lived a life of service in two.

With more than three decades of a career in both nursing and the military, Nero has touched countless lives, overcoming many obstacles and becoming a trailblazer in the process, including as the first African-American nurse to achieve rank of brigadier general in the U.S. Army Reserves.

Decades earlier, growing up in a segregated St. Petersburg, Nero began to find one of her callings during a game with her sister – playing hospital as doctors and nurses, their dolls and pets serving as pretend patients. The games were a fun break between chores and school work overseen by a strict grandmother who cared for them while their musician parents were working out of town.

“When I was coming up, my grandmother was one where you didn’t go out into the neighborhood. It was school, home and church,” Nero recalled laughing. “I could hear my grandmother saying, ‘You need to get your education.’”

As Nero moved through high school in the 1960s, the few career opportunities open to Black women at the time included school teaching and nursing, if one didn’t want to work in domestic service, she said. From the games with her sister, Nero had progressed to volunteering as a candy striper at the Crippled Children Hospital, a facility that predated today’s All Children’s Hospital. The experiences cemented her desire to pursue a career in nursing in order to help people.

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Sharing the same campus as her high school was Gibbs Junior College. It was the first of Florida’s 11 new African American junior colleges, named for Jonathan Gibbs – the man who had opened a private school for formerly enslaved people after the Civil War and served as the first African American member of the Florida Cabinet during Reconstruction before the era of Jim Crow.

Nero signed up for Gibbs High School’s practical nursing program as a dual-enrolled student at age 16, later enrolling in Gibbs Junior College. She was inspired to excel by the practical nursing instructor, who was both a registered nurse and her neighbor.

“She was determined that no one would fail the state board,” Nero said. She motivated Nero to want to learn more. If they were studying the nervous system, she expected the students to be reviewing the skeletal system, too, for instance. The more you know and educate yourself, Nero recalled her saying, the more you can help others.

And that’s exactly what Nero proceeded to do. After passing the state board exams for licensed practical nursing (LPN), Nero took the next step to becoming a registered nurse by enrolling in the associates program at what is today’s main campus of St. Petersburg College, being at the time one of only two Black students in her class. Nero was determined to soak up all that she could, parking herself in the first row during nursing lectures in the auditorium.

“I wanted to be in the front. I wanted to learn and to be able to hear and get all that I could get out of it,” she said. Not everyone appreciated her efforts.

Despite the fact that Nero was working full time at an area hospital and pulling in test scores of 98 and 100, one instructor didn’t believe she could really do both.

Quiet and determined, Nero offered to retake her tests in the presence of the dean to prove that she hadn’t cheated.

Instead, she was given an incomplete and made to take the class over again that summer – which she did, still working and once again scoring top marks.

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2021 USF Distinguished Alumni Award Receipient Brig. Gen. (ret.) Carrie Williams Nero, Sociology ’75, MA Guidance and Counseling Education ’79, MS Nursing ’88

“It makes you study harder,” she said. “It makes you more determined. You want to show that you know this.”

Also making a major impact on her at the time was her work at Morton Plant Hospital in Clearwater, where policies forced Black patients to be cared for in the basement through the late 1960s.

“Sometimes we didn’t have enough space to walk between gurneys in the hallway in the basement,” she said. “It gave me a drive to do more to help people, and I think that is part of my inspiration.” She recalled thinking, “If I’m going to take care of my people, I’m going to do the best that I can do.”

From Morton, she moved onto surgical nursing in what is today’s Bayfront Health, among the first Black nursing students to integrate the hospital staff. After completing the RN associate’s program at St. Pete College in 1970, she eventually enrolled in USF, where over the next two decades she would earn numerous additional degrees – including a bachelor’s degree in sociology; a master’s degree in guidance and counseling / behavioral health; and a master’s degree in nursing. She also obtained a doctorate in higher education from Nova South Eastern University.

Through these years, starting in the mid-1970s, she also transitioned over from hospital nursing to the Pinellas County Health Department. There she would go on to spearhead a focus on health disparities among Black residents and other minorities, leading her to become Pinellas County Health Department’s first director of minority health – the director of the first such Minority Health Office in the state. She also was instrumental in sparking new gene research in sickle cell to make sure all babies were tested for it, not just Black babies. She was also part of a task force called “Closing the Gap” that worked to eliminate disparities in health care in minority communities.

Even as she was doing all of this – by then married to husband, Joe, and a mother herself to two young boys – Nero was trailblazing in a second, parallel career. While she still had been at Bayfront, she had seen a group of impressive-looking Army Reserve nurses in uniform as they were recruiting. She decided that she wanted to be a part of that world of service as well, joining in 1975.

For the next three decades, she trained all over the world, working on assignments at the Pentagon as well as the War College, and overseeing stateside care for wounded soldiers in Desert Shield/Desert Storm in Alabama, Florida and Georgia. In 2002, while serving as chief nurse of “Desert Medics,” 3rd Medical Command, she achieved the rank of brigadier general, the first African American nurse to do so in the U.S. Army Reserves – a position obtained after a rigorous review process of hundreds of career portfolios by an election board, then subject to approval by Congress and the president.

Asked to reflect on her wealth of accomplishments, Nero said she does not think of her life that way. Even as she was breaking some barriers among national leaders, afterward she’d be right back in St. Pete at the

And she was a key force behind the creation of what became the state-wide Healthy Start program, which provides free home visits to pregnant women, new mothers and their babies to help to lower risk factors associated with preterm birth, infant mortality and other poor developmental outcomes.

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health department, where hundreds of pregnant mothers from minority communities filled the maternity clinic each week seeking important prenatal care they couldn’t get elsewhere.

“I’m seeing people who look like me not getting some of the health care that they need,” she said. “I just want to be a servant, and I want to be behind the scenes working to help our community and help as much as I can.”

Just as she was inspired by mentors, Nero has impacted legions of peers and younger colleagues – many who describe her as a humble, tireless advocate for families, particularly Black communities of St. Petersburg and Pinellas County.

“Between her ability to continue getting her education – master’s degrees and a doctorate degree and then various positions in administration – she was pretty much that person to admire and to strive to become like,” said Vienna Adams, RN, BSN, retired assistant director of nursing at the Pinellas County Health Department who worked with Nero to found the minority health office and its programs.

Adams arrived to the health department in her twenties and was immediately taken with Nero. She quickly found herself brought under Nero’s wing – along with many others who saw in Nero not only a strong, spiritual and humble leader but also a maternal figure to all colleagues—no matter their age—for her guidance, kindness and loving example.

“We followed her because she loved the community,” Adams said. “She just knew they needed more and she was going to find a way to get it.”

Life-long friends, Adams insists on referring to her as Dr. Nero even though she tells people, “Just call me Carrie.”

The respect and love for her in the community is widespread. Through the Florida-Parent Child Center—a nonprofit she co-founded with husband, Joe—Nero has regularly taken children on camping trips through the years, while organizing couples’ and youth retreats.

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Between work at the health department, Nero would spend lunch hours and after-work time at the center’s day care, said Gwendolyn Reese, who was among those who worked closely with Nero on crafting what became the Healthy Start legislation.

“She is a nurse in her heart, she is a nurse in everything she does,” Reese said. “She has never missed a beat or a step in taking care of people and her community. I love her and respect her, and I’m so blessed to have had our lives cross.”

Nero’s beloved husband, Joe, passed away in 2014. Her sons and their children live close by in the Tampa Bay area.

Despite being retired for about 15 years, Nero has not slowed down. She continues to volunteer, including on veterans projects such as blood pressure checks.

This past year during the pandemic, she also volunteered with the USF College of Nursing on a COVID-19 training module and has done outreach with local churches to raise public awareness on vaccines and COVID-19 – whose disproportionate impact on Black communities reflects the ongoing need to continue the battle against health inequities.

The work is not easy, she says, and while much has been accomplished since her days in nursing school, much work remains to be done, for as long as it takes.

“If I’m a small part of that,” she said, “then that’s what I’ll be blessed to continue to do.” ■

FAREWELL RETIREES

Forever Friends of the College of Nursing

Dr. Susan Perry served as a Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and then Vice Dean for Faculty & Community Affairs during her seven years at the College of Nursing.

Dr. Nicholas Hall served the College of Nursing as the Senior Scientist and Director of the Center for Psychoneuroimmunology and professor for 14 years.

Dr. Susan Kennel served the college of Nursing as an Assistant Professor for 13 years and was the Director for the Pediatric Nurse Practitioner concentration for many of those years.

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USF’s Distinguished University Professor of 2021

weeks. Groer remembers the teams of nurses tending to her, their level of care that helped lead to her recovery.

“They had an enormous influence on me,” she recalled.

Y

ears before founding a cutting-edge research laboratory at the USF College of Nursing, decades before her pioneering work on mother-infant microbiomes, Dr. Maureen Groer was a young girl with polio, surrounded by nurses who would help shape the rest of her life.

Groer—USF’s Distinguished University Professor of 2021— would go on to accomplish global recognition for her biobehavioral research. She would gain renown for extensive collaborations and her legendary mentoring.

But that would all come later. Long before she was a pediatric nurse and researcher, Groer was a patient.

Born and raised in Lexington, Massachusetts, near Boston, Groer was drawn to science and biology from an early age, thanks to her father – a vice president and electrical engineer at Raytheon Technologies. He would help her with science fair projects for which she won awards at the school and state levels.

But it was the summer before fourth grade that would also leave a deep impression. While at summer camp, she contracted polio. This was just the year before the polio vaccine was available, and she was hospitalized and bed-ridden for

When it was time for college, Groer intended to pursue medical school—an unusual path for a young woman in the 1960s—an era when the thinking was that “girls went to college mostly to catch a man,” she said laughing.

With her parents focusing on her brother’s four-year university plans, she chose nursing school – studying for three years and then working several years as a pediatric nurse at Boston Children’s Hospital, her selected field inspired by her own childhood experiences.

As she was working at the hospital, her young patients’ conditions fired her interest in biology and pathology. She was determined to go to medical school, paying her own way working as a nurse.

But while studying for a master’s degree in radiation biology at Boston University, her plans were diverted again. In graduate school she met the man who would become her husband and life partner, a theoretical physicist whose career trajectory soon moved them to Illinois.

Instead of medical school, her resumed studies at the University of Illinois delved her deeper into academic research, culminating in a doctorate degree in physiology and biophysics. That path also cemented her true passion, one that had been brewing since graduate school.

FALL 2021 | 47

“I began to see how much I loved doing research, how fulfilling a career that would be,” she said. Through research, she realized, she could still help patients, potentially impacting many through lab findings.

“I felt I could contribute so much more as a scientist,” she said.

Eventually after more moves and starting a family, she obtained a master’s degree in nursing from the University of Tennessee and honed her research interests in an area called psychoneuroimmunology – the relationship between stress and the human immune system. Groer focused especially on mothers and children.

She was particularly intrigued after a fun experiment with one of her sons. He was 7 and taking violin lessons, upset with the warts on his fingers. Groer made the earliest appointment available with the dermatologist, three

48 | UNIVERSITY of SOUTH FLORIDA COLLEGE of NURSING

weeks away, but tried something else in the meantime after reading about mind-body interactions in children. Drawing on the popularity of a new movie called Star Wars, she encouraged her son to shoot imaginary poison lasers into the warts, which he did with relish. By the third day the warts started to disappear, and by the second week, they were gone. Groer cancelled the doctor’s appointment.

“I was so impressed with the unbelievable power that the mind has over the immune system,” she said.

Around this time, she started to acquire major grants and funding for research on the effects of stress in mothers related to post-partum depression and the immune system, breast milk and infant health.

Many years later, by the time she moved to USF’s College of Nursing in 2006—close to her parents in Bradenton—she was an expert in the field.

 Consisting of over 2,000 dedicated square feet of space, the Biobehavioral Laboratory is located on the 3rd floor of the College of Nursing. It contains state-of-the art equipment for conducting blood assays, such as inflammatory markers, stress hormones, proteomics, and RNA and DNA analyses. It also contains multiple patient rooms for conducting physical examinations, clinical measurements, and treatment interventions for health care and research purposes.

Groer would remember the day three years later when the late Dr. Patricia Burns—then dean of the USF College of Nursing—opened the doors to a storage room no one ever seemed to enter.

“Maureen, do you think this could be a lab?” Groer recalled her saying. The space was massive—two thousand square feet—far bigger than the two cramped rooms nursing faculty and students used as labs over in the College of Public Health.

After Groer picked herself up from the floor from shock, she joked, she got busy working with architects to design what became one of the top college of nursing labs in the country – the Bio-Behavioral Research Laboratory.

“We have equipment in there that no other nursing labs have,” she said.

That includes state-of-the art machines for conducting DNA and RNA analysis as well as blood assays to check for stress hormones and inflammatory markers. It has patient rooms for exams and treatment.

FALL 2021 | 49

It’s where Groer—who has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health for the last two decades—has collaborated with colleagues from nursing and medicine to anthropology and developmental psychology.

The last eight years she has won major grants to study prematurely born babies and Very Low Birth Weight (VLBW) infants up to age four to investigate the long-term health effects on their gut microbiome – the trillions of bacteria, viruses, fungi and other organisms in the digestive tract.

Her studies have examined the disruption to the development of a baby’s microbiome after extensive time in neonatal intensive care units (NICU).

The disruptions stem from stressful procedures, too little contact with mothers, too much formula and not enough breastmilk, and an overabundance of antibiotics that kill off both bad bacteria as well as the good stuff. The findings have added to a booming area of research, shedding light on the positive effects of breastmilk, and are leading to hospital policy changes regarding NICU environments.

Dramatically, they also point to potential lifelong impacts in prematurely born infants, such as signs of obesity by age four – as if a child’s metabolism system was locked in overdrive.

Part of USF’s Initiative on Microbiomes and also the Genomic Center, Groer and other scholars hope their studies can lead to additional medical and behavioral interventions – given research showing the gut microbiome’s key relationship to brain neurochemistry, metabolism and the immune system.

Groer, who has mentored legions of young scientists and clinicians from the Colleges of Nursing and Medicine, envisions the lab as a path to the future of nursing science – rooted, she believes, at this molecular level.

Dr. Amy D’Agata was one of those mentees. She moved her family 1,200 miles from Connecticut for the chance to work as a post-doctoral fellow with Groer on the preterm infant gut microbiome study.

“After arriving at USF, I came to appreciate the wealth of knowledge and experience and scientific discovery she is involved in,” said D’Agata, now an assistant professor in the

50 | UNIVERSITY of SOUTH FLORIDA COLLEGE of NURSING

College of Nursing at the University of Rhode Island, whose clinical practice is in neonatal intensive care.

Not only was she “incredibly generous” with her time, knowledge and contacts, D’Agata said, but Groer also profoundly influences her mentees with her scientific rigor. “Maureen has made an indelible mark not only on nursing, but also the broader scientific community.”

D’Agata continues to work with Groer, investigating lifelong health effects in pre-term infants, including signs of cardiometabolic disease.

“She has been pivotal in my career, and I’m forever grateful for her,” she said.

Dr. Adetola Louis-Jacques, an obstetrician and gynecologist specializing in maternal and fetal medicine and high-risk pregnancies, has worked with Groer in her lab for seven years as a mentee and colleague.

The lab is an “essential” place where researchers with diverse training, ethnic, racial, and research backgrounds can come together in a collaborative, welcoming environment, said Louis-Jacques, formerly an assistant professor at USF affiliated with Tampa General Hospital, and now at the UF Health Shands Hospital.

Her time with Groer included work on an important grant studying the correlations between pregnancy, depression and Toxoplasma gondii – a common parasite that affects the brain – in Hispanic women. Groer’s team has found surprisingly high rates of miscarriage and preterm deliveries among women who tested positive for Toxoplasma – findings in the process of being published.

The lab – warm, interdisciplinary, respectful – reflects Groer herself, Louis-Jacques added – someone who brings her entire life experience to the table, who cares as much about her mentees’ families and careers as she values their experience, research questions and projects.

“She’s just a really fantastic human being,” Louis-Jacques said. “She’s a really beautiful example of how to be a leader and mentor.” ■

Scholarship Recipient Spotlights JENNESSA ROOKER

Jennessa Rooker is the recipient of the John & Cecile Lengacher Scholarship and the USF Predoctoral Assistantship Research Residency Scholarship.

Rooker is from Lansing, Michigan, but has worked as a Registered Nurse for Tampa General Hospital Cancer Institute for the past six years. She is a University of Michigan BSN Program graduate and currently in her first year in the doctorate of Nursing in Science Program.

“I was so grateful to be the recipient of two scholarships this year!” Rooker said.

“These scholarships exemplify the support that the nursing and interdisciplinary faculty at USF have for the incoming students and their research.”

Rooker’s goal is researching patients’ quality of life throughout treatment, specifically patients that receive chemotherapy and may experience side effects like peripheral neuropathy, hearing loss or cognitive impairment. She was inspired during her collaboration with Dr. Thomas Rutherford and Dr. Matthew Anderson, Gynecology Oncologists at the TGH Cancer Institute. Both physicians encouraged this nursing study to improve our future patients’ quality of life.

Her advice to students: If any students are hesitant to start a graduate program, I would encourage them to attend a graduate student session, reach out to the program advisors and to go for it!

Danielle Abukhalaf is the recipient of the Morton Plant Mease Healthcare and University of South Florida Foundation Scholarship.

“I am so grateful to be recognized by both BayCare and USF,” Abukhalaf said. “It’s a great feeling to know they both believe in me.”

Abukhalaf is originally from New York, but grew up in West Palm Beach, Florida. She is a USF master’s graduate and Fall 2021 was her first semester in the doctorate in Nursing Science Program. Currently, Abukhalaf is an Advanced Professional Development Practitioner at Mease Dunedin. Her work focuses on evidence-based practice, ongoing competency and the preceptor program.

Her goal is to become a Trailblazer nurse scientist who advances the nursing profession by improving patient outcomes and nursing workflow.

Her advice to students: You can do it and yes, you are smart enough. Surround yourself with people who believe in you, you will need them for the tough days.

DANIELLE ABUKHALAF

My grandmother raised me on strong educational values by always encouraging us to learn more and reiterating that education is the key to success. As Dr. Theresa Beckie says, “No one can take your education away from you!”

FALL 2021 | 51

ANGELINE SAINT FLEUR

Angeline Saint Fleur is the recipient of a graduate fellowship from Tampa General Hospital.

Fleur is originally from Haiti and is currently in her first year of the doctorate in Nursing Science Program. She plans to research conditions that have a high prevalence in minority communities, with a focus in women’s health.

First believe that you can actually achieve your goals, that is often the hardest part.

She found her inspiration to pursue this career while working as a nurse in a variety of units, including adult cardiac, vascular, postpartum, antepartum and NICU. “I have seen health disparities first-hand and want to have a part in lessening the prevalence,” Fleur said. “I am also grateful to USF for believing in my abilities and granting me the opportunity to advance my education to the PhD level.”

Her advice to students: First believe that you can actually achieve your goals, that is often the hardest part.

52 | UNIVERSITY of SOUTH FLORIDA COLLEGE of NURSING

Fellowship Recipient Spotlights

Kimberly Tavares is the recipient of the Ann Winch Fellowship Fall 2021.

KIMBERLY TAVARES

Tavares is from Massachusetts, but grew up in Largo, Florida. She graduated from the USF Certified Registered Nurse Anesthesia graduate program in 2016 and is currently in her final year in the doctorate degree in Nursing Practice with a concentration in Nurse Anesthesia.

“It is exciting to be able to say that I am achieving what I set out to do: become a double Bull!” Tavares said. “It is a great honor to be chosen as the Ann Winch fellow and I am so incredibly grateful for the opportunity.”

Have an indomitable spirit, a spirit that cannot be broken. Set both short (tangible) and longterm (dream) goals for yourself. Celebrate your achievements along the way and when the going gets rough, take it one day at a time.

Her goal is to become a doctoral-prepared CRNA providing anesthesia for those undergoing surgical procedures, with hopes to return to USF for a third time to complete a post-graduate fellowship in Advanced Pain Management.

She was inspired to pursue this career after enduring many surgeries as a child.

“USF has helped me achieve my personal, professional, and academic goals since 2012 when I first started at the University,” she said.

Her advice to students: Have an indomitable spirit, a spirit that cannot be broken. Set both short (tangible) and long-term (dream) goals for yourself. Celebrate your achievements along the way and when the going gets rough, take it one day at a time.

FALL 2021 | 53

Nursing Trailblazer

Spotlights

54 | UNIVERSITY of SOUTH FLORIDA COLLEGE of NURSING

USF College of Nursing Undergraduate Student

ELLIE BOYD

Ellie Boyd is no stranger to a warm climate and sunshine having moved to Tampa from Dallas, Texas, in 2014.

For as long as she can remember, it has been her dream to pursue a career in the medical field. Right now, she is a Level three Upper Division College of Nursing student.

“I have always been fascinated with the human body and science,” said Boyd, “I chose nursing when I learned how much patient interaction there is. I wanted a career that was making an impact in someone’s life while being hands-on.”

She says our college is what initially attracted her to the University of South Florida. Her goal was to find a university with an exceptional nursing program, “Once I met the staff, toured the college and explored the rest of the campus, I knew that USF was where I belonged,” shares Boyd, “I am forever grateful that I chose to follow my dream of becoming a nurse here.”

FALL 2021 | 55

The versatility of the nursing profession captured her attention. The countless pathways within the field are allowing her the freedom to pursue her passion, “I am lucky that I have always known what I wanted to do as a career, and I am more excited than ever to know what it means to be a nurse.”

Currently, Boyd’s career goal is to become a nurse practitioner. “I have always had a passion for working with children, specifically infants!”

Between starting the program and beginning to practice at the hospital, she has developed an interest in psychiatric nursing as well. For now, she is laser focused on graduating and becoming a registered nurse.

“The encouraging staff is what is helping me to not only reach my goals but go above and beyond so that I can be the best nurse for my patients,” she said.

Earning acceptance into to the Upper Division nursing program is one of the things she is most proud of, “I have worked so hard to get to where I am today, and I will always be proud of myself for how far I have come.”

She was also selected to be a part of the college’s Admissions Team. She says that is something she is equally proud of because she is able to help prospective nursing students learn more about the college and our programs through answering their questions and sitting on panels at info sessions.

If you ask Ellie what her biggest piece of advice for students considering a career in nursing is, she will tell you to, “Keep pushing through, remember why you wanted to be a nurse in the first place!”

She feels the secret to success is great organization and communication. She shares, “Keep an open mind when practicing in the clinical setting. Ask questions, do all of the hands-on skills you can do, interact with the patients. You may not know what field of nursing you want to pursue yet, and that is okay! Work hard and things will fall into place.”

And “As always, Go Bulls!” ■

USF College of Nursing Graduate Student Kalie Combass is a first-year

KALIE COMBASS

Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA) student from Stuart, Florida.

This two-time University of Florida graduate earned degrees in Applied Physiology and Kinesiology, and Nursing. Most recently, Kalie spent four years at Shands Children’s Hospital as a Pediatric ICU nurse.

Nursing was something that began at an early age for Combass as she helped to care for her grandfather, who survived a devastating cerebral stroke.

“My siblings and I spent a lot of time helping my grandmother care for

56 | UNIVERSITY of SOUTH FLORIDA COLLEGE of NURSING

him,” says Combass, “his rehabilitation was a long and difficult path, but with all of our help, he was able to make many lasting memories with us and experience a high quality of life. This experience was heavily influential in my career decision to become a nurse.”

Combass stands out among her peers. During her senior year in the BSN program, she was awarded the “Excellence in Community Service Award” for the most hours of service in the Gainesville community. She is a Gator Nurse Preceptor in PICU and even cross-trained in NICU and Pediatric Emergency Medicine.

Combass continued her nursing education at University South Florida College of Nursing, which she attributes to our “esteemed reputation with results to match.”

She was impressed with our CRNA program’s 100% board passing rates at first attempt. USF, also being only one of five other schools to have a CRNA fellowship, also impacted her decision.

“I know that I will graduate from USF well-prepared and confident in my field,” shares Combass, “USF Nursing programs are competitive and an honor to be a part of.

It was an easy decision when I was offered acceptance. I am thankful to be a part of this program!”

“Initially, I did not expect to be able to continue in this program. However, with the understanding and help of my program director and professors, I was able to catch up with my classmates within a few weeks. I got great marks that semester, and still spent as much time as possible with my family. I know my dad would be proud, which continues to motivate me, especially through the tough patches. If you are having a challenging time finding motivation or self-confidence, think about what motivates you and cherish it. And do not forget that you have a whole tribe of people that will help and support you along the way,” Combass said.

Next, she plans to continue training after graduation with a focus in pediatrics. Her goal is to perform and participate in research concerning pediatric anesthesia and pain control. “My hope is to use my passion for pediatrics to become an expert in providing pediatric patients the best possible care, through continued training and experience.”

I know that I will

graduate from USF

well-prepared and

confident in my field.

USF Nursing programs are competitive and

an honor to be a part of. It was an easy

Though, her journey through the CRNA program has not always been easy. Shortly after the start of her first semester in this program, her father was tragically killed due to a violent shooting at his workplace. This sudden and horrific tragedy instantly changed her life.

decision when I was offered acceptance.

She leaves this advice to those who follow her Trailblazing path at the USF Health College of Nursing, “We have the gift of being in a career that directly helps others and can change lives for the better,” says Kalie, “Stay focused, remember why you chose this path!” ■

I am thankful to be a part of this program!

— KALIE COMBASS FALL 2021 | 57

CLASS NOTES RANY AHMAD (MS, ‘18) joined Lake-

LINDSEY GRYCH (BS ‘15, MS ‘18)

MICHAEL MURPHY (BS ‘07, MS ‘07)

land Regional Health as an urgent care

joined the Watson Clinic and serves

received a PhD in nursing education from

nurse practitioner. He is certified by the

patients at the clinic’s south location in

the University of Colorado in May 2020.

American Academy of Nurse Practitioners.

Lakeland, Florida. As a registered family

He has been living in Paris, France for

nurse practitioner, she is a member of the

10 years. He still maintains contacts in

American Academy of Nurse Practitioners

Florida and is proud to be a USF alum.

ANGELLA BENSON (MS ‘07) is a Board-Certified Aesthetics Nurse Prac-

and the American Nurses Association.

titioner who specializes in non-invasive

SARAH NICOLA (BS ‘18) is a CNM/

medical aesthetics. She practices in the

ABBY JACKSON (BS ‘17) works at

WHNP student at Georgetown University

Fort Myers, Florida area.

Tampa General Hospital in the medical

and is on track to graduate in August

ICU. In March 2020, her unit was trans-

2021. She worked at Sarasota Memorial

BRETT JENKINS (BS ‘14, MS ‘19)

formed into the designated COVID-19

Hospital for nearly two years before

joined Lakeland Regional Health Physi-

ICU, where she saw some of the sickest

leaving to focus on school.

cian Group as a family nurse practitioner

patients ever seen in her nursing career.

seeing walk-in care patients at the

She regularly reflects on her days at USF

LAURA PELLEGRINI (BS ‘12, MS

Gateway location. He most recently served

and about how much she learned in nurs-

‘16) joined the Watson Clinic and serves

as a Registered Nurse in the Bannasch

ing school. She wouldn’t be the nurse she

patients at the clinic’s medical spa in

Institute for Advanced Rehabilitative

is today if she wasn’t a USF Bull Nurse.

Lakeland, Florida. As a certified family

Medicine at Lakeland Regional Health Medical Center.

BRANDY GARCIA-ASHE (MS ‘19)

nurse practitioner, she is a member of the

MARY MITCHELL (BS ‘11, MS ‘11,

American Academy of Nurse Practitioners

DNP ‘18) started working remotely for

and the Polk County Advanced Practice

Grand Rounds, a health care technology

Nurses Association.

joined Plant City Pediatrics in Plant City,

company since December 2019. She

Florida. For the past 11 years, she has

wanted to share how nurse practitioners

LAURA GONZALEZ (MS ‘96) will be

lived in the Tampa Bay area with her

in telemedicine have helped bridge the

inducted as a member of the 2020 class

husband and their three children. She is

gap for patients with COVID-related

of fellows in the American Academy

certified through the Pediatric Nursing

guidance and education. Despite not

of Nursing.

Certification Board as a primary care

being on the front lines, we are able to

nurse practitioner.

provide the support patients need during the pandemic.

58 | UNIVERSITY of SOUTH FLORIDA COLLEGE of NURSING

NURSING ALUMNI & FRIENDS

We’d love to hear from you!

Join us as we support the mission of the College of Nursing and engage with our current and future alumni. We encourage alumni and friends of the college to get involved through volunteer opportunities, networking, and special events. We look forward to connecting with you! If you’d prefer to update your information digitally, visit health.usf.edu/nursing/alumni-giving or contact Dr. Alicia Gill Rossiter, Director for Alumni and Community Engagement, at 813-974-1938.

NAME CREDENTIALS JOB TITLE CURRENT EMPLOYER ADDRESS

PHONE EMAIL PROGRAM COMPLETED GRADUATION YEAR SHARE YOUR TRAILBLAZING NURSING UPDATE WITH US

Ways to Get Involved ENGAGE • Becoming a Preceptor – Help prepare the next generation of nurses.

• Nursing Events Calendar – Find ways to get involved with the college.

• USF Alumni Association – Connect with friends and fellow alumni.

GIVE • Alumni Support & Giving – Help improve the student experience.

• Leaving a Legacy – Learn now to benefit future generations of Bull Nurses, contact Nursing Development.

PLACE STAMP HERE

c/o Alicia Rossiter DNP, APRN, FNP, PPCNP-BC, FAANP, FAAN 12901 Bruce B. Downs Blvd MDC Box 22 Tampa, FL 33612

In Loving Memory of Ona Riggin October 11, 1930 – June 3, 2021 FALL 2021 | 61

Ona Riggin, RN, EdD, grew up on a dairy farm in Monroe, Wisconsin in the 1930s. Her parents were Swiss immigrants and she spent her mornings before school milking cows. In a family that only spoke Swiss-German, Riggin ended up failing first grade.

“She didn’t even have English skills in the first grade and yet, she went on to all these educational degrees,” Scott Heffington, son of Riggin, said.

Her failure did not slow her. In fact, it fueled her.

Riggin overcame her language barrier and excelled academically, eventually achieving her doctor of education degree from Memphis State University in 1976.

Heffington said it was his mother’s persistence that always turned her setbacks into success.

In 1964, Riggin’s first husband, Claude Scott Heffington, died when her son was only 18-months-old. Through the difficult days and years that followed, she managed to find strength and push through. She continued to work full-time and go to school, all while caring for her son, a toddler at the time.

“It’s always tough being a single mom, but it was really tough being a single mom back in the ‘60s,” Heffington said.

She also faced societal challenges, including fighting for housing, a problem Heffington says many women faced at that time because landlords did not want to rent to women, especially single moms.

Heffington said no one would have ever guessed her struggles because Riggin was stoic. She was plucky. And she always found a way.

While going to school full-time and working at the University of Tennessee’s College of Nursing, she ended up meeting and later marrying Dr. John “Jack” Riggin.

62 | UNIVERSITY of SOUTH FLORIDA COLLEGE of NURSING

Riggin went from a single mom of one to a married wife and mother of five. Jack had four children of his own: Geoffrey, Melanie, John and Lauren. A new chapter began for the family.

“She created stability among the chaos,” Heffington said. “We still managed to eat dinner as a family every night.”

Their once seemingly empty home was suddenly bursting at the seams with children, both Riggin and her husband, her husband’s father and a new German Shephard puppy that Lauren found and Geoffrey insisted on keeping. It was time to move.

In 1977, the Riggin family moved to Florida and Riggin started at the University of South Florida in the fall as a professor and director of special projects in the College of Nursing.

In an interview with Riggin in 2001 for USF’s 50th History Anniversary Project, she said at the time she started at the College of Nursing, it was a mere skeleton of what it is today.

From 1977 to her retirement in 2005, she devoted her life to the growth of the College of Nursing and the success of the students.

During her career, she chaired the graduate council, research council and the honor and awards council. In 2001, USF recognized her as a Distinguished University Professor, a prestigious award for senior faculty members who have distinguished themselves among their peers both within and outside USF. The title is awarded through an extensive process of nomination and external peer review.

“Ona was a great friend and colleague,” College of Nursing Professor Dr. Candance Burns said. “Her leadership helped shape the College of Nursing during the early formative years.”

It wasn’t long before Riggin’s efforts and leadership started to make a noticeable impact on the college and ultimately change the future, for the better. Riggin recognized the importance for the college to have a master’s degree and jumped into action.

Riggin took the lead on a feasibility study for a Master of Science degree program. Her proposal was approved in 1979, just two years after she started her career at the college! Not long after the approval, the College of Nursing admitted 16 students that would end up being the first class of the new master’s degree program.

In 1980, USF officially had the only nursing master’s program in the area!

From there, the program continued to grow with a variety of concentrations, specialty areas and new curriculum. The first addition to the program was in 1982 when a Gerontological Specialty was added. In 1983, when the National League accredited the program, there was 140 students enrolled and the master’s program didn’t show any signs of slowing down.

FALL 2021 | 63

In 1984, a specialty in Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing was added; in 1986, Community Health Nursing and Oncology was added; and in 1988, the Family Health Nursing concentration was added. Due to the rapid growth of the program, Riggin eventually became the chairperson for the Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing, her specialty. The program needed someone to help that concentration develop because at the time, a very small percent of nurses entered psychiatric mental health.

Naturally, Riggin put her heart and soul into her new chairperson role and soon after, it became one of the most known psych mental health programs in the country.

The Air Force and Navy approved the program and both branches began sending students to complete their master’s at the College of Nursing. Riggin remained the chairman until her retirement.

In 1990, Riggin also became the director for the development grant in alcohol, tobacco and other drugs, an initiative to help people with substance abuse problems.

She was fueled by her dedication to students, a trait many remember her for. She always focused on helping and supporting each student to ensure their success.

Even after her retirement, she continued to lend a helping hand by creating the Ona & John Riggin Psych Mental Health Scholarship. The scholarship still exists today. It is for full or part-time graduate or doctoral students pursing a major in Psychiatric Mental Health from the College of Nursing.

After retiring, Riggin became a Ruling Elder in the Presbyterian Church, where the youth group coined the saying What Would Ona Do? Most days, she was seen walking around Temple Terrace, enjoying her daily three-mile walk. Often, she left everyone puzzled, as she insisted on carrying her cane instead of using it to help her walk, even after breaking her hip in 2012.

In her last days, the practitioner that cared for her was a graduate from the College of Nursing that studied the exact programs Riggin created.

With each USF student that pursues a master’s degree in nursing and the faculty that teach, her legacy will live on.

She is survived by her five children, five grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren.

“The amount of people who loved her is so amazing,” Helen Heffington, Riggin’s daughter-in-law, said.

She will be missed dearly by her former colleagues, her church, the community, her family, and friends both near and far. ■

64 | UNIVERSITY of SOUTH FLORIDA COLLEGE of NURSING

WELCOME

New Faculty 11

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1. Yolanda Torres 2. Jingying Zhang 3. Jennifer Kue 3

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4. DeAnne Turner 5. Cheedy Jaja 6. Kelley Baumgartel 7. Uma Nair 8. Christina Cardy

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9. Deleise Wilson 10. Catherine Belden 11. Mercedes Weir 12. Herica Torres-Alzate

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WELCOME

New Staff

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1. Audrey Holtzman 2. Jessamine Cadenas 3. Tamara Ceusters 3

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4. Michele Burns 5. Lauren Schwab 6. Joan Faull 7. Cassidy Delamarter 8. Brittany Sheehy 9. Tanya Hodges

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10. Michael Hale

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USF COLLEGE OF NURSING 12901 Bruce B Downs Blvd, MDC 22 Tampa, FL 33612 813-974-7863

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