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| Vol. 23, No. 4 |
| March 1, 2001 |
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UT-Houston Nursing Supports Worldwide Nursing By PAMELA LEWIS The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston Dr. Gwen Sherwood, associate dean for community and educational outreach at The University of Texas Nursing School at Houston, believes in taking nursing knowledge from the United States to countries around the world. Last year, Dr. Sherwood co-authored, Assessing the Impact of Education Development in China: The Last Ten Years, a report assessing the impact of China's educational initiatives in nursing. The report was submitted to the Chinese Medical Board, Peking Union Medical College and the Chinese Ministries of Health. Dr. Sherwood also was the education advisor for Advancing Nursing Education Development and Access, an interdisciplinary team visit to assess resources for education development and initiate curriculum review at Soochow University Department of Nursing, Suzhou, China. A strategic plan for partnership was presented to the university president. As co-director and nursing representative to the task force for Interdisciplinary International Internship in Comparative Health Care and Policy, Richmond College, London, England, Dr. Sherwood developed the nursing component for the 10-week interdisciplinary international internships in health policy. She initiated the faculty component to expand faculty preparation in international health policy. Dr. Sherwood has also been active along the Texas/Mexico border. As coordinator of the faculty and student exchange between The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and Universidad Autonoma de Tamaulipas, Tampico, Mexico, she has developed and coordinated exchange activities for a series of visits by Mexican faculty with Texas Medical Center leaders. Follow-up visits by faculty and students to Mexico have examined health care policy and access, primary care, and nursing's role on the health care team. She was team leader and coordinator of Crossing the Border: Creating a Partnership to Improve Health Care Practice and Education, a joint program between the two institutions last June. She coordinated interdisciplinary team site visits to examine health care systems with a focus on primary care, nurse-managed community clinics and interdisciplinary health care. At the invitation of the Mexican Consul General, she participated in the development of an advisory board to promote health care access for Mexican residents, documented and undocumented, in the United States. Areas of the former Soviet Union are benefiting from Dr. Sherwood's expertise, as well. From 2000-2002, she is nursing leader of the volunteer project team of the Baylor College of Medicine/Azerbaijan Partnership for International Health Care Development in Russia and the New Independent States: American International Healthcare Alliance. As such, she has coordinated the visit of nursing leaders from regional hospitals in Baku, Azerbaijan to study nursing education, health care delivery, women's health care and quality improvement. For another Soviet initiative, Dr. Sherwood led seminars for nursing leaders from Korsakov Regional Hospital in Korsakov, Sakhalin to study nursing care improvements, education strategies, leadership development, health care delivery, and quality programs. She also participated in assessing nursing resources for that partnership in June. The program included on-site assessment and development of nursing and medical resources and health care policy and access for Korsakov Regional Hospital, urban and rural polyclinics and Yuzhno-Sakhalin School of Nursing. Other UT-Houston nursing faculty contributing to international nursing improvements include: Dr. Sandra Hanneman, associate dean for research and evaluation, was part of a UT-Houston delegation to Brazil to promote collaborative research and research training. D.R. Bickel of the Center for Nursing Research, gave an invited talk at the Workshop on Fractals and Modeling in Structural and Dynamical Analysis, Centre de Recherches Mathematiques, University of Montreal. Dr. Karen Calabro, coordinator of health promotion, gave a presentation about the characteristics of dietetics in the Americas at the XIII International Congress of Dietetics in Edinburgh, Scotland in July. Dr. Patricia L. Starck, John P. McGovern Distinguished Professor and dean, participated in a meeting in Paris sponsored by Columbia University to discuss the future of doctoral nursing education. Lynne E Hester, assistant professor of clinical nursing in the Department of Nursing Systems & Technology, was faculty representative for the Spring Break London Study Program March 2000. The course allows graduate students to investigate nursing's role in the National Health System of England and its impact on professional roles and systems. Dr. Marlene Z. Cohen, John S. Dunn Sr., Distinguished Professor in Oncology Nursing in the Department of Nursing for Target Populations and director of applied nursing research at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, went to Rome in December to work with both Americans and Italians to develop nursing research in Italy and potentially to develop collaborative research. Dr. Nancy Bergstrom, Theodore J. & Mary E. Trumble Professor in Aging Research, and associate director of aging research at the UT-Houston Center on Aging, presented papers in Logrono, Spain and in Riccone, Italy. Dr. Dorothy A. Otto, associate professor in the Department of Nursing Systems and Technology, went to London with Dr. Sherwood, other faculty and 11 graduate students. While in England, Dr. Otto, Dr. Vaunette Fay, and Dr. Sharon Ostwald learned about dementia mapping, which has now been implemented at some retirement homes in Houston. She also went to Honduras on a medical mission trip.
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