From the Editor
As school winds down and vacation plans crank up, we hope you can find a moment to enjoy this issue.
By the way, you can now share this e-news via one of the social networking links above, or “like” it on Facebook.
News: Fat Removed through Liposuction Comes Back Within a Year, and in Unexpected Places
| A New York Times article earlier this month announced the results of a new study, published in Obesity, that shows that all the fat extracted through liposuction comes back within one year to another part of the body! Click here to read the New York Times article summarizing the study and here for access to the actual study via the Obesity Research Journal. |
Student Spotlight
Name: Dorothea Frederick
Credentials: RN, MSN, CNOR
City and State: Delran, NJ
Student Status: Current student in the RNFA program
Current Job: Instructor, Jefferson School of Nursing, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA. I also work per diem at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in the operating room. My specialty area is ENT.
Path to RNFA: I went to a diploma nursing school right out of high school (1976). My parents allowed me to go there because it was close to home. I was not allowed to go away to a four-year college–that’s how I chose nursing! I graduated from The Reading Hospital School of Nursing in 1979 and started working at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Reading, PA in their ICU/CCU.
I stayed with critical care nursing/step-down nursing for 25 years at various facilities and was ready for a change. The hospital I was working at was starting a periop 101 course and I took it. I have worked in the OR ever since (the last 7 years).
I have always wanted to teach nursing, but it was a long road with school (no credits from a diploma school). I started classes for my BSN when my son started kindergarten, and we graduated together! I finished my MSN last June, interviewed for this job, and got it. Needless to say, I was smack in the middle of my RNFA program. So, I finished the online part, and did a SutureStar Express weekend in Chicago with Jeremy (which was great, by the way) and have been getting all my documents in order here to start the practicum.
Volunteer Activities: Boy Scout and Girl Scout group leader; Sunday school teacher and children’s choir director, director of children’s musicals, pianist for Sunday school and church.
A Musical Gift for Mental Health
Aurora Mental Health Center, a private, nonprofit center located not far from NIFA headquarters in Colorado, had a problem. With only one piano and one piano teacher offering private lessons, there was a year-long waiting list for students who wanted to study music.
We heard about this from Andy, a 34-year-old patient at Aurora Mental Health and the son of one of our NIFA employees. A wonderful musician himself, Andy suggested the center start a guitar lesson program. He volunteered to teach it, assisted by his dad. The psychologists at Aurora Mental Health were in favor. The only question was how to get some instruments.
NIFA saw this as an opportunity to make a particularly meaningful contribution. We got some great help from Cody at Guitar Center Englewood in selecting instruments.
The result? On May 6, NIFA donated four Fender acoustic guitars to the Mental Health Center, and Andy and his father began teaching a 6-week class to five enthusiastic students–people from the community who are affected by mental illness. The counselors selected students who are doing a particularly good job on their roads to recovery.
The students can take the guitars home with them every week and are required to practice 20 minutes a day. At the end of the 6-week series, they may purchase the guitar at cost from the agency or return it for use in the next series of classes. Andy and his dad have prepared a simplified instruction book and are introducing the students to folk, country and soft rock styles.
“It’s challenging,” said the dad, who has been a NIFA employee for over 10 years. “But to see the expression on the students’ faces as they learn is priceless.”