UNews - nursing

New graduate student nursing award creates lasting ties

trevor.kenney — Mon, 11 May 2015 15:58:37 +0000

Have you ever thought about what you’d do if you unexpectedly received a significant sum of money? Dr. Sonya Grypma did, and interestingly, one day she was given the opportunity to really figure it out.

Dr. Sonya Grypma created the Jacoba Vanden Brink Award to support nursing students by binding together dedication to others and academic success.

“It was a complete surprise,” Grypma says about the day she received an unexpected cheque in the mail. “It came from my uncle, and as soon as I got it my husband and I went right into, ‘what are we going to do with this?’ We never looked at the money as ours – we looked at it as something that had been entrusted to us, and we wanted it to have a wide circle of influence.”

Grypma has a PhD in nursing and is currently the dean at the School of Nursing at Trinity Western ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ. At the time she received the cheque, however, Grypma was an assistant professor of nursing at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge. Her passion for nursing education made Grypma’s decision on what to do with the funds fairly easy.

“Creating a scholarship felt like the right thing to do,” says Grypma. “I received a number of scholarships as a graduate nursing student and they were tremendously impactful on my education and career. The idea of helping other graduate nursing students that way was inspiring, and I knew that in doing so I’d be helping a lot of others in turn.”

The next decision Grypma faced was what name to give the award. Once again, she went with something close to her heart, and the Jacoba Vanden Brink Award was created.

The scholarship is named in honour of Grypma’s maternal grandmother, a Dutch immigrant with 13 children who came to Canada with her husband after the Second World War in pursuit of a better life. Grypma never had the chance to meet her grandmother, who was tragically killed in a car accident that happened just south of the Alberta border before Grypma was born. Vanden Brink was on her way home when she died, returning from a trip to the U.S. university her second-youngest son was attending – the first member of the Vanden Brink family to ever pursue a university education.

“The name ties so many things together for me,” says Grypma. “It pays homage to my grandmother’s strength and determination to transition her family into a new life. It honours my mother, who shares my grandmother’s first name. It upholds the value of a university education. It pays tribute to two of my uncles – the one who was attending university at the time my grandmother died, as well as my eldest uncle who entrusted the money to me and who took responsibility for the family after my grandparents passed. The accident happened near to Lethbridge, so there’s a tie there too. The Jacoba Vanden Brink Award is a deeply personal name for the scholarship, and to know that this money will work in service to others is really pleasing.”

Grypma's grandparents Bernardus and Jacoba Vanden Brink.

The Jacoba Vanden Brink Award is a $1,000 scholarship given each year to two graduate students in the U of L Faculty of Health Sciences – a first-year student and a second-year student. The first ever beneficiaries of the award, Mercy Enwere and Kim Veldman, received the scholarship last fall.

As both a previous recipient of scholarships and a current dean, Grypma has seen and experienced the effects of funding on both sides of the academic fence. Her take on the matter is as far-reaching and philosophical as her choice to create the Jacoba Vanden Brink Award.

“Nursing is a public service,” says Grypma. “A good nursing education doesn’t stop with one person – it rolls out to countless others. I received the help and affirmation I needed to succeed as a student, a nurse and an academic. This scholarship is a way for me to pay it forward while honouring people I know who dedicated themselves to helping others.”

Kim Veldman (BN ’14)
Master of Nursing student
Recipient of the Jacoba Vanden Brink Award

“The ability to help other students become great nurses is a dream of mine and I would like to become a clinical instructor of nursing students. I am extremely grateful for receiving the award because it enables me to focus on my schooling, and not stress over funds. Subsequently, I feel that the award will set me up for success in nursing.”

Helping kids recognize the dangers of tobacco

david.kirby — Wed, 17 Dec 2014 22:28:43 +0000

You know that an educational tool needs updating when its major interactive feature is transparencies. Or worse, when the topic is tobacco and the coverage begins and ends with cigarettes and chewing tobacco in a world now faced with cigarillos and e-cigarettes.

Kathy Haight is poised to redevelop the teacher resource kits intended to support Alberta’s Grade 4, 5 and 6 teachers in teaching tobacco prevention.

Fortunately, the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s Kathy Haight is on the case. With a new $60,000 grant from the Alberta Tobacco Reduction Strategy, the community health nursing instructor is poised to redevelop the teacher resource kits intended to support Alberta’s Grade 4, 5 and 6 teachers in teaching tobacco prevention in the classroom.

Haight plans to replace the 11-year-old paper-and-PDF kits not only with updated information and improved lesson plans, but with resources appropriate to new technology such as the smart boards widely used in classrooms. As a second phase of the update, she also plans to evaluate the effectiveness of this prevention education intervention intended to help kids understand the risks associated with tobacco use.

Perhaps most significant is Haight’s determination to put this content online, so that it can be regularly updated. Doing so will allow Alberta teachers increased access to current information so to keep up with the tobacco companies’ marketing strategies and new products.

Haight points to clever packaging intended to lure teens as one way tobacco companies target children.

“Tobacco companies are coming up with something new every day that targets children. This provides a way to keep teachers up-to-date and informed of changes and best practices in school-based tobacco prevention” says Haight.

As an example, she points to clever packaging intended to lure teens. “The most recent change that I've seen, even in the last four years of delivering this program in the schools, is the popularity of cigarillos. They're individually packaged, so they don't fall within all the laws and regulations, and they're conveniently packaged in bright colors to look like lip glosses and such,” says Haight.

Haight also coordinates opportunities to send her third- and fourth-year nursing students into classrooms as part of their community-health practice courses. While teaching tobacco prevention is part of the Alberta curriculum, it’s up to individual teachers to determine the number of lessons and the depth and breadth of discussion on the topic. The arrangement is win-win because it tends to increase the amount of time teachers dedicate to the topic, plus provides nursing students with practice opportunities to deliver school-based prevention programs in the community.

“My nursing students go into the classroom every week for five consecutive weeks,” says Haight, who now delivers the program to more than 30 classrooms annually in the community, and says demand for the program has increased over the four years she’s been doing it.

With early education, Haight says that children are better equipped down the road to make informed decisions when it comes to tobacco use (the lesson plans purposely move beyond facts and figures to address strategies such as building resiliency skills and recognizing negative peer pressure).

“The intent is to provide children with information prior to them experiencing the peer pressure so to help them pre-contemplate decisions,” she explains. “We intentionally target kids in Grades 4 and 5 in Lethbridge because they transition into middle school for Grade six. The literature is strong to suggest that you want to provide kids with this tobacco prevention intervention before they hit that transition year, because they're at greatest risk when they're in a transition.”

Shedding New Light on a Dark Subject

david.kirby — Wed, 14 May 2014 20:41:07 +0000

Peter Kellett believes that many men who suffer from depression are misdiagnosed and, even more concerning, may never seek care in the first place.

A registered nurse and nursing instructor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge, Peter Kellett, who is currently pursuing his PhD, is exploring a topic that has intrigued him since his days as a master’s student: the impact perceived masculinities have on the rates of depression in men.

Kellett believes that many men who suffer from depression are misdiagnosed, and even more concerning, may never seek care in the first place. It’s more than just a hunch – there is plenty of research that supports Kellett’s theory, and he plans to supplement those findings with research of his own.

“Studies suggest that the annual prevalence of depression in men is only three to four per cent, and that women get depression at twice the rate that men do,” explains Kellett. “But there’s an enigma in the numbers, because men commit suicide at a rate that is at least double that of women. So the question is, if only a small portion of men get depressed, why do so many men kill themselves?”

Kellett’s PhD study will look into Canadian Community Health Survey data, specifically the 2012 mental health survey. His plan is to examine the intersection between masculinities and various social hierarchies such as income level, employment status and social gradients associated with visible minority status. Kellett hopes to contribute to a growing body of evidence that suggests that when men feel subordinated, their physical and mental health can become compromised.

“The challenge is that our perception of depression doesn’t always capture men’s presentation of it,” says Kellett. “Men’s depression is profoundly influenced by societal norms. Men aren’t supposed to show weakness. They don’t want to appear vulnerable, so often their depression will present through violence, hostility, irritability, aggressiveness and compulsive behaviours related to addiction and risk taking. Under current mental health measures these men are more likely to be diagnosed with an addictive disorder or anti-social personality disorder than depression.”

Through his research, Kellett hopes to identify patterns of depression in different groups of men and present findings that may help to shape social policy. Perhaps most importantly, Kellett hopes his research will initiate social dialogue on an issue that is not so much swept under the carpet as completely overlooked.

“The issue of men’s depression is relatively hidden, but in another way it’s completely in our face,” says Kellett. “Men don’t want to talk about being depressed, but we see and feel the results of it. When left undiagnosed and untreated, men’s depression has a huge impact on the overall health of society. We need to be able to identify men’s depression and understand all the social contexts that are tied to it.”

This story appears in the Spring 2014 edition of SAM magazine. For a look at the full issue in a flipbook format, follow this link.

Community-minded nursing promotes cyclist safety

trevor.kenney — Tue, 29 Apr 2014 22:00:17 +0000

Serendipity and a spirit of volunteerism combined to create a fantastic community event promoting cyclist safety in Milk River, Alta., this spring.

The spirit of volunteerism led nursing student Kari Putzi to take charge of cycling safety initiatives in Milk River.

In March, Kari Putzi, a third-year Bachelor of Nursing student with two elementary school-aged children, just happened to be attending a meeting of the Southwest Alberta Road and Safety Society to request a crash safety demonstration for her program’s wellness week and learned that the Society’s cyclist safety event, or “bicycle rodeo,” would not be appearing in Milk River due to lack of funding. The spirit of volunteerism kicked in when Putzi decided to take charge, raising money and eventually enthusiasm for the bike rodeo.

In the end, the event was a huge success, with an obstacle course that taught kids about traffic signs, cyclist signals and road smarts. Two new bikes were raffled off, and each of the 78 elementary school students in attendance received a free new bicycle helmet fitted to them.

“My involvement definitely had something to do with the fact that I have kids in the elementary school, but also I was mystified as to why we were the only community not on board. It just seemed like such a worthwhile thing to do,” says Putzi.

Shedding new light on a dark subject

trevor.kenney — Tue, 29 Apr 2014 17:58:00 +0000

Peter Kellett wants to change the way we think about depression.

Peter Kellett believes that many men who suffer from depression are misdiagnosed and, even more concerning, may never seek care in the first place.

A registered nurse and nursing instructor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge, Kellett, who is currently pursuing his PhD, is exploring a topic that has intrigued him since his days as a master’s student: the impact perceived masculinities have on the rates of depression in men.

Kellett believes that many men who suffer from depression are misdiagnosed and, even more concerning, may never seek care in the first place. It’s more than just a hunch – there is plenty of research that supports Kellett’s theory, and he plans to supplement those findings with research of his own.

“Studies suggest that the annual prevalence of depression in men is only 3 to 4 per cent, and that women get depression at twice the rate that men do,” explains Kellett. “But there’s an enigma in the numbers, because men commit suicide at a rate that is at least double that of women. So the question is, if only a small portion of men get depressed, why do so many men kill themselves?”

Kellett’s PhD study will look into Canadian Community Health Survey data, specifically the 2012 mental health survey. His plan is to examine the intersection between masculinities and various social hierarchies such as income level, employment status and social gradients associated with visible minority status. Kellett hopes to contribute to a growing body of evidence that suggests that when men feel subordinated, their physical and mental health can become compromised.

Through his research, Kellett hopes to identify patterns of depression in different groups of men and present findings that may help to shape social policy. Perhaps most importantly, Kellett hopes his research will initiate social dialogue on an issue that is not so much swept under the carpet as completely overlooked.

UNews - nursing

New graduate student nursing award creates lasting ties

Related Topics

Helping kids recognize the dangers of tobacco

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Shedding New Light on a Dark Subject

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Community-minded nursing promotes cyclist safety

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Shedding new light on a dark subject

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