Faculty, students celebrated at MNRS
Two faculty and three students won honors at Midwest Nursing Research Society conference Heading link
Two faculty members from the UIC College of Nursing received awards at the Midwest Nursing Research Society’s 47th annual Research Conference.
Assistant professor Hongjin Li, PhD, MS, BSN, received the New Investigator Award from the Symptom Science Research and Implementation Interest Group. Li, who completed a post-doc at UIC Nursing in 2021, studies symptom clusters in breast cancer survivors.
She received a grant through the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health to study whether acupuncture could alleviate breast cancer symptoms for patients receiving endocrine therapy at a federally qualified health center, a population that has not previously been the focus of such studies.
Clinical assistant professor Kathryn Vanderzwan, DNP ’17, MS ’06, BSN, received the Early Career Investigator Award from the Nursing Education Research and Implementation Interest Group.
Vanderzwan is interim director of the M. Christine Schwartz Simulation Lab and our Clinical Learning Resource Center. Vanderzwan, a Certified Healthcare Simulation Educator, received a 2022 Nurse Educator Fellowship grant from the Illinois Board of Education to address equity gaps in the licensure of underrepresented minorities, organizing a “Nurse for a Day” simulation-based workshop for area high school students.
In addition to honors for faculty, three students won honors for their presentations in the Student Poster Competition:
- Jaime Wyer won first place in the Master of Science-Nursing/Master-Nursing category for her poster on “Quality improvement initiative to improve fecal immunochemical test return rates.”
- Karen Madura won first place in the Doctor of Nursing Practice category for her work, “Supporting children with medical complexity.”
- Pamela Smith won second place in the Doctor of Nursing Practice category for her poster on “Standardizing care of the late preterm infant.”
A total of eight UIC Nursing students participated in the poster competition.
UIC Nursing, led by Dean Eileen Collins, co-hosted a reception at the conference, held this year in Des Moines, Iowa, to celebrate the awardees as well as other Chicago presenters and attendees. Loyola University Chicago Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing also co-hosted.