School Notes: School of Nursing
November/December 2016

Engaging future nurses

A summer program at YSN offered 100 high school students a taste of a nursing education, including hands-on experiences and career and curriculum information. The three-day intensives were the first-ever nursing programs of the National Student Leadership Conference, a nonprofit organization that helps high school students experience a college campus, develop skills, and explore future career possibilities.

Participants were taught how to take vital signs and complete a physical assessment, and learned therapeutic communication techniques, EKG interpretation, airway intubation, medication administration, IV insertion, PPE/safety, and more. Students were also exposed to various programs developed by YSN faculty, including Looking is Not Seeing, an educational experience at the Center for British Art taught to YSN students as a method of enhancing observational skills. 

Towards better sleep for children

Two YSN professors are collaborating on a study of sleep habits among young children that they hope will develop a “culturally relevant, feasible, and effective intervention to improve sleep in children between 6 and 36 months of age.” Young children from socially and economically stressed urban environments are at a high risk of developing unhealthy sleep habits and their corresponding negative consequences. Sleep difficulty can lead to behavior and mental health issues, problems in school performance, injury, obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, among others.

Three primary goals of the study are to examine parents’ knowledge and perceptions about their child’s sleep and objective characteristics of sleep; examine pediatric primary care providers’ perceptions about the importance of healthy sleep habits in children; and collaborate with families and providers to use the information obtained from the study to develop an achievable sleep promotion program. The study, led by Nancy S. Redeker, Beatrice Renfield Term Professor of Nursing, and Lois S. Sadler of YSN and the Yale Child Study Center, is funded by a two-year, $474,754 grant from the National Institutes of Health.