School Notes: School of Nursing
January/February 2010

Recent grants to fund new research

New grants totaling $8.8 million will fund YSN research and support nursing innovations ranging from the treatment of patients with advanced cancer, to therapies for insomnia in cardiac patients, to diabetes prevention. The 11 grants come from a variety of government and private sources, including $3 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. More details may be found at http://nursing.yale.edu/Research.

Parent training helps reduce behavior problems in children with autism

The serious behavior problems that can occur in children with autism and related conditions can be reduced with a treatment plan that includes medication combined with a structured training program for parents, according to Lawrence Scahill, professor at the School of Nursing and the Yale Child Study Center, and his colleagues at two other sites. Published in the December 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the study was conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Research Units on Pediatric Psychopharmacology (RUPP) Autism Network. The RUPP group is expecting to launch a multi-site parent training study in preschool-age children with pervasive developmental disorders. “We hope to show that these behavioral problems can be reduced in children without medication—if intervention starts early,” Scahill said. “Future studies may also look for ways in which the parent training program can be used in schools and community clinics.”

Dean reappointed to second term

Margaret Grey ’76MSN has been reappointed to a second five-year term as dean of the School of Nursing, effective July 1, 2010. Dean Grey, the Annie Goodrich Professor at YSN, has been at Yale since January of 1993, serving as dean since September 2005. During her first term as dean, the school achieved the maximum ten-year reaccreditation from the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education; established a PhD program and had its first graduates; and reached the school’s capital campaign fund-raising goal well ahead of schedule.

A pediatric nurse practitioner, Dean Grey has been principal investigator for a number of funded research studies and has had a major impact on the study of the management of chronic illnesses. She has served in leadership positions with the American Medical Association, American Diabetes Association, and National Institutes of Health.