“While I was in college in my senior year of nursing school, I was involved in a very emotionally and physically violent relationship. I don’t mean a threat or a slap. I mean having my head repeatedly bashed into a sliding glass door until it broke, and then being pushed out of a car going 60 miles per hour into the middle of a busy highway in Florida. Wow, that sounds awful. Just writing it is hard. But it was an important, transformative event in my life.”

The American Academy of Nursing recently announced that six individuals – including Penn Nursing Postdoctoral Fellow Darina Petrovsky, PhD, RN – were selected to participate in the newly re-envisioned Academy Jonas Policy Scholars Program.  Petrovsky is a Fellow in the NewCourtland Center for Transitions and Health .

The benefits of breastfeeding for both mother and child are well-recognized, including for late preterm infants (LPI). But because LPI do not have fully developed brains, they may experience difficulties latching and/or sustaining a latch on the breast to have milk transfer occur. This means that these infants are at high risk for formula supplementation and/or discontinuation of breastfeeding. Without human milk, these infants lose a critical component for protection and optimal development of their brains.

The Elizabeth Wright Fund—which gave Penn Nursing its first student exchange program—has its roots in a time when post-operative hospital stays were longer, and when private duty nurses attended patients in the hospital as well as at home after discharge.

Penn Nursing ’s Robin Stevens, PhD, MPH , Assistant Professor in the Department of Family and Community Health , is set to receive the Early Career Award from the Public Health Education and Health Promotion Section of the American Public Health Association (APHA).

“Sometimes the greatest compliment that you can get when you are a student is from your teacher, but in this case it was someone I had never met before. A rapid response was happening on my unit and I went in to observe.”

The award is given biennially to a Penn Nursing faculty member or a graduate from the School’s doctoral program who has made a distinguished contribution to nursing through scholarly practice.  It honors Norma M. Lang, PhD, the professor and dean emerita of Penn Nursing for her world-renowned contributions to health policy and practice.