Arizona State Nursing Professor to Speak About Evidence-Based Practice

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Alyce Schultz, clinical professor at Arizona State University’s College of Nursing and Healthcare Innovation, will share her experiences and research from four decades of nursing practice and teaching at the University of Arkansas’ 17^th annual nursing research conference April 7.

Schultz, a registered nurse who holds bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees, is also president of her own consulting company. She holds a research appointment at Phoenix Children’s Hospital and previously spent 12 years as director of the Center for Nursing Research and Quality Outcomes at Maine Medical Center, in Portland, Maine, with an adjunct appointment at the University of Southern Maine.

Schultz gives the keynote address at 8:30 a.m. Monday, April 7, at the conference to be held in the Arkansas Union’s Alltel Ballroom in Fayetteville.

In collaboration with staff nurses, faculty, physicians, social workers and dietitians, Schultz has conducted research funded by nine grants and has written more than 25 peer-reviewed articles.

She and her colleagues at Maine Medical Center were honored nationally and internationally with research writing awards from the Association of Operating Room Nurses and the Academy of Med-Surg Nursing and with research awards from the Emergency Nurses Association, Eastern Nursing Research Society, National Association of School Nursing, National Association of Neonatal Nurses and the American Nephrology Nurses Association. In 2003, she and a team of staff nurses received an Innovation in Clinical Excellence award sponsored by Sigma Theta Tau International and Nursing Spectrum. She is currently a co-investigator on a Robert Wood Johnson study with an international team of researchers studying the characteristics in a work environment that promote and sustain evidence-based practice.

Nurses can earn continuing education credit by attending the conference. It is being presented by the Eleanor Mann School of Nursing at the University of Arkansas, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Area Health Education Centers and the Pi Theta chapter of Sigma Tau International, an honor society of nursing. Cost to pre-register is $20 for students and $50 for others. The cost on the day of the conference will be $55 for all. Download the program brochure at http://coehp.uark.edu/Annual_Nursing_Excellence_2008.pdf f or more information and to register.

Also scheduled during the conference, which concludes at 3:30 p.m., Niki Northfell, a Mann School student, and Julie Thibodaux, a nurse with Community Clinic at St. Francis House in Springdale, will present “Independent Nursing Study on the Care of Breast Cancer Patients,” Bill Buron, an instructor in the Mann School, will present “Looking Beyond Essential Needs: Using the Personhood Model to Improve Dementia Care in Nursing Homes,” and Thibodaux will present “Psychotropic Medication Use in Children and Adolescents.” Mann School students will also present posters outlining their research.