{"id":73990,"date":"2013-03-12T08:42:43","date_gmt":"2013-03-12T12:42:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=73990"},"modified":"2013-03-15T09:21:19","modified_gmt":"2013-03-15T13:21:19","slug":"real-world-preparation-characterizes-student-nurses-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2013\/03\/real-world-preparation-characterizes-student-nurses-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Real World Preparation Characterizes Student Nurse’s Education"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mallory<\/a>
Mallory Perry ’14 (NUR) hopes to make a career in pediatric intensive care. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A number of Division III schools vied for Middletown\u2019s Mercy High School athlete of the year to enroll, but Mallory Perry \u201914 (NUR) chose UConn because her future career was her top priority.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was all about the academics when I chose UConn,\u201d Perry says. \u201cThere were so many different schools I could\u2019ve gone to, but I knew I wouldn\u2019t get into the WNBA.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perry decided to forgo a college basketball career at another school and instead selected UConn because it would give her an outstanding education in nursing, a career goal she\u2019d discovered as a result of volunteer experiences while in high school.<\/p>\n

As part of her nursing education Perry is doing several clinical rotations. She\u2019s currently at the Hospital for Special Care, a rehabilitation facility in New Britain, where she is working with two-month-old babies with congenital anomalies. \u201cNow I know I want to work with even younger really sick infants,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Beginning in May and continuing through August, Perry will embark on a paid internship that also earns three credits at the UConn Health Center\u2019s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).<\/p>\n

While many might find that work environment stressful beyond endurance, Perry says, \u201cThis will be my first time doing exactly what I think I want to do in my career. I like the babies\u2019 vulnerability, and then seeing their progression. These babies are called \u2018Grads of NIC U.\u2019 Helping babies to make that progress outweighs any negatives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perry was among the 90 students accepted out of 2,000 that applied to UConn\u2019s School of Nursing in 2010. While initially leery that UConn would be too large for her, she says she \u201cloves it now,\u201d explaining that living in the Nursing Learning Community made the University\u2019s size manageable.<\/p>\n

There are 26 learning communities on campus, in which students live and study with others who share their major, career interest, or passion for issues such as the environment. While there are more than 17,000 undergraduates on the Storrs campus, the typical learning community is home to between 20 and 120 students. The Nursing Learning Community is one of the largest.<\/p>\n

Research and community health work<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Perry was offered admission to the University, she was also invited to join the John and Valerie Rowe Health Professions Scholars Program, open to Connecticut residents whose backgrounds are underrepresented in the health fields. The scholarship includes an invitation to join the approximately 9 percent of student-scholars enrolled in UConn\u2019s prestigious Honors Program.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Honors Program is great because I\u2019ve gotten to conduct research as an undergrad,\u201d Perry says. \u201cMy advisor, [assistant professor of nursing] Michelle Judge, says I\u2019ll have at least one published paper before I graduate.\u201d Perry is using a $4,000 research grant from the Rowe Program to investigate the potential of fish oil to alleviate the duration and severity of PMS symptoms.<\/p>\n

The research expands upon a study another UConn student began, that had focused on Caucasian women, looking at whether race influences PMS and at the curative power of fish oil. Although Perry\u2019s research is demanding, not least because of the time it took to recruit women of color for her study, she earned UConn\u2019s New England Scholar designation. This recognizes students who achieve at least a 3.7 GPA for two sequential semesters.<\/p>\n

Besides conducting research independently, Perry is an Urban Health Scholar. Students in the Urban Service Track are competitively selected from among undergraduate and graduate students in the Schools of Nursing, Pharmacy, Social Work, Medicine, and Dental Medicine. Typically there is a wait list to join the program, as more students apply to the program than can be accommodated. About 10 students per school are chosen to learn and work as an interdisciplinary team, receiving clinical training to help Connecticut\u2019s urban underserved communities through service activities and learning retreats.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m always the youngest on my team,\u201d Perry observes.<\/p>\n

Although she has already completed the Urban Health Track\u2019s minimum requirements, she says she still volunteers because she loves it. Community health fairs on various different themes \u2013 ranging from kidney health, to senior citizens, to encouraging middle school students to pursue careers in the health care field \u2013 particularly captured Perry\u2019s interest.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I found most interesting was when people with HIV attended an Urban Health Track learning retreat,\u201d Perry says. \u201cThey told us how they want to be treated by their health care providers. That helps me in my practice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Through clinical rotations, research, volunteer work, and a residential learning community, Mallory Perry is preparing for a career in pediatric nursing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":73994,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[117],"class_list":["post-73990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uconn-health","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 16:20:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73990"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74241,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73990\/revisions\/74241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/73994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73990"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=73990"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=73990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}