Four faculty members from Stephen F. Austin State University’s Richard and Lucille DeWitt School of Nursing presented a free four-hour continuing education event to nurses, social workers and physicians across the state May 8 in Nacogdoches. SFA clinical instructors included, from left, Laura Logan, Regina Low, Veronica Sjolander and Carol Athey.
The event offered free continuing education to nurses, social workers and physicians across the state. SFA’s nursing faculty members presented on various topics, including utilizing art as Alzheimer’s therapy, concepts of the aging brain, health wellness and safety in the older adult, and cardiovascular health in the elderly.
Facilitated by SFA’s Texas AHEC East-Piney Woods Region, the presentation was delivered to an in-house audience of more than 45 health professionals from the area; broadcast to four other AHEC partnering sites in Waco, Lamar, Weatherford and Victoria; and made available online via webinar.
Texas AHEC East-Piney Woods Region has been a consortium partner with the East Texas Geriatric Education Center-Consortium for the past 10 years. The consortium provides geriatric-oriented medical education and clinical training for health professionals and students in health professions within a 72-county area of East Texas.
Through the years, consortium partners have delivered continuing education through teleconference presentations, workshops and conferences. The consortium also has worked with academic institutions and their health professions programs to distribute valuable geriatric education materials to be utilized in their various curriculums.
Although the current ETGEC-C grant program ends June 2015, a newly developed program will be created contingent upon an award through the United States Department of Health Resources and Services Administration. The new program, if funded, will combine a new partnership between two premier medical schools in Texas – the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, along with regional centers of Texas AHEC East.
For more information, contact Mark Scott, director of Texas AHEC East-Piney Woods Region, at (936) 468-6916 or visit txaheceast.org/piney-woods/.
