Vital Signs

Now that Congress has finally appropriated funding to implement the landmark Nurse Reinvestment Act of 2002--signed into law last August in response to the national nursing shortage but not funded until February 2003--an exciting array of new programs are in the works to encourage the next generation of nurses to begin or continue their professional education.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act (Prohibition Against National Origin Discrimination--Persons with Limited-English Proficiency) requires any health care facility that receives federal funding to provide bilingual or interpreter services to patients who don’t speak English.

Under the leadership of the National Association of School Nurses (NASN) and Schering/KEY, NASN’s primary corporate partner, the efforts of school nurses to teach students and parents about asthma and allergies are being recognized and rewarded.

During its Annual Awards Banquet held last September in Harrisburg, the Pennsylvania State Nurses Association (PSNA) recognized the exceptional accomplishments of nurses working in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

The University of Florida (UF) College of Nursing in Gainesville found itself $1,531,000 richer this year after receiving three separate grants to pursue research in cancer, asthma, infant mortality and other health problems that disproportionately affect minorities.

The ANA proudly presented trailblazing educator, researcher, author and advocate Hattie M. Bessent, EdD, MSN, RN, FAAN with its Hall of Fame Award at the association’s 2008 Biennial House of Delegates meeting, held this past summer in Washington, D.C.

According to the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a national advocacy group for gay civil rights, hospitals don't always recognize same-sex partners as family because of homophobia, inadequate staff training or other policy flaws.

Several recent articles in Minority Nurse have examined how the emerging field of health care genetics and genomics has begun to revolutionize the way researchers and clinicians are working to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health outcomes.

A new study revels that African-American men have more than 20 times the level of a protein (TIMP-1) that enables the spread of prostate cancer tumors than Caucasian men.