Highlanders in the News: Week of April 25
Every week, our Highlanders are using their education to do extraordinary things. Here, we’ll highlight some notable mentions from local, regional, national and international news media. Whether our students, alumni, faculty and staff are featured as subject matter experts in high-profile stories or simply helping make the world a better place, we’ll feature their stories.
Virtual reality
Students in several programs at Radford University and Radford University Carilion got recently some first-person medical experience in real time.
It arrived April 22, via the Carilion Clinic Center for Simulation, Research and Patient Safety in Roanoke, Virginia, where groups of nursing, physician assistant and medical students practiced treating victims of virtual emergencies.
The patients were actually actors trained to run through various scenarios. Each group saw an actor who was portraying the victim of a motorcycle crash. Each actor gave the group responses that would help the trainees figure out what to do, but the patient would occasionally offer information that complicated the situation, just like in real life.
In this case, the students discovered their patient was a former opioid user who didn't want to receive painkillers, which raised issues for them about the best methods for treating the victim and prescribing medication.
Carilion’s simulation center is a 13,000-square-foot facility, with examination rooms, a pediatric lab, an intensive care unit and a debriefing area, and instructors were also on hand to help guide the activities.
About 120 students took part, including groups from Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, and the exercise was covered by The Roanoke Times, WSLS-TV and WFIR News radio.
The Danville Register and Bee posted a minute-long clip of the students being briefed on the patient’s condition.
Tori Jennings, a physician assistant student at Radford University Carilion, told the newspaper the training taught her the vital importance of communication.
“We’ve talked about it before and had class with these other students, but putting it into practice was tougher than anticipated,” Jennings said.
“It’s a team effort, so this really helps you not think of only yourself and what you need to do, but what everyone needs to do for the patient,” RUC physician assistant student Mackenzie Cowne told WSLS.
Tweet talk
Since her visit to campus on March 3, jazz musician Judy Carmichael has performed at stops in St.
Petersburg, Florida, Washington, D.C., and Dixon, Illinois.
But the renowned pianist, vocalist and radio host recently harkened back to Radford University, via Twitter, posting a picture of herself and a pair of Highlanders with whom she spent some time – Jessy Gahafer and Cienna Lindsay.
“Look at their focus,” Carmichael wrote of the duo on April 17. “I go to Radford every few years for a concert and a residency, and I’m always impressed.
“Positive, inspiring and strong,” she tweeted, and tagged @CITLRadfordU, the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning at Radford University.
Asked about the photo this week, Gahafer, a senior music business major from Lovettsville, Virginia, said she and Carmichael were discussing the recording industry at the time it was taken.
“I am a singer-songwriter myself and am currently working on an album,” Gahafer explained. “[I] was wondering how she writes and gains inspiration. She mentioned how she takes bit and pieces of her own life and writes music like a novel or short story. Something that everyone can relate to and is tangible.”
Lindsey, who is also a senior studying music business, said she asked Carmichael about the production process. The artist gave her a copy of her 2016 CD, “Can You Love Once More?” the first album Carmichael sang on.
“She told me that if I was stuck on an idea for a song to listen to that,” Lindsey recalled. “I do hope her next album is just as spectacular.”