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Health System vital economic
partner in community |
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| U.Va’s
Health System provides jobs and medical services, as well as
revenue. |
Staff Report
Medicine
was part of Thomas Jefferson’s plan for his University from
the beginning. In 1826, Dr. Robley Dunglison was hired as one of
the University’s first eight faculty members. He taught anatomy
and treated local patients. But it wasn’t until 1901 that the
first U.Va. Hospital was built.
 The
facility’s 25 beds soon were overwhelmed, and four years later
a program of expansion and growth began that continues to this day.
The U.Va. Health System works to sustain Jefferson’s vision
combining education, research and service as a vital partner in
the economic health of the community.
With
a budget exceeding $665 million for the current fiscal year, a workforce
of more than 5,300 employees and more than 540 beds serving patients
around the state and beyond, U.Va.’s Health System supplies
a steady infusion of money, jobs and health-care service to Central
Virginia. Along with the Medical Center, the Health System comprises
the School of Medicine, the School of Nursing, the Claude Moore
Health Sciences Library and the Health Services Foundation. Full
story.
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Duty in Iraq gives nurse new
sense of mission |
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Courtesy
of Tara O. Spears
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| U.S.
Army nurse Tara Spears stitches a soldier’s finger in a
field hospital in Iraq, where she served a three-month tour.
Spears is now working on her master’s degree at U.Va.’s
School of Nursing. |
By Matt Kelly
A combat
field hospital is similar to a standard hospital — with
a major exception.
“In combat you see more gunshot and shrapnel wounds,”
said Army nurse Capt. Tara O. Spears, after serving three months
in Iraq and Kuwait with the 86th Combat Support Hospital.
Her
patients included a 5-month-old girl whose Arabic name translated
to Flower. She had suffered shrapnel and burn wounds to her legs,
received in an incident that killed her mother.
“We
took her in and made a makeshift crib for her out of a medical supply
chest,” said Spears, a 13-year Army veteran. “We kept
her and took care of her legs.
Finally
her aunt was found and she would stay with her and actually breast-feed
her.”
After
the wounds healed, Flower went home with her father.
“That
was a nice, happy thing,” Spears said.
Spears,
35, a nurse in a 144-bed Army field hospital, will now incorporate
her wartime medical experience into her pursuit of a master’s
degree from the U.Va. School of Nursing as an acute care clinical
nurse specialist with an emphasis in emergency nursing. She said
her experience will help her in class, and her advanced degree will
help her in future deployments. Full
story.
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