Associate Vice Chancellor and Dean’s Welcome

Collaboration shapes education, guides research

Partnership launched the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis. The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, through a $100 million philanthropic investment, joined forces with UC Davis in pursuit of a shared goal—to change the way we deliver health care by innovating in nursing education and research. Since inception, leaders and faculty at the School of Nursing invited partners from UC Davis and the broader community, from within the nursing discipline and beyond, to pool talents, build with diversity and contribute to a vision greater than one profession.

As we mature as a school, a community of scholars and a body of alumni who lead across all dimensions of health care, we nurture these relationships because we believe that collaboration is essential to success, and diversity of thought yields the best solutions. Collaboration, in turn, enables us to transform in ways that deliver on our mission: to cultivate academic excellence and address urgent societal needs through leadership development, interprofessional and interdisciplinary education, transformative research, cultural inclusiveness and innovative technology.

Through collaboration, we amplify our academic strengths, welcome those who seek to be part of the solution and “co-labor” to achieve a shared outcome for the greater good. We build upon the imaginative partnerships that have demonstrated positive results to date. The challenges we face in health care are so significant, no single entity can possibly solve them alone. If we want to serve the people, families and communities who entrust their health and wellness to us, we must span old boundaries and inspire others to envision new connections.

In this issue, you will read about our Family Caregiving Institute, dedicated to the well-being of those who care for others. While caregiving dates back to the beginning of time, identifying and developing new ways to support caregivers drives us in this new collaboration between School of Nursing faculty, colleagues across UC Davis, health care professionals, community stakeholders and national advocacy groups.

Support of vulnerable populations is a focus of projects by Associate Adjunct Professor Debra Bakerjian, who leads efforts to improve care for older adults with dementia in long-term care facilities. In addition, she is developing curricula to prepare interprofessional teams to deliver effective primary care to underserved communities. Several faculty leverage networks. Associate Professor Carolina Apesoa-Varano examines how community support programs can enhance well-being for Latina caregivers. Associate Professor Tae Youn Kim and Assistant Professor Kathy Kim use large data to understand how to move the needle on better care for individuals and better outcomes for communities.

Armed with the critical-thinking skills and systems perspective gained here, our alumni continue to lead. For example, doctoral alumnus Rayne Soriano uses informatics to look at health care as a continuum rather than a snapshot of one acute-care incident within the vast network of one of the nation’s largest not-for-profit health providers. Master’s-degree leadership alumnus Sergio Camarillo spearheads regional programs aimed at palliative care for Mexican-Americans in California’s Central Valley. Sheridan Miyamoto, an alumna of the School of Nursing’s inaugural doctoral class, builds a successful research team and statewide network with the collaboration skills she learned at UC Davis to benefit child sexual abuse victims.

Challenging convention can be unsettling. I invite our faculty, students, community partners, professional collaborators, health care team members and staff to see discomfort as a signal of growth and an opportunity for improvement. I encourage them to rely upon the wisdom and energy of colleagues to move forward in fulfilling the vision first imagined 10 years ago.

With faculty concentrated on transformative research and education, students committed to their practice and research areas, and a community connected through collaboration, the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis changes lives, changes minds and changes health for the better. Because of our research, teaching and partnerships, rural and underserved communities have better care, individuals navigate their own care challenges with greater power, and health care teams amplify their individual strengths to become nimble, effective partners in the health and well-being of people, families and communities.