EMBARKING ON A NEW ERA - UCLA School of Nursing

Peter Anderson, B.S.’99, M.S.N.’01Anderson is board-certified as a family nurse practitioner,holds an Advanced AIDS Certification fromthe Association of Nurses in AIDS Care and is an HIVspecialist certified by the American Academy of HIVMedicine. He works as a nurse practitioner in privatepractice with several physician colleagues in WestHollywood providing primary care and HIV/AIDSspecialty care to approximately 750 patients. Andersonalso conducts clinical research in HIV therapeutics as asub-investigator, and currently has approximately 80patients enrolled in Phase II, III and IV clinical researchtrials. Anderson is an assistant manager of 4SE, a 31-bed inpatient nursing unit at Cedars-Sinai MedicalCenter that provides acute inpatient care for a diversemix of oncology, palliative, and HIV/AIDS patients. In2005 he completed an American Association for theStudy of Liver Disease nurse practitioner hepatologyfellowship at USC’s Hepatitis Research Center andsubsequently managed patients with chronic hepatitisat L.A. County-USC Medical Center. He is the currentpresident of the UCLA School of Nursing AlumniAssociation.Isabell B. Purdy, M.S.N.’99, Ph.D.’04Purdy has been a neonatal nurse for more than 32 years.The first 20 were devoted to clinical nursing care ofthe most fragile infants in the neonatal intensive careunit (NICU); over the last decade-plus, she has expandedher clinical focus to providing follow-up carefor high-risk infants among this vulnerable population.She joined the Division of Neonatology and DevelopmentalBiology at UCLA in 2004, and became clinicaldirector of the NICU Research Data Center and NICUHigh Risk Infant Follow-up Clinic. In pursuing herdoctorate as a fellow in the UCLA School of Nursing’sCenter for Vulnerable Populations Research, she studiedrelationships between biophysiologic stress, higher cumulativeperinatal glucocorticoid exposure and neurobehavioraloutcomes of preterm infants. As a psychoneuroimmunologypostdoctoral fellow, she discoveredthat maternal/infant immune factors were also influential.Drawing on her training as well as herundergraduate studies in music, she is conducting arandomized controlled trial with an NICU classicalmusic intervention to examine influences on preterminfant stress reactivity, immunity, and development.2005The Center for American Indian/IndigenousResearch and Education (CAIIRE) isestablished at the school with the recruitmentof Dr. Felicia Schanche Hodge, CAIIRE’sfounder and director.■ Dr. Joyce Newman Giger, a nationallyrecognized leader in transcultural care andcultural competence, is recruited andappointed as holder of the Lulu WolfHassenplug Endowed Chair.■ The UC Board of Regents votes toallocate $5.2 million to reinstate the school’sbaccalaureate program for undergraduatesand to establish a new Masters Entry ClinicalNurse (MECN) program to prepare non-nurseswho have completed undergraduate studiesin other fields for clinical roles in hospitalsand other healthcare settings.2006Dr. Linda R. Phillips, arenowned expert in gerontologicalnursing, is recruitedto be the Audrienne H.Moseley Chair in Nursing.Barely a decade after itsfirst endowed faculty chairwas established, the schoolnow has five — invaluableresources for recruiting,retaining, and supportingtop professors.