Profleads Nursing research

Ever since she was five years old, Barbara Medoff-Cooper knew she wanted to be a nurse. But during her first five years as a nurse practitioner, she realized that she still had questions about her profession. She wanted to know, for instance, why she was dealing with "crabby" premature babies that no one could understand. So Medoff-Cooper went back to school to find out the answers herself. A doctoral degree and 11 years later, Medoff-Cooper, a Nursing professor, will serve as director for the Center for Nursing Research beginning January 1. Medoff-Cooper explained that the the center, although not a research institution itself, supports the studies of the entire Nursing School. "It's a way that the school can track research, facilitate research and support research," she said. As director, Medoff-Cooper will be the one to implement the shared vision of the Nursing School's research program. "The director has to set the tone for the level of support the center can provide for faculty," she said. Under Medoff-Cooper, the center will work to connect junior faculty with mentors and provide support for students. Second-year Nursing doctoral student Jacqueline McGrath, Medoff-Cooper's current research project manager, said the professor has developed an excellent working environment for her team. "She's insightful, she's a fabulous researcher [and] she really understands the research she is doing," McGrath said. Medoff-Cooper wants to extend the program to other colleges within the United States, as well as international institutions. She cited the nursing schools of Jerusalem's Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University -- where she served as a visiting professor last summer -- as possibilities for expansion of the program. Medoff-Cooper, who will continue to devote about 50 percent of her time to research, hopes to use her own research experience to help the center. "I know what a research center can do to provide support," she said. Susan Gennaro, director of Nursing's perinatal program, has worked with Medoff-Cooper many times during their mutual tenure at the University. She said her colleague is "well able to combine practice and educational expertise." Medoff-Cooper explained that her current research, which focuses on using the feeding patterns of pre-term infants to understand the organization of their brains, has evolved throughout her 11 years of investigation. "The more you study, the more you don't have a pat answer," she added. And although she is still working to find better answers, her research has already provided her with new ways to help care for premature babies. "That's the real beauty of nursing research? it's taking the science and then making it work for families," said Medoff-Cooper, who will continue to work as a nurse practitioner once a week. She gave an example of a mother who was convinced that she was a "bad mother" because her premature baby cried so much. Medoff-Cooper was able to use her own research to give the mother information about her baby and reassure her that she wasn't doing a bad job. "This is what I knew about premies, but no one ever bothered to tell her," Medoff-Cooper said. "So I don't know if that's really my role as a researcher or as an advanced practitioner nurse -- or maybe a combination of the two," she added. Next semester, Medoff-Cooper also plans to teach a new doctoral course combining her individual areas of expertise with several colleagues. Together, they developed the course in response to student requests, she said.

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