Inside Duke Medicine

McConnell receives Fulbright Specialists grant

Eleanor (Ellie) McConnell, an associate professor at the Duke University School of Nursing, has been awarded a Fulbright Specialists grant which will allow her to help develop nursing programs in geriatrics at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica.

McConnell, director of the gerontological nursing specialty at Duke, is the first Duke University School of Nursing faculty member to receive this honor.

As a recipient of the Fulbright Specialists grant, McConnell will “work with School of Nursing faculty at UWI to refine and implement a new curriculum for advance practice geriatric nurses so that older adults in the region can have access to specialty expertise,” McConnell says. “We will also expand a network of nurse scholars whose research and teaching innovation focuses on improving care outcomes for older adults.”

The purpose of the Fulbright Specialists grant is to give U.S. academics like McConnell the opportunity to work with their counterparts in other countries. It’s awarded to those who wish to pursue collaborative teaching-minded projects at academic institutions worldwide. The award is a component of the Fulbright Specialists Program, an international academic exchange program.

McConnell has spent the past several years helping to develop the Caribbean region’s ability to deliver health care in response to the rapidly growing elderly population there. Since 2006, she’s been working in partnership with the Pan American Health Organization Office of Caribbean Program Coordination, the Regional Nursing Body of CARICOM and the UWI School of Nursing, Mona. McDonnell hopes the information she learns will help to bring better care to the region, and also enhance her work in gerontology at Duke as well.

“This grant gives us the opportunity to share expertise developed in interprofessional geriatrics and geriatric nursing, and to learn more about how other countries are engaging their communities in managing challenges associated with care of older adults,” says McConnell. “Opportunities also exist to expand the global reach of Duke through the development of research collaborations with investigators in non-communicable chronic diseases that affect the aging process.”