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The School of Nursing Newsletter - From the Office of Dean Patricia Starck
June 26, 2009
Some of you who have been here a long time may remember that we brought Dr. Viktor Frankl here in 1987. The “father of the Third School of Viennese Psychiatry” and author of “Man’s Search for Meaning” gave a 90 minute lecture entitled “The Re-Humanization of Psychotherapy”. (We have a DVD for those who didn’t get to hear the lecture; also an interview I did with him and a spinal cord injured patient). I knew and worked with Dr. Frankl over a twenty-year period, starting in 1977 and have training as a Diplomate in Logotherapy. Below is a photo of his only grandson, Alexander Vessely from Vienna and me taken at the 17th World Congress of Logotherapy last week, held in Dallas with attendees from 37 countries. Alex is a filmmaker and showed a documentary he is making called “Viktor and I”, with various people who were associated with him over the years. At the Congress, I was given the Lifetime Achievement Award. Frankl, as a young protégée of Sigmund Freud, was known for declaring that there are three dimensions to humans (not two as was the current thinking)—soma, psyche, and noos. His stance was that we have a body and a mind, but we are a spirit. Much of his therapy consisted of bringing forth “the dynamic power of the human spirit.”
While in Dallas, I had a meeting with a senior executive at the Tenet Healthcare System to discuss our proposed Accelerated PhD program and to ask for their support.
During the first of the week I was a consultant to Baylor Nursing School in Dallas, whose dean, Dr. Judy Lott is a former masters student of mine from Alabama. I got to see our good friend, Dr. Rosemary Luquire, formerly of St. Luke’s Hospital here and now the Senior Vice President of Nursing for Baylor Healthcare System.
On Thursday, June 25, we had Regent Robert Stillwell, President Larry Kaiser, and Susan Coulter visit the SON for a brief look at our School. Dr. Vaunette Fay and Dr. Elda Rameriz had arranged for an emergency room scenario in our Clinical Performance lab with Sim Man and two of our DNP students. It was very exciting and demonstrated the nurse practitioner skills in assessment and treatment plan. We also demonstrated our ability in distance education with our technology and capable staff, Linda Crays and Bryan Hillier.
I have reports that the Ice Cream Social was terrific! The Management Office in addition to managing numbers and dollars is very creative! With the heat we have been experiencing, ice cream is always appealing. The camaraderie even more so.
A lot has been going on at the school since I last sent out one of these issues; too much for me to report on, but I wanted to get this news out today. Have a great week end.
Dean Starck
