CUTV News Radio spotlights Dr. Jeanne Salyer

Midlothian, VA – One of the most important things that a nurse needs is an intellectual curiosity. With technological and pharmaceutical advances, things are always going to change. Dr. Jeanne Salyer has seen this evolution firsthand as a clinical nurse and now with her research.

After a long career in a clinical setting, Dr. Salyer still had questions she wanted to answer. After earning her PhD, she’s spent the past 20 years working with the heart failure/cardiac transplant patient population—most recently, studying psycho-social risk in patients that have been referred for left ventricular assist device implantation.

“When I was a clinician, I always wondered about what things that I could do to improve a person's health status and their quality of life,” says Dr. Salyer. “With this particular group of people, once they're transplanted, some of them experience some fairly significant co-morbidities.

And Dr. Salyer’s research has answered some really interesting questions.

“We know that helping people become confident that they can manage their health is extremely important. Once they become confident, it’s easier to teach them what they need to do to be healthier,” says Dr. Salyer. “Most people want to know what predicts readmission. We want to know what will help them stay out of hospital, which is looking at the problem a different way.”

For more information on Dr. Jeanne Salyer, visit www.jeannesalyerphdrn.com