Briefly

Gabel takes office as president

Joan T.A. Gabel, JD, took office as the 17th president of the University of Minnesota. Gabel most recently served as executive vice president and the provost at the University of South Carolina. Previously, Gabel held faculty appointments at Georgia State University and served as the DeSantis Professor and chair of the Department of Risk Management/Insurance, Real Estate and Legal Studies at Florida State University. She also served as dean of the University of Missouri’s Robert J. Trulaske, Sr. College of Business. Her inauguration was held at Northrop Auditorium on Sept. 20.

School names first director of planetary health

The School of Nursing named Clinical Professor Teddie Potter, PhD, RN, FAAN, as its first director of planetary health. The appointment shows the school’s growing commitment to planetary health and addressing the relationship between human health, the environment and the health of the planet.

Potter has been leading an interprofessional effort across the University to develop and incorporate content on the health implication of climate change into curriculum.

Research assists in new assisted living facility licensing

The state of Minnesota will begin licensing assisted living facilities, the last state in the country to do so, thanks in part to research conducted by Research Associate Eilon Caspi, PhD. Caspi’s research on deaths and hospitalizations at senior living facilities was included in an Elder Voice Family Advocates report, Inhumane and Deadly Neglect Revealed in State Assisted Living Facilities, that was presented to legislators. Licensure for assisted living facilities in Minnesota will be required as of August 2021.

Collaboratory shows support for planetary health

The Nursing Collaboratory, the award-winning academic-practice partnership between the University of Minnesota School of Nursing, Fairview Health Services and University of Minnesota Health, was among the co-signers of a call-to-action for clinicians to mobilize around planetary health published in the medical journal The Lancet.

A Call for Clinicians to Act on Planetary Health was co-signed by 28 medical associations and health care organizations around the world and aims to increase awareness of the severe public health impacts of global environmental change and to mobilize clinical communities to become engaged by joining the Clinicians for Planetary Health initiative.

Organized by the Planetary Health Alliance and a broad consortium of partner organizations, the Clinicians for Planetary Health initiative aids doctors, nurses and other clinicians worldwide in understanding how global environmental change impacts their patients and promoting bottom-up environmental action through patient education, outreach and activist efforts.