By Jamie Nicpon | Office of Communications & Marketing | 6-13-2019

Shalome Tonelli, PhD, RN, instructional track lecturer at University of Iowa College of Nursing, has been accepted to the distinguished Edmond J. Safra Visiting Nurse Faculty Program at the Parkinson’s Foundation. 

The highly prestigious, 40-hour accredited “train the trainer” program improves Parkinson’s Disease (PD) nursing care by training faculty leaders across the United States to educate nursing students. The rigorous course includes didactics, clinical time with patients, participation in a PD support group, and the opportunity to develop an independent project.

“I am very excited to be accepted into this prestigious program at the Parkinson’s Foundation. I will be learning from experts in the field of interdisciplinary Parkinson’s disease management, and then I plan to implement a project within our BSN program to help improve the care of people with PD,” said Dr. Tonelli. “I think this content is really important for our nursing students to learn and is important to me personally as my younger brother has a diagnosis of early-onset Parkinson’s disease.”

Dr. Tonelli was one of just 24 accepted faculty into the program in 2019. She will join an elite group of more than 300 alumni and Parkinson’s Foundation Nurse Scholars who have completed this intensive training over the last 10 years.

Parkinson’s Foundation Nurse Scholars educate more than 20,000 nursing students on PD annually. With the number of people living with Parkinson’s globally expected to double by 2040 to nearly 13 million, teaching nursing students in the classroom is one of the best ways to prepare them for treating people with Parkinson’s as they transition from student to caregiver.

# # #