Featured News
Every day College of Health Professions students, alumni, faculty and staff do extraordinary things. Read more about our latest achievements below.
Longtime Richmond VAMC leader brings curiosity-forward ethic to MHA & MSHA programs
Julie Beales, MD, Ph.D., MSHA joined VCU Health Administration over the summer as an assistant professor and the department’s director of professional development, bringing with her two decades of leadership and clinical experience at the Richmond Veterans Administration Medical Center (VAMC).
Nurse anesthesia student’s passion and research works to advance culturally informed care
As a newly minted registered nurse in 2019, Casey Zhao was passionately working at NYU Langone Health in New York City. Then the COVID-19 pandemic burst into the world, and Zhao found herself caring for desperately ill patients.
The state of chaplaincy is strong at VCU
Few images conjure more solemnity than a room full of chaplains at an academic conference. But the 2025 Association of Professional Chaplains Annual Conference could have been mistaken for a basketball game at the Siegel Center every time VCU was mentioned.
The newest Pediatric Chaplains Network President serves patients and students with heart at VCU
When Calvin Bradley Jr. walks into a hospital room, he’s not thinking about medical charts or machinery. He’s thinking about the child in front of him — and what that child needs most in that moment. Sometimes, it’s reassurance. Sometimes, it’s a prayer. And sometimes, it’s as simple as a sweet treat.
‘Called to stand in the breach’: a VCU chaplain’s journey
When Addison Schmitt Morgan entered the Post-baccalaureate Graduate Certificate in Patient Counseling program at VCU in the summer of 2023, she wasn’t entirely sure what lay ahead. During the certificate program – offered by the VCU College of Health Professions Department of Patient Counseling – Schmitt Morgan experienced firsthand what it meant to provide spiritual care in moments of acute crisis.
Jan Y. Pasnak Nurse Anesthesia Scholarship honors courageous spirit of dedicated caregiver and friend
The Jan Y. Pasnak Nurse Anesthesia Scholarship supports students in the College of Health Professions’ Department of Nurse Anesthesia. Beginning this academic year, it will be awarded annually to a second- or third-year student who embodies Pasnak’s “courageous spirit, positivity, zest for life, and commitment to health and fitness in pursuit of becoming a compassionate CRNA.”
How VCU helped shape Bishop Teresa Snorton’s path of ministry and healing
Bishop Teresa E. Snorton has carried her experience at VCU with her across decades, pulpits and continents. Long after she finished her postgraduate certificate in Patient Counseling – now part of the College of Health Professions – she still finds herself looking back to her time in Richmond and VCU.
Lights, cameras, simulation with VCU Department of Nurse Anesthesia’s Nick Darragh
With dry ice, actors and earpieces, Nick Darragh makes movie magic in VCU’s Center for Research in Human Simulation, a state-of-the-art facility at the College of Health Professions.
For VCU’s David Allen, teaching is its own reward
Since 2020, Allen has served as a proud College of Health Professions adjunct faculty member. He graduated in 2019 from the Ph.D. Program in Health Related Sciences, where he teaches Finance and Economic Theory for Health Care, and leads a dissertation seminar.
VCU’s Annie Rhodes champions dementia care improvements in Virginia
For Annie Rhodes, Ph.D., what started as a side project during her doctoral studies at VCU has blossomed into a statewide tool that’s reshaping how Virginia tracks and supports individuals diagnosed with dementia and their caregivers.
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