In August, she accepted an appointment with Deaconess Medical Group to serve as the family nurse practitioner at the USI Student Health Center. She is available to see patients from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Schnautz’s father experienced a heart attack in his early 40s and died at age 52 from an aneurysm. Her mother suffered a debilitating stroke in her early 40s. The youngest of Schnautz’s three daughters was diagnosed with Kawasaki Disease, an illness causing inflammation in the walls of blood vessels, at age 1. Schnautz writes about her daughter’s case in the nursing journal.
“Cardiovascular disease is much closer to me than I would like,” Schnautz said. “I try very hard to live a heart-healthy lifestyle for myself and for my family.”
A cardiovascular nurse for 22 years, Schnautz writes in the preface of the journal: “American women are four to six times more likely to die of heart disease than of breast cancer, and heart disease kills more women over 65 years of age than all cancers combined.”
Schnautz was invited to be guest editor by Jan Foster, consulting editor. The two met through colleagues when they attended the National Teaching Institute sponsored by the American Association of Critical Care Nurses (AACN) in 2007.
“During my years of practice, I have found that women and heart disease has been a topic that has been neglected by practitioners,” Schnautz said. “This journal was written to help practitioners recognize women wearing various ‘red dresses’ as they present to clinical practice.”
Go Red for Women is a movement sponsored by the American Heart Association to support research and education about women and heart disease. The 2009 National Wear Red Day will take place February 6.
As guest editor, Schnautz solicited experts to write 14 articles on topics related to women and heart disease. Two faculty members from the College of Nursing and Health Professions, two additional graduates, and a student in graduate nursing contributed articles to the issue. Authors with a USI connection include the following:
• “Kawasaki Disease: A Ride for Little Girls Too” by Schnautz and Patricia Leggett ’01. Leggett earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing at USI. She is a clinical nurse in same-day surgery at Deaconess.
• “Cardiovascular Disease Prevention in Women: The Role of the Nurse Practitioner in Primary Care” by Dr. Roberta E. Hoebeke, USI associate professor of nursing.
• “Managing Hypertension in Women” by Mary Jane Swartz, who joined the USI College of Nursing faculty in August as instructor in nursing.
• “Chemotherapy-Induced Cardiotoxicity in Women” by Kelli S. Dempsey ’98 ’00, an oncology nurse practitioner with American Cancercare in Evansville. Dempsey completed a bachelor’s degree in nursing and the acute care nurse practitioner graduate program at USI.
• Why Women Need to Sweat: The Benefits of Cardiac Rehabilitation” by Lori Barron and Schnautz. Barron, a student in the graduate nursing program, is team leader for cardiac rehabilitation at Deaconess.
Schnautz earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Maryland. She has lived in Evansville since 1991.
Critical Care Nursing Clinics of North America is a peer-reviewed journal that focuses on a single topic relevant to critical-care and intensive-care nursing practice in each issue.
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