Nursing student’s thesis becomes federal initiative

It’s not every day that an undergraduate honors project winds up as part of a federal policy initiative.

But that’s exactly what happened to School of Nursing senior Robert S. Trim, who recently won the 19th Annual Secretary’s Award for Innovations in Health Promotion and Disease Prevention presented by the federal Department of Health and Human Services.

Trim, who won in the “single discipline” category, will be honored at a ceremony in Washington, DC in June and will receive a $3,500 stipend for his honors project aimed at greater public awareness of organ donation. Of even greater impact, his recommendations — signed into state law in Wisconsin last May — were included in new Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson’s national organ donation initiative announced in April 2001.

The journey from honors project to federal policy began when Trim noticed an article in the Madison newspaper The Capital Times about an area teenager who had signed her driver’s license for organ and tissue donation on her 16th birthday, Dec. 4, 1999. Less than a month later, Kelly Nachreiner was fatally injured in a car accident. Nachreiner had told her family she wanted to be an organ donor, and her family consented to donation–saving the lives of three people awaiting transplant at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics.

Reading Kelly’s story when he returned from a vacation, Trim understood immediately that the decision had been made in the best possible way. Kelly knew her wishes, signed her license, and discussed her decision with her mother. When Kelly died, her family was spared the difficulty of making the decision at a time of overwhelming grief. They also found comfort in knowing that they were doing what she wanted.

Kelly’s story inspired Trim to focus his honors thesis on a project that would promote Kelly’s example as a model of how organ donation should be undertaken. After contacting the Nachreiner family to seek their approval for his plans, Trim moved forward quickly: working with officials in Kelly’s hometown and with the student government at her high school to issue a proclamation in her honor on organ donation; contacting a state Assembly member to sponsor a bill requiring that driver ed courses taught in Wisconsin included a minimum 30 minutes of instruction about organ and tissue donation; arranging media coverage for the effort; systematically contacting legislators and educators for their support — and documenting it all for his academic work.

Trim began his efforts in January 2000. On March 29 of that year, following unanimous approval in the Assembly, the Wisconsin State Senate voted unanimously to pass “the Kelly Nachreiner bill” and send it to then-Gov. Thompson for his signature. On May 9, Thompson signed the bill into law.

Trim believes Wisconsin is the only state to mandate education about organ and tissue donation in drivers’ ed courses. And soon, what started as his senior honors project may well be implemented on the national level. Weeks after former Gov. Thompson joined the Bush Cabinet as head of HHS, he announced a comprehensive initiative to promote organ donation — and among the suggestions was “a model curriculum for drivers’ education classes to be offered to state and local education systems.”

Thompson, a well-known advocate of organ donation, credited the approach to the Wisconsin law — launched and aggressively promoted by Trim.

Trim’s work did not end with the passage of the bill, or with the completion of his paper. Trim applied for and received an undergraduate fellowship grant to test organ-donation educational materials in local drivers’ ed classes and to revise them according to the findings.

Associate nursing professor Mary Keller, Trim’s advisor, notes that Trim pursued the project with “amazing” energy and commitment.

“Robert is a returning adult student and the first person in his family to go to college,” she points out. “He is independent and community-minded — and wants his life to be about making a difference.”