Ryan Jay Rasmussen PhD, MS, AND

Ryan J Rasmussen obtained his Ph.D. degree at the University of Arizona (UA), assistant teaching professor Ryan Rasmussen (MS ’11) is studying communication in emer­gency trauma rooms. His study, which is currently obtaining institutional review board approval from three committees (UA, BYU, and a local Utah hospital), seeks to understand how members of trauma teams communicate while car­ing for trauma patients.

Rasmussen's initial literature review found that 150,000 deaths and 3,000,000 non­fatal injuries in the United States occur annually as a result of trauma, which is the leading cause of death for individu­als under 46 years of age and the num­ber-four cause of death among all age groups. The database search discovered 44 papers, with nine meeting the inclu­sion criteria. From those papers, the fol­lowing themes associated with commu­nication emerged: leadership styles, crew resource management (CRM), simula­tion, and debriefings. Rasmussen’s leadership and contri­bution to the nursing industry extend beyond his dissertation research.

For a different project, Rasmussen worked with two peers—assistant teach­ing professors Craig Nuttall (MS ’11) and Scott Summers (MS ’11)—to collaborate with Janie Jensen (BS ’17) and sixth-semester student Ashley Dyer to create a mobile phone app that helps people determine if someone has sustained a concussion. Developing an app that reaches its target audience is a hard task, but with the help of these individuals, the team made it happen.

Rasmussen is the college’s new international studies coordinator of the Clinical Practicum Public and Global Health Nursing course, replacing teach­ing professor Dr. Sheri P. Palmer (AS ’81, BS ’84). He recently returned from his fifth global health session in Taiwan, where he assisted a group of BYU nurs­ing students in learning how other parts of the world administer health care.