Summer 2000

Determined Nurse Bell Keeps Clinic Open, Studies Business Side with Stanley Scholarship

Trinette Bell was recruited to Covington County from Indiana six years ago to run a rural health care center affiliated with a local hospital. After several years, her position was downsized. By that time, she had seen firsthand the needs of poor people in one of Alabama's poorer counties. So with a loyal client base, she decided to continue the clinic on her own. The facility served mostly "working poor" families, said Bell, those who don't earn enough to buy their own health insurance, but earn too much to qualify for federal programs. "The population here is older, with many retired people who have multiple disease processes going on," she added. Bell holds the bachelor of science in nursing degree with nurse practitioner certification from Purdue University­Calumet. She's been a nurse for almost 25 years. But facing the prospect of running the clinic herself, she decided to seek additional training. She discovered a program seemingly made to order: Samford's joint master of business administration/master of science in nursing degree. She enrolled in January of 1999. Since then, she has made the three-hour drive from her Andalusia home to Samford on a regular basis. She has completed M.S.N. coursework in Samford's Ida V. Moffett School of Nursing and anticipates finishing M.B.A. work in the School of Business in December.

Nurse Trinette Bell commutes three hours from Andalusia each week to complete joint business/nursing graduate program.

After that, she will complete nurse executive coursework and a 240-hour practicum with a health care executive, at which point she will be among the first recipients of the joint degree at Samford.

"I've been in medicine all these years, and it's interesting to be in business classes with people from all professional backgrounds and walks of life," she said.

Bell is completing her M.B.A. with the help of the Russell H. Stanley Scholarship in Entrepreneurship. The scholarship, which provides Bell $3,000 this year, was established in 1998 to assist an M.B.A. student demonstrating true entrepreneurial spirit, initiative and determination.

"When Janet Stanley endowed this scholarship in memory of her late husband, Russ, a Samford M.B.A. graduate, she wanted it to further the education of a deserving student entrepreneur such as Trinette Bell," said School of Business Dean Carl A. Bellas.

Bell opened her clinic, Liberty Health Care Centre in Florala, in September of 1999. She is the primary health care provider, and her staff now includes a full-time nurse and part-time receptionist.

"The clinic is growing and going well," she said in July.

Bell promotes preventive health care.

"Many people wait until their health situation is too bad," she said. "They may have problems and ignore them, which leads to other problems. We would like to try to prevent that."

She took the name for her health care facility from a Bible verse that refers to giving liberty to those who are held captive (Isaiah 61:1).

"People are often held captive by the disease process," she said. "They are stuck and can't do anything else."

She hopes to offer them an alternative.