Appointment of new clinic nurse brings expanded hours for campus facility 
The Indiana University Northwest College of Health and Human Services has announced the appointment of Munster native Gail Zacok as the new nurse practitioner on call in the IU Northwest Health and Wellness Center. Zacok returns to the area after living in Missouri for more than 25 years.
“I am pleased to be coming home to Indiana, and I am especially excited about the possibility of expanding the services of the campus Health and Wellness Center,” said Zacok, a certified Family Nurse Practitioner who earned her Master of Science in Nursing from the University of Missouri – Kansas City.
Zacok is accredited as an FNP by the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners and the American Nurses Credentialing Center. She comes to IU Northwest from Ozarks Community Hospital in Springfield, Mo. She had previously worked in hospitals in Pennsylvania and Louisiana.
“The College of Health and Human Services is proud to have an accomplished nurse practitioner with Gail’s experience join our campus staff,” sad Patrick Bankston, Ph.D., dean of CHHS and associate dean and director of the IU School of Medicine – Northwest. “She is a welcome addition to our faculty and to our growing health and wellness clinical staff.”
Zacok holds the rank of clinical assistant professor of nursing, and she will teach clinical nursing one day each week in the School of Nursing.
“Gail will be such an asset to the School of Nursing, the College of Health and Human Services, and the campus,” said Linda Delunas, associate dean for CHHS, who chaired the search committee that recommended Zacok. “Part of her role on campus will be to plan and coordinate various wellness initiatives, in addition to staffing the campus walk-in clinic.”
Zacok had returned home for a Thanksgiving visit last year when she saw the position posted in a local newspaper. Family circumstances had led the Munster High School alumna to begin planning her relocation back to her hometown, and she said the IU Northwest position ideally complemented those plans.
“I began applying in November, and in February I interviewed. Things happened very quickly after that,” Zacok said. “I was offered the job, and I knew it was time to come home.”
The IU Northwest Health and Wellness Center opened in March 2009. Until now, the clinic had been staffed by nurse practitioners from the School of Nursing faculty and had kept limited hours during the school week.
On April 12, the clinic expanded its hours of operation. New hours are: Monday, 7:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.; Tuesday 9 a.m. – 3 p.m.; Wednesday, 9 a.m. – 3 p.m.; and Thursday, 1 p.m. – 7 p.m.
For more information about the IU Northwest Health and Wellness Center, visit the Web at www.iun.edu/~health4u.