REPORT: June 2006

In the News

Judy Dobson of Erie County Medical Center was named a “Nurse of Distinction” by the Buffalo News during Nurses Week. Dobson, a preceptor to newly hired nursing graduates, was described as a “role model and mentor who inspires her staff and all others she comes into contact with.” Her career at ECMC began in the trauma intensive care unit, and she has also worked as a cardio-thoracic nurse clinician in the ICU and telemetry step down unit. Dobson developed pre- and post-operative informational booklets for open-heart surgery patients and helped develop and streamline database query systems to track cardiac patient care. She has organized Heart Walk teams at ECMC and assisted local churches with diet, nutrition, and cardiac education.

Robert Warner, an associate professor and director of nursing at Fulton-Montgomery Community College, was recently awarded the 2006 SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. Award recipients must “perform superbly in the classroom, keep abreast of changes in their field, and demonstrate concern for the intellectual growth of individual students.” Warner is a past treasurer of Nurses House and currently serves on the organization’s Service Council. He is also secretary of the Mohawk Valley District 10 Nurses Association/NYSNA.

NYSNA board member Veronica Richardson, and Cicely Wilkinson, a member of NYSNA’s Expanded Council on Nursing Practice, hosted the inaugural Nurses Week Dinner Dance Gala at Maimonides Medical Center in May—with NYSNA Nursing Representative Glennie Millard the official honoree. Millard was recognized for 17 years of service with NYSNA, and for 28 years of service and commitment to the nation as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves. New York State senators Carl Andrews, Kevin Parker, and John Sampson, and Assemblyman Alan Maisel were in attendance to present Millard with a legislative resolution in recognition of the occasion. Millard is the president of the Brooklyn chapter of the U.S. Reserves Officers Association, and is assigned to the 4220th U.S. Army Hospital in Shoreham, N.Y. —from which she will retire in August. In 2003, she spent three weeks caring for soldiers wounded in Iraq at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.

Susan Fraley, a former NYSNA president and current executive director of Nurses House and the Foundation of the NYSNA, was featured in an Albany Times Union article about her passion for growing violets. In a fitting coincidence, the article was published on May 6, National Nurses Day. Fraley is past president of the NYS African Violet Society and a well-recognized judge in violet-growing circles. A care-giver to more than 400 violets, Fraley spoke in particular of the hardiness of “space violets”— offspring of seeds tested in space for nearly six years. “Violets like warmth, humidity…but the most important thing is consistency. If you water them every four days, then water them every four days, no matter what.” Fraley says there is renewed interested in protecting the older strains of vintage violets, just like grandma used to grow.

Jeanne Betti, of the VA Hudson Valley Healthcare System, recently became one of the first RNs to be certified by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) in the specialty of pain management. The certification—a collaboration between ANCC and the American Society for Pain Management Nursing— has attracted a larger group of nurses than any new certification in recent history. Certification assures that the nurse has a thorough understanding of pain management, and according to Mary Smolenski, ANCC’s director of certification, “…is becoming an essential focus of every healthcare facility in the nation. These first certified nurses are pioneers in what will soon be one of the most significant new nursing specialties of the 21st century.”