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Dean's Monthly Communication: May 2007

Message from Dean Woods
National Nurses Week, which is May 6–12 this year, seems to be attracting a great deal of attention this year. All of the radio, television and print media coverage reminds us to acknowledge the important ways nurses have touched people's lives every day.

As a school, we are quite humble about our many individual and corporate achievements. We have come to expect excellence in all we do, and sometimes that makes us think that our contributions go unnoticed. Just as nurses' contributions are often overshadowed by those of other professionals who are more media-appealing, we tend focus on the achievements of just a few stellar individuals. Yet we all know that none of the excellence in teaching and research that we do at the School of Nursing would be possible without the efforts of a team. This is great time to recognize contributions at the team and department level, rather than one person at a time.

I would like to encourage each of us to reflect on and acknowledge those in our work environments who make our accomplishments possible.

—Nancy Fugate Woods, PhD, RN, FAAN

P.S. I am happy to announce that the Dean's Monthly Communication (a.k.a. the DMC) is celebrating its first-year anniversary this month! You can view all of the past issues online.

Campaign UW: Creating Futures Update
New Endowed Professorship in Chronic Illness Care
We have another endowed professorship to announce! Group Health Cooperative has given SoN a $250,000 gift to establish the Group Health Endowed Nursing Professorship in Chronic Illness Care. This professorship will help SoN recruit, retain, reward and recognize distinguished faculty who conduct research and teaching in the area of chronic illness care. The appointment of this professorship has not occurred yet, but when it does, we'll report it here.

Honors and Awards
2007 SoN Leadership Award Winners Announced
At our Nurses Recognition Banquet this year, the following individuals will be honored for their respective work as an alumna, researcher, humanitarian and volunteer:

Distinguished Alumni Award Winner: Mary Salazar, BSN '82, MN '68, and prof., Dept. of PCH
Distinguished Researcher Award: Elaine Adams Thompson, BSN '70, MN '72, PhD '90, and the Sandra and Peter Dyer Term Professor in Nursing, Dept. of PCH
Humanitarian Award: Meg Hatlen, MN '96, and nurse supervisor and clinical manager at Renton Public Health Center
Outstanding Volunteer Award: Betty McCurdy, BSN '49

Find out more about this year's winners and winners from previous years.

SoN Faculty Award Winners
Vicky Hertig, lecturer, Dept. of BNHS, has been selected as this year's Rheba de Tornyay Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award recipient.

Sandra Negus Jolley, asst. prof., Dept. of FCN, is the recipient of the Sandra Eyres Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award. Other nominees were Susan Flagler, Rebecca Kang, Elaine Adams Thompson and Chris Hoyle.

Deborah Kelly, clinical instructor, Dept. of BNHS, is the recipient of the Excellence in Clinical Teaching Award. Other nominees were Barbara Waggoner, Chris Hoyle, Pam Talley, Kathy Kroening, Susan Landies, Fiona MacPherson, Janet Cady and Phyllis Christianson.

Doris Boutain, assoc. prof., Dept. of PCH, is the recipient of this year's Excellence in Promoting Diversity through Teaching Award. Sarah Shannon was also a nominee.

New Grant Awards
Sarah Shannon, PhD, RN, associate prof., Dept. of BNHS, will act as a co-investigator on a grant recently awarded to J. Randall Curtis, MD, MPH, Prof. of Medicine, by the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR). The "Improving Clinician Communication Skills" study will provide and evaluate an interdisciplinary communications skills training intervention to nurse practitioner students and internal medicine residents who want to learn about improving end-of-life care for patients with terminal or life-limiting illnesses.

International Scholars
The School of Nursing hosted Intisar Abdul-Hussain, assistant minister of health and the highest-ranking nurse in the Iraqi Ministry of Health, May 12–25. She came to teach us about nursing in Iraq and to learn about nursing and health care in our country. You can learn more about her visit to the U.S. in this article from NurseZone.com.

Students
Congratulations to PhD student Cecelia I. Roscigno, recipient of the 2007–2008 Gatzert Child Welfare Fellowship. This fellowship supports doctoral dissertation research in the field of child development with special emphasis on the physically or mentally disabled.

Dawn Betters, a second-year PhD student, has been accepted into the NINR Biobehavioral Nursing Graduate Partnerships Program. As an NINR-GPP trainee, she will complete her dissertation under the guidance of her UW supervisory committee and a mentor at the laboratories of the Intramural Research Program of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She will complete her remaining coursework at the UW and go to NIH in summer 2008. Dawn is our first student in this program in partnership with the NIH.

Academic Services
New Student Information
Final numbers of admitted students for 2007–2008 are now listed online.

Orientation for new students entering in the fall 2007 quarter will be Sept 17–21 (immunizations, etc.) and Sept 24–25.

Newsletter Archive
Find other issues of the Dean's Monthly Communication.