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Local Sigma Theta Tau International Chapter
Awards First Nursing Research Grants
The year was 1962. Coronary care units were a new addition to hospitals. Maternal child nursing was being introduced as a specialty care area at the UW School of Nursing. And, in a tradition of leadership going back to the early years of the 20th century, nursing faculty members were organizing the first western U.S. chapter of Sigma Theta Tau International, the honor society of nursing.

Founded in 1922 to advance the status of nursing as a profession, Sigma Theta Tau International continues to be dedicated to improving health care around the world. It was also the first organization in the United States to fund nursing research, in 1936.

Following in this tradition, the local chapter of Sigma Theta Tau International, called Psi Chapter at Large, has awarded its first grants to support research and special projects by nurses in clinical practice.

President Carol Landis, professor of nursing at the UW and a respected nurse scientist, awarded four research grant awards totaling over $5000 at the annual spring meeting of the Psi Chapter at Large. Anna Scott, MN, a nursing doctoral student at the UW, received funding for her work with the homeless in downtown Seattle. Mo-Kyung Sin, DSN, a post-doctoral fellow at the UW, was awarded a grant supporting a program of exercise intervention for elderly Korean Americans with high blood pressure. Mayumi Anne Willgerdodt, MPH, Ph.D., a nursing faculty member at the UW, received funding to assist in the development of an assessment tool to measure family conflict in Chinese families. And Patricia Guirgevich, MN, Ed.D., a nurse at Northwest Hospital, was awarded a research grant to study the role of parish nurses in addressing sexual abuse. She is being assisted in this work by co-investigator Andrea Kovalesky, Ph.D., a School of Nursing alumna.

The awards were made at the spring induction ceremony, which also celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Psi Chapter. Guest speaker was Linda B. Haas, well-known diabetes specialist who received her Master's in Nursing from the UW and who is currently a Ph.D. candidate. Haas is an endocrinology clinical nurse specialist at VA Puget Sound Health Care System.

For additional information about the research grants or Sigma Theta Tau International, contact Dr. Carol Landis at (206) 616-1908 or calandis@u.washington.edu.

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