2004 Founders Award Winner

She has been a nurse for 29 years, and a nurse practitioner for 10. Praise for her spans her personal and professional world. She is described by one of her surgeon colleagues as “our nurse practitioner and woman par excellence.” He goes on to say that she “is probably the most capable, affable, and personable nurse with whom I have been associated. There has never been a task too daunting, a problem insurmountable, or a situation with a family, child or other hospital employee that she could not solve.” Sound like Wonder Woman? Well, you’ll soon agree that she is. In the words of her Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer, she has had a “tremendous and pioneering career as a pediatric surgery nurse practitioner” and is an “ambassador” to their hospital. She is well published, including a chapter on Malrotation in the APSNA textbook (Nursing Care of the General Pediatric Surgical Patient) and several articles in the Journal of Pediatric Surgery. Her most recent publication in the Journal of Pediatric Surgery reflects one of her most impressive and innovative accomplishments: her work to design and establish a program for use of nitrous oxide analgesia for outpatient procedures in children. One of her many fans and surgeon colleagues writes: “she has been a constant source of inspiration both because of her technical ability with patients, her knowledge base, her clinical acumen, and also her seemingly unlimited capacity for empathy... the development of the nitrous sedation program ...has radically changed our pediatric surgical practice.”