NEW YORK NURSE: July/August 2011
by Alison Munday
Edward Gaerlan, a Montefiore Medical Center medical-surgical staff nurse was the recipient of the 2011 Joan H. Bilder Award for demonstrated excellence in nursing practice. Gaerlan was recognized for “his leadership skills on the night shift, when there are fewer resources available. He consistently offers suggestions on how to improve the patient care experience on his unit, many of which have been implemented.” Gaerlan earned a baccalaureate degree from Rutgers University in 1982, and went on to receive an associate degree in nursing from Bronx Community College. A valued staff member at Montefiore since 1988, Gaerlan has dedicated a great deal of time to preceptoring and mentoring, and is referred to as a “super user” for barcoding and electronic documentation. His congratulatory announcement noted, “He has oriented and reinforced education to the night shift on all of the computer documentation and is an active member of the Pain Management Committee. Beyond his responsibilities at Montefiore, Mr. Gaerlan has spoken at a skilled nursing facility in Maryland to foreign nurses who are adapting to nursing in the U.S.” The Joan H. Bilder Award was named in honor of the associate director of Nursing at Montefiore from 1965 until her death in 1987. It is given to encourage and continue Bilder’s example of excellence in clinical nursing practice, her caring, concern, and dedication to patient care, and her commitment to education.
Kathleen Nokes, professor and assistant dean for graduate studies, director of graduate nursing at Hunter College, CUNY, and a member of the doctoral faculty at Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing, has been selected for a Fulbright Specialist grant in Public/Global Health at Durban University of Technology (DUT), South Africa. The J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Department of State, and the Council for International Exchange of Scholars selected Nokes from a competitive pool of candidates. This appointment builds on her 2005 appointment as a Fulbright scholar at the University of KwaZulu Natal, also in Durban, South Africa. Nokes will spend July and August 2011 in Durban. Her appointment as an honorary professor of research at DUT will afford the opportunity to continue to work with Professor Ahmed Bawa, formerly of Hunter College, now chancellor and vice principal of DUT. The goals of the project include working with nursing faculty on curriculum revision that includes a greater emphasis on HIV/AIDS education, training and outreach in the post-graduate nursing program, and working with master’s and doctoral students in nursing and the health sciences faculty on ongoing research projects.
Margaret Comerford Freda, professor emerita of OB/GYN and women’s health at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center, and editor of MCN: The American Journal of Maternal Child Nursing, has been honored by the national office of the March of Dimes Foundation, for decades of service to their mission. Comerford Freda was lauded for the instrumental role she played in the development and implementation of the foundation’s nursing program, and for being such a strong advocate for nursing research. In honoring her, the foundation’s nursing research award—provided in conjunction with the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses— has been renamed the March of Dimes Dr. Margaret Comerford Freda “Saving Babies, Together” Award. Janis Bierman, the foundation’s vice president said to Comerford Freda, “This is personally gratifying for me because I have had the pleasure of working with you for so many years and know how deserving you are...I know first-hand the tremendous impact you have had on the health of countless mothers and babies.”