The Nursing Awards

King County Nurses Association presents the following awards for outstanding nursing.

KCNA Star Search:  Honoring Exceptional Nurses

King County Nurses Association has been recognizing outstanding nurses with annual awards. The nature of the awards has changed a bit over the years, but the bottom line has stayed the same--honoring exceptional nurses. Up to three KCNA nurses may receive Shining Star Awards each year; selections are made by KCNA's Membership & Public Relations Committee.

The nomination deadline for 2008 has passed, the next nomination deadline is April 1, 2009. If you have any questions, please call KCNA at 206/545-0603.

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CONGRATULATIONS TO THE 2008 Shining Star Awards!

Jeniffer Hausmann, CCTN, RNC

Jeniffer is Assistant Nurse Manager, Level 17 at Virginia Mason Medical Center.
    She received her Associate Degree in Nursing from Shoreline Community College and her Bachelors of Science in Nursing from the University of Washington.  As a new grad, she was hired as a staff nurse in urology, endocrinology, transplantation and gastroenterology. This allowed her to learn a great deal of medical-surgical  nursing and lead to a love for renal and pancreas transplant nursing. Jeniffer’s career progressed to include preceptor coordinator and inpatient transplant liaison. Her jobs included working with new residents, preceptors and management and being the point person between the worlds of clinic, critical care and transplant unit care.  She educates, trouble shoots, and coordinates the “Transplant Experience” that allows the RN to shadow a donor and recipient through their preoperative and operative days to then care for them on the unit.  It creates a better understanding of the patients perspective and what is involved in transplantation.
    Jeniffer is also Co-Chair of the Professional Recognition Program. It’s a voluntary program at Virginia Mason and provides recognition and acknowledgment of clinical excellence in professional nursing practice and performance through documented evidence. The program is designed to progress through a novice to expert continuum with patient care and professional growth as the priorities.
    Here’s what colleagues had to say about Jeniffer:
    Jeniffer embodies characteristics of a nurse mentor. She exhibits leadership and patient advocacy that encourages other nurses to follow her example, setting the bar high while helping others to attain their own professional goals. She is independent, fast thinking and caring. Her clinical skills are stellar and just as importantly, so is her sense of humor.
Her absolute commitment to improving her patients care experience has always defined her practice. Through the years, Jeniffer has mentored numerous staff while caring for thousands of patients, always with a sunny disposition, infectious laugh and a critical attention to all details of those patients.
Jeniffer is a bright and tremendously gifted nurse. Beyond this however, she has a special talent of gaining an intuition about patients expectations that always seem to put her one step ahead. No could deserve this more.

Nancy Fugate Woods, RN, PhD

Nancy is Dean of the University of Washington School of Nursing.
    Nancy began her nursing career with a BSN from Wisconsin State University then received her Masters in Nursing from the University of Washington followed by her PhD in Epidemiology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.   Nancy has been a faculty member of the UW School of Nursing since 1978. A founding director of the school’s internationally recognized Center for Women’s Health Research and a former chair of the Department of Family and Child Nursing, she was appointed Dean of the school of Nursing in 1998.

    Colleagues had this to say about Nancy:
I have had the honor of serving under Dean Woods’ leadership for the past 10 years.  I can honestly say that there is no one who is more committed to nursing than Nancy Woods.   To say that she has lived, eaten, and breathed nursing, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for the past 10 years – never mind her illustrious educational, research, and service in nursing for 30 years before her deanship – is a scary but true statement!
 
Dean Woods’ CV will list her many achievements as a leader in nursing locally, nationally, and internationally. At over 75 pages long, folks will have to find time to read it on their   own!  But what her CV cannot disclose are the hundreds of moments when she has taken the time and energy to make a difference in the life of a single person.  To wit
•Uncountable are the number of trips Dean Woods has taken where upon her return, the School will receive a call from an airline attendant or waiter or child of Dean Woods’ seat   partner who in chatting with her on the trip, was inspired to consider nursing as a career.

•Many are the applicants who, disappointed that they were not admitted to the program of their dreams, have found a listening and encouraging ear in Dean Woods’ office.              Equally as many are the number of faculty and staff members who have sought Dean Woods to “blow off steam”, and returned with not only a sense of having been heard, but with wise counsel and support in dealing with the issue at hand.

•Dean Woods has developed meaningful relationships with nurses in the community at an unprecedented level, connecting practice with education and engaging in ongoing               dialogue that will have ripples for decades.

•Finally, Dean Woods has quietly, behind the scenes, given 100% support to endeavors that support nursing students, from underwriting their costs in going abroad to gain global       nursing experience to assigning award monies to recognize our next generation of nursing leaders, from establishing endowed scholarship funds to paying their way to attend beacon   nursing recognition events such as this one.
In short, there could not be a person who has advanced nursing in King County or in the country more than Dean Nancy Woods.

Jane Hardiman, BSN, MHA

Jane attended nursing school at SUNY at Downstate Medical Center, in Brooklyn, NY, and graduated with a BSN.  She worked in Brooklyn for 5 years, before moving to Seattle in 1979 where she started working for Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.  She earned her MHA from the University of Washington in the early 1990's. Jane has been at Children’s for 29 years this June where she is a day shift charge nurse in the PICU/CICU, and on the ECMO team. 

We received many comments about Jane from her co-workers and would like to share some of them with you:
Jane is a very skilled nurse, who is able to care for our region’s most critically ill children with expertise and compassion.  I think what I have recognized more recently, is her ability to share her skills and mentor new staff. There are many things that come to mind when I think of Jane, but I will focus on three of them. 

    First, is her ability to get more patients into the ICU than we really can accommodate.  Jane starts many days with more kids waiting for beds than physical space.  It seems like an impossible engineering or physics equation, but somehow, Jane is able to make it work.  There are days that I wonder if she is going to put someone in my office to make it all work, but she always works it out….I have yet to find a patient in my office.   It’s amazing to see how this all comes together day after day.
 
    Second, her mentoring of the new staff.  Jane does this in a very understated way, but provides for opportunities for them to learn and grow.  One can imagine how it might be easiest for the charge nurse to assign a highly seasoned nurse to the most complex patients.  Jane certainly does this, but she also assigns the more junior nurses these assignments, when she knows she can personally back them up or provide other senior nurses in the area to assist with the assignment. I think what is significant to me about this, is she does it very quietly.  I don’t think anyone really realizes what she is doing…I only recently realized what she was doing, myself.  I had one of those “oh” moments—truly amazing.
 
    Third, her sincere care for our staff and their children.  Jane may seem like a toughie, if you don’t know her, but anyone who works in the ICU, knows she is a huge softie.  Jane has seen many of our staff have children of their own.  I have watched her be incredibly supportive, enthusiastic, and excited—it is so genuine.  She is so supportive and enthusiast for all of us, you would think she is their auntie.  I suppose she is in a way.  I think this sort of caring is important in the work we do.

    I can’t think of a more deserving person to receive this award. Jane is the epitome of “grace under fire”. She has the ability to juggle 40 balls, keep them all in the air, and still have a smile on her face and a quick wit. She is one of the best clinical resources in our ICU, genuinely concerned with the patients and their families.