Janet Boivin, RN ( left) Barbara Shahinian (right)

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Two Nursing Spectrum editors have been recognized for their work in chronicling the role of nurses during and after the war in Iraq.

Editorial Director Janet Boivin has received the 2004 Region 5 Pinnacle Award for print media for a nursing audience, presented biennially by Sigma Theta Tau International.

Managing Editor Barbara Shahinian has been recognized with a 2004 national APEX Feature Series Award.

Both editors work for the magazine’s Greater Chicago edition.

Boivin’s stories were based on on-site, telephone, and e-mail interviews with military nurses aboard the USNS Comfort, a Navy hospital ship, and inside the field hospitals of Iraq.

The seven articles represented a much larger body of work, from the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan to the aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s ouster.

When the United States began bombing Iraq in March 2003, Boivin was aboard the Comfort as an invited nurse journalist, the only nursing media representative at that time.

Sigma Theta Tau called the stories “an excellent reflection of the nursing profession.” Boivin will be honored Nov. 6 at the Chapter Leader Academy in Indianapolis.

Shahinian’s two-part series, “Help Wanted: Iraq,” focused on the harsh conditions for Iraqi nurses in Baghdad hospitals. It presents a disturbing account of the nursing and health care crisis in Iraq, detailing the shortage of nurses and their often substandard training.

Readers responded with phone calls and e-mails offering to donate supplies to their Iraqi colleagues.

To read these stories, visit http://community.nursingspectrum.com/ MagazineArticles/region.cfm?CODE=MILITARY.