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Clinical Care (tie)

Debra Pronitis-Ruotolo, RN, MSN, CCRN
Clincial Educator, Patient Care Resources and Staff RN M2ICU,
Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas

Pronitis-Ruotolo is a 23-year nursing veteran who today has enveloped her career in teaching and research. But her love of the clinical setting has never waned, she said. “I’m now at a desk job for 24 hours a week doing the Magnet application process for my hospital. But the clinical area keeps pulling me back one night a week. I’m a hard-core night shift nurse,” she laughed. Pronitis-Ruotolo also teaches 12 hours a week and is attending graduate school while she works 32 to 36 hours a week in critical care nursing at Presbyterian. She has experience in multiple ICU settings, including cardiothoracic surgery, cardiac care, medical/surgical and medical/surgical/neurological intensive care. She’s also taken the leadership helm as a charge nurse and assistant unit director. Ulrich, in present ing the award to Pronitis-Ruotolo, noted that the fellow nurses who nominated her gave her the “highest compliment a nurse can receive — her colleagues say she’s the nurse they want to take care of them if they need a nurse.”

Kim Tieu, RN, BSN
Zale Lipshy University Hospital, Dallas

The Employee of the Year at Zale Lipshy is getting a lot of attention these days for a night shift medical/surgical nurse. The cowinner of NurseWeek’s clinical care honor, Tieu displays a wide variety of clinical excellence, patient care, and mentoring to new RNs and graduate nurses on his floor. He’s among the hospital’s highest-rated professionals from patient surveys and letters, and is described as an excellent patient advocate. Tieu’s performance is equaled in awe only by his remarkable background. A Vietnamese refugee as a child, he learned English in order to secure an immigration visa from a refugee camp in Indonesia to Canada, where he learned French and attended nursing school. He brought his wife over to North America eight years later, and moved to Texas. His first award for divisional achievement came just four months after he arrived at Zale Lipshy in June 1999.

Community Service

Kathleen Nash, RN, PhD, FNP
Assistant Professor/Family Nurse Practitioner,
University of Texas Medical Branch School of Nursing, Galveston

Kathleen's community is a global one. When she isn't involved in teen health programs in Galveston, she's working weekly in the university's emergency department or helping international medical missions to bring primary care to critical need villagers in remote areas of Nicaragua. She also builds on her experiences. Ulrich noted in her presentation that Nash, while pursuing her doctorate, focused her research on the youths she previously served at the UTMB-based Teen Health Center clinic by evaluating the impact of empowerment programs on teenagers' self-esteem and decision-making skills. She was drawn to working with students because she saw so many healthcare professionals rotating through the center, demonstrating little desire for working with adolescents. "I think they deserve people taking care of them who accept them for who they are and enjoy being around them," said Nash. And from her Nicaraguan aid work, where she joined a group that serves 100 patients a day for each 12-day visitation period, she is now developing an interdisciplinary course for medical and nursing school students on medical missions. "Kathy has demonstrated compassion and courage in her work with patients of all ages in this country and in other parts of the world," said Ulrich.

Innovation/Creativity

Nina Davis, RN, BSN
Special Project Coordinator, Healthcare for the Homeless Program with the Harris County Hospital District, Houston

The homeless population of Houston has had a range of health-related crises in recent years. When floods and rains weren’t threatening them, the notorious heat and humidity of Houston summers were. Leading the effort to give them the preventive care and protection they need, Davis has spent the past five years working with homeless shelter administrators, community-based organizations, and disease control agencies to reach out to Houston’s forgotten population. “I don’t know if there’s any increase, but they are more visible,” Davis said. Among Davis’ recent projects was developing a bilingual assessment tool for hospitals and social service agencies that provides homeless health care information to the area’s dispossessed. She also has written brochures on keeping safe out on the streets and avoiding the dangers of sharing medications She and her staff also are busy pursuing grants that fund the salaries for full-time providers that see thousands of patients annually at the eight Healthcare for the Homeless clinics across the city.