Starstruck
Excellence Awards honor nursing’s brightest
By Glen Fest
October 18, 2004
Moonlight wasn’t all that was shining on a “Starry, Starry Night” during NurseWeek’s fifth annual South Central Nursing Excellence Awards banquet Oct. 9 in Houston.
The stunning and inspiring achievements of 48 nurses, from which nine winners were selected among eight categories of service and achievement from the bedside to the boardroom, were honored and cheered by about 270 attendees at the event at the InterContinental Houston.
“Tonight’s all about joy,” said Beth Ulrich, RN, EdD, CHE, senior vice president of professional services for NurseWeek. “There are a lot of times in our profession where we deal with a lot of heartache and it’s easy to forget some of the joy we have in helping people.”
The finalists and winners not only provided a glimpse into why nurses delight in their peers’ accomplishments, but also gave an affirmation of nursing’s growing influence and diversity. Several nominees exhibited influential roles at their institution or their communities, and for the first time, three men were named winners among the nine winners in eight categories (two winners tied in the direct clinical care group).
Two of the men, Kim Tieu, RN, BSN, and Jackson Igbinoba, RN, BSN, BC, were foreign-born nurses who overcame geographical and financial hardships to establish careers in nursing.
Tieu was a Vietnamese refugee who learned two languages in three countries on his way to a career as an RN at Zale Lipshy University Hospital in Dallas. Igbinoba, a clinical nurse manager at Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital in Houston, told the banquet crowd of nearly 300 that he benefited greatly from the hospital’s tuition reimbursement program — without which he might not have been able to pursue nursing as a career while raising four children with his wife.
Keynote speaker Susie Distefano, RN, MS, vice president of patient care services at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, noted that many of the winners succeeded not by carrying “big titles,” but by focusing on their capabilities and goals. She quoted philosopher Jon Kabat-Zinn (“Wherever you go, there you are.”) to point out that the winners captured the “joy and spirit of nursing.”
“They’ve decided not to focus on what could have been, what might be, but in fact taken what they’ve been given to work with,” Distefano said, “regardless of their role, regardless of their practice seeing and they enjoyed it … and I find that impressive.”
Advancing the Profession
Vickie Milazzo, RN, JD, BSN
CEO/Owner, Vickie Milazzo Institute, Houston
Giving thousands of nurses a new career option within their chosen field has been Milazzo’s chief accomplishment since founding the Vickie Milazzo Institute in Houston 22 years ago. Since 1982, more than 5,000 certified legal nurse consultants (CLNCs) have entered the field, providing assistance to law firms, hospitals, and health care organizations across the country. “What I think we’ve accomplished is to help many nurses who are looking for another career option,” Milazzo said. A career in legal nursing consulting “allows nurses to stay in the profession. Many have been in nursing for up to 30 years, and it would be tragic if they had to leave traditional nursing, and had no place to go.” Milazzo said the demand for CLNCs will continue to grow as facilities seek ways to improve patient care quality and prepare for ever-more-stringent standards from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. The CEO and owner of the institute has continued her longtime role as a faculty member for her organization’s seminars, and appearing at the annual legal nurse seminars her company sponsors. At this year’s seminar, her group drew more than 900 attendees, and “we’ll exceed that number for [2005].”
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.
Leadership
Remy Tolentino, RN, MSN, CNAA, BC
Chief Nursing Officer, Baylor University Medical Center, Dallas
Listening is the key to Tolentino’s leadership, say her colleagues. By making herself accessible and visible to all of the 2,000 nurses she oversees at Baylor, the voice of the nurse is heard at the highest levels of management at the hospital. She promotes a participatory management style with her nurses, while also keeping a hands-on approach to day-to-day nursing operations that helps Baylor score well in surveys of nurse retention, recruitment, patient satisfaction, and quality of care — and this past year, achieve Magnet recognition. She also promotes professional growth and development for her staff. Addressing the nurses at the banquet, Tolentino said that “being in the position you’re in and continue to be in is what makes a nursing organization at a hospital click.”
Mentoring
Jackson Igbinoba, RN, BSN, BC
Clinical Manager, Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital, Houston
Igbinoba has risen through the ranks quickly at Memorial Hermann Southwest. How so? His boss once had to teach the Nigerian-born nurse how to use the basics of Microsoft Office when he made his first strides toward management. “But today, she consults me for the computer,” he said to a lively, roaring table of Memorial Hermann nurses. Igbinoba has long worked under the credo of “do unto others,” and it shows. Owning the highest retention rate among clinical nurse managers at the hospital, Igbinoba frequently walks his unit to consult with nurses, assist where he can and encourage his staff to work hard. What he likes to promote is self-esteem and professional development; he even encourages housekeeping staff to pursue nursing. Igbinoba tells them how by showing them how: He pursued his bachelor’s degree after being hired at Memorial Hermann with a two-year degree. Thanks to the hospital’s tuition reimbursement program, he achieved his goal with “dignity and respect” while raising a family with four boys. “Treat others like you want to be treated,” Igbinoba said.
Patient Advocacy
David Correa, RN
Director, Patient Satisfaction/ Customer Service,
University Health System, San Antonio
To Correa, it doesn’t matter that a terminally ill nurse with ovarian cancer could not afford the wound care treatments that provided her relief and dignity in her final days. He marshaled together his fellow nurses to volunteer daily wound care treatment for their colleague. Patient and nurse advocacy is Correa’s calling, even beyond the walls of the hospital. He forms and trains community support groups for patients, organizes annual holiday galas for area charities, and vigorously pursues money for nursing scholarships — he once contacted regional nursing directors to personally sell fund-raiser tickets. His bilingual skills are crucial for serving the Hispanic population of San Antonio, for which he pursued advanced training in cultural awareness. Correa is a member of the hospital’s systemwide cultural and linguistic competency team. While accepting his award at the banquet, Correa thanked God for the opportunity to be nurse and a patient advocate, “which are all the nurses here and all across the world.”
Teaching
Debra Lanza, RN, BSN
Director, Nursing Staff Development, Memorial Medical Center,
New Orleans
In her nursing career of 31 years, Lanza said the nursing profession has been accused of “eating our young.” Burnout and stalled careers have wreaked havoc on thousands of nurses throughout the years, “and we still tend to do that. I’ll be so glad when that is finally changed.” With Lanza’s help, Memorial Medical Center is doing its best. Lanza is an active and vital part of the nurses’ educational and professional growth at Memorial. She created a preceptor program that has been a key component of the hospital’s low nurse turnover rate of 9% to 10%, and a low vacancy rate of 4%. She also holds annual workshops for nursing assistant and unit secretaries and created an orientation packet for contract labor staff to improve the roles they play for nurses. One of the best compliments to her impact on nurses, Ulrich said, is that former staff sometimes return to the hospital to attend her education sessions, “because of the personal attention she gives each and every person.”
Glen Fest, is a Managing Editor for NurseWeek.