AACN Spirit Award winners honored for distinguished careers

May 14, 2019

The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses has announced the recipients of its 2019 Pioneering Spirit Awards, the Marguerite Rodgers Kinney Award for a Distinguished Career and the ICU Design Citation. The awards will be presented during the National Teaching Institute & Critical Care Exposition (NTI), May 20-23 in Orlando, FL.

Recipients:

JoAnn Grif Alspach will receive the 2019 Marguerite Rodgers Kinney Award for a Distinguished Career. Over the past 40 years, she has consulted, published and lectured nationally and internationally on nursing staff development, preceptor preparation, competency-based education and critical care nursing. She served as editor for AACN's journal Critical Care Nurse, for more than 30 years.

Dorrie K. Fontaine, professor of nursing and dean of the University of Virginia School of Nursing, will receive an AACN Pioneering Spirit Award. She is retiring this summer after a 40-year career as a clinician, scholar, researcher, educator and professional leader.

 Céline Gélinas, PhD, RN, will receive an AACN Pioneering Spirit Award, in recognition of her work developing the Critical-Care Pain Observation Tool (CPOT), one of the most valid and reliable behavioral pain scales for assessing pain in critically ill adult patients unable to communicate pain. She is associate professor at Ingram School of Nursing, McGill University, and a researcher at the Centre for Nursing Research and the Lady Davis Institute of the Jewish General Hospital in Montréal, Québec, Canada.

Also receiving an AACN Pioneering Spirit Award is Sharon Inouye, MD, MPH. She created the Confusion Assessment Method (CAM), the most widely used method for identification of delirium worldwide. She is a professor at Harvard Medical School (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center), holder of the Milton and Shirley F. Levy Family Chair, and director of the Aging Brain Center at the Institute for Aging Research, Hebrew SeniorLife.

The intensive care unit at Excela Health Westmoreland Hospital, Greensburg, PA, will receive the annual ICU Design Citation for the results of a $16 million renovation modernizing its 22-bed ICU. 

Also, the 2019 Distinguished Research Lecturer is Patricia Hickey, vice president and associate chief nursing officer, cardiovascular and critical care patient services at Boston Children’s Hospital and assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. She is known internationally for her work in research and leadership development, care delivery innovation, patient safety, and bridging nursing practice and health policy. She will present her lecture, "Vision for Excellence by Design," May 20 at NTI.