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American Academy of Nursing Gives 2006 Media Awards

November 11, 2006 - Tonight the American Academy of Nursing (AAN) presented its 2006 Media Awards at the group's annual ceremony in Miami. The four Media Award winners were: "Critical Care: The Making of an ICU Nurse," an extensive series about Massachusetts General Hospital nurses published in The Boston Globe in October 2005; "13 Weeks," an Internet "reality" show about travel nurses created by Access Nurses; "Kids' Health Matters," a public health publication created by the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (NAPNAP); and "Nurse shortage puts school kids at risk," a long article about the school nurse crisis published in USA Today in December 2005. The Globe and USA Today pieces also won Golden Lamp Awards from the Center. The Center congratulates all the winners.

The four-part Boston Globe series, "Critical Care: The Making of an ICU Nurse," followed the eight-month training of a new ICU nurse, and showed the primacy of nursing care for ICU patients. It also "gives readers an unusually vivid sense of the complexity and importance of highly skilled nursing in a major hospital, with some indication of the stress the nursing crisis has put on critical health systems," a statement from the Center's 2005 Golden Lamp Awards material that AAN quoted in its own description of the series. AAN recognized Massachusetts General communications director Georgia W. Peirce, who persuaded the paper to do the story (and who serves on the Center's board), as well as Kathryn Brush, MS, RN, CCRN, FCCM, Marianne Ditomassi, MBA, RN, Jeanette Ives Erickson, MS, RN, Michele "MJ" Pender, RN, Jeanne Rufo-Huckins, RN, Peggy Slasman, Susan Tully, RN, and Julia Zelixon, RN. The Center, in its award to the series, also recognized Globe reporter Scott Allen and photographer Michele McDonald.

The lengthy USA Today article, "Nurse shortage puts school kids at risk," showed that a severe shortage of school nurses threatens the health of children across the United States, especially in view of the increasingly serious health issues kids and nurses now confront at school. The AAN award recognized writers Bruce Horovitz and Kevin McCoy, and contributor Paul Overberg. The Center's 2006 Golden Lamp award also recognized article contributors Tom Ankner and Bruce Rosenstein.

The AAN program materials explain that "Kids' Health Matters" features articles by pediatric nurse practitioners (PNPs) who are members of NAPNAP, and that the group hopes to distribute three million copies through PNPs. The AAN also notes that "[t]he magazine addresses the ongoing need for parents to receive high quality health care information about the best ways to keep their kids healthy, physically and mentally." At the same time, the AAN said, the magazine "increases public awareness of the value nursing plays in promoting health and providing health care to the public." The magazine is credited to NAPNAP and CW Publishing Group.

The AAN also recognized the Internet reality show "13 Weeks." The AAN cited the show's efforts "to encourage more people to enter the nursing profession by highlighting the skill, compassion and dedication of nurses and the adventure and excitement of the travel nurse lifestyle." The show focused on six nurses working at Orange County hospitals for the travel nurse agency that made the show, Access Nurses. The Center was less impressed with "13 Weeks." We noted that the show "gets points for diversity, for avoiding most nursing stereotypes, and for giving career seekers some sense of what nurses do," but that the "focus [is] on the 'fun in the sun' aspects of travel nursing," that the "work portrayals are cursory and at times troubling," and that the "full-bore endorsement of travel nursing as a solution to the shortage is problematic." The series is credited to Access Nurses and RAW Productions.

The AAN also gave four Honorable Mention awards for media activities. They went to:

"A New Look at the Old," American Journal of Nursing, Nancy A. Stotts, EdD, RN, FAAN, and Carole E. Deitrich, MS, GNP, RN, Series Editors, Katherine A. Kany, BS, RN, Project Manager, Diana J. Mason, RN, PhD, FAAN, Editor-in-Chief (and Center advisory panel member) ;

"Coach Broyles' Playbook for Alzheimer's Caregivers," University of Arkansas for Medical Services, University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, Beverly Healthcare, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.;

"Medscape Nurses Website Responds to Hurricane Katrina," Medscape Nurses;

"The Mighty Force," Advance for Nurses, Pamela Tarapchak, Editor, Barbara Drosey, Assistant Editor.

Learn more about all the Media Award winners here.

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