UVA Health's 2019 Nursing Excellence Award recipients were Kathleen M. Rea (BSN `93, MSN `02), who was celebrated for excellence in advanced practice nursing, and Gary G. Jones (BSN `19), who was named the 2019 Preceptor of the Year. Kathleen and Gary both live in Charlottesville, VA.

At the Virginia Nurses Association gala in September, Sallie Rosenberger Eissler (BSN `75) received the Nancy Vance Award, the CNA's highest honor, in recognition of her exceptional leadership, sustained dedication, and inspiring achievements over the course of her 45-year nursing career.

Sallie--a member of the American Nurses Association Political Action Committee--led the development of Family Health Connection, a mobile medical service at Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center, and was director of community operations at Kaiser Permanente Mid-Atlantic. She also served as elected comissioner on government affairs for the VNA, as vice-president of the Medical Society of Virginia Foundation, and on the Alumni Council's scholarship committee.

Sallie--pictured above with fellow alumnae Mary Wright Baylor (right) and Linda Halpin (both BSN `75), lives in Lorton, VA.

Ann Duffey Garrey (BSN ’85) was selected to be a visiting expert by the Ministry of Health in Singapore where she will spend two weeks visiting multiple hospitals and clinics focusing on healthcare risk management and clinical governance.

Ann, who served as president of the American Society for Health Care Risk Management, part of the American Hospitals Association, in 2016, also serves as an expert for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's Marking Healthcare Safer Ill Patient Safety Practices. In addition, Ann is vice chair of the National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention, board chair of the National Perinatal Information Center, and serves on the advisory council for the Coalition to Improve Diagnosis. She lies in Arlington, VA, with her husband.

Susan Conaty-Buck (MSN '03, DNP '09) is an assistant professor and informatics researcher at the University of Delaware School of Nursing and College of Health Sciences in Newark, DE, where she teaches DNP, MSN, and MBA students and is a family nurse practitioner.

In 2019, Susan was named a Fellow of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, selected because of her advocacy on behalf of nurse practitioners and their use healthcare informatics to improve patient care. Currently president of the Delaware Coalition of Nurse Practitioners, Susan participates in the American Medical Informatics Association’s Academic Forum, and is a board member of the Delmarva Region American Nurses Informatics Association. One of just 35 nursing faculty from across the nation selected by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing for its Apple Digital Innovation Boot Camp in 2019, Susan also serves as national coordinator and a reviewer for health information technology grants, and has been an invited panelist for the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Service's work to reduce clinician burden. 

Former Compassionate Care Initiative Director Tim Cunningham (MSN ’09) offered the keynote address at the Schwartz Center’s Compassion in Action Healthcare Conference in Boston, MA, last September. In his talk, Cunningham shared his experiences as a humanitarian clown and a front-line caregiver during the West Africa Ebola outbreak. Last summer, Tim started a new job as corporate director of patient and family centered care at Emory Healthcare in Atlanta, GA.

Jody Ann Chance (BSN ’12, MSN ’17) joined Riverside Heath System, in Onancock, VA, after working for ten years as a flight paramedic and nurse with VCU Health System. In her new role, Jody Ann—a nurse practitioner—focuses on family medicine and gastroenterology. 

Since 2017, Patricia A. Kinser (PHD ’12) has served as a member of the Virginia State Board of Health (term 2017-2020). Kinser, of Richmond, VA, and an associate professor at VCU School of Nursing, was appointed by then Gov. Terry McAuliffe to serve as the primary advocate and representative of the citizens of the Commonwealth in achieving optimal health. As a board member, she provides leadership in planning and policy development for the state, and, with fellow members, implements a coordinated, prevention-oriented program that promotes and protects health across the Commonwealth.

Arletha Nicole Kincaid (BSN ’13), of Middletown, RI, earned a master’s degree in from VCU last May, and practices as a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner in Greater Boston.

Margaret Bickley Coston (BSN ’14) celebrated June reunions with husband Taylor Coston. The couple resides in Nashville, TN, where Margaret is a nurse in the stem cell and surgical ICU at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where Taylor is a resident in internal medicine.

UVA labor and delivery nurse Carolyn Joan Saunders (BSN ’17) received the Daisy Award last July after a nomination from a grateful patient who lauded her guidance during childbirth.

Wrote the new mom: “I believe whole-heartedly that I wouldn’t have been able to do it without her . . .  she went above what was required, [using] her knowledge of birthing positions to engage my daughter’s head, and empowering my husband and the medical resident to experience the labor process to the fullest. [The experience] exceeded any expectation I could’ve ever [had] for a caregiver/supporter  . . .  My husband and I could not thank her enough for her humility and compassion towards our family. We will forever be grateful and hope that she knows what a gift she was to us.”

Psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner Dallas Michelle Ducar (MSN `17, PM `19) spoke at the Schwartz Center’s Compassion in Action Healthcare Conference in September, was part of a HubWeek panel—“A More Inclusive Future”—sponsored by Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and the Boston Globe in October, and shared her Aug. 12, 2017 experience working in Charlottesville with PBS’s “Stories From the Stage.”

Dallas is the sole full-time nurse practitioner at MGH’s Transgender Health Program in Boston, MA, where she lives with her partner.