Welcome to the inaugural Excellence in Nursing honors! A peer-survey project that celebrates exemplary nurses practicing in the Greater Chesapeake Bay Region. This is nurses celebrating nurses!
In a year unlike any other we’ve collectively experienced—and coincidentally the 200th anniversary of the founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale’s, birth—we fittingly honor the many women and men on the frontlines of medicine. Days in, days out, and every nightshift for 365 days every year, nurses care for the sick, wounded, healing, and hopeful. They are our heroes.
We called upon our local nurses practicing throughout Anne Arundel and Prince George’s counties—and far and wide on the Eastern Shore—to nominate and, therefore, honor the most commendable of their peers in the field, in more than 15 areas of specialty. Some categories were especially active with nominations and that is reflected in the varying amounts of nurses honored in each category—the top nominated nurses in each category are honored. In several cases, many nurses are honored in a category; in others, few.
This past summer, and in partnership with the Maryland Nurses Association—the de facto state-wide, nonprofit, multipurpose professional membership organization and voice for Registered Nurses in Maryland—we conducted a peer-survey open to any and all licensed nurses practicing in the State, but especially within the counties named herein. The response was phenomenal, considering that hundreds of nurses took time out of their incredibly busy and fatigued professional and personal lives to complete the surveys. We are greatly indebted to them for this valuable time and consideration.
The value of this project exceeds those of other “Best Of” type projects in that this is truly professionals nominating professionals. This was not open to the public at large. Only licensed nurses and medical professionals contributed to this survey. And although the process was anonymous in theory (state RN license number was required to access the survey), we did solicit our nurses to offer their “reason for nomination” of their peers. And it is those responses that are truly endearing and encapsulate what teamwork, leadership, camaraderie, and family mean to this profession. You’ll read a few of their remarks, sprinkled into the listings.
To our nurses: Thank you so very much for your time and participation. You are a gift to the medical community and community at large.
To our readers: It is our belief and hope that the following list of Excellence in Nursing honorees is to your benefit, but only scratches the surface of acknowledging the thousands of nurses caring for ourselves and our loved ones. Today, tomorrow, and in moments yet realized, I urge you to thank a nurse. Their reciprocation is empathy, knowledge, and a lifeline of care.
