KINGSTON, R.I., Sept 20, 2018 — Two faculty members at the University of Rhode Island College of Nursing are being recognized with Excellence in Nursing awards for their leadership in patient care and scientific research. Rhode Island Monthly magazine presents the awards annually in collaboration with the Rhode Island State Nurses Association.

Clinical Assistant Professor Michelle Palmer, a certified nurse midwife at Landmark Medical Center and Rhode Island Home Birth and Hope Family Health, was named Certified Nurse Midwife of the Year; and Professor Mary Sullivan, a research scientist at Women and Infants Hospital and adjunct professor in the department of pediatrics at the Alpert Medical School at Brown University, was named Nurse Scientist of the Year.

Excellence in Nursing honorees are nominated by peers and judged by an independent panel of nursing leaders from around the region.

“I am pleased and proud that professors Palmer and Sullivan are receiving well-deserved recognition for their significant contributions to patient care and the profession of nursing,” said Barbara Wolfe, dean of the URI College of Nursing. “Every day they demonstrate commitment to their patients, their students, the University, and the profession.”

Palmer, whose first degree is in art history from URI, came to her vocation in nurse midwifery after attending a friend’s home birth. Once she saw that baby being born, she knew midwifery was what she wanted to do, said Palmer, of Charlestown. She went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in nursing at Creighton University, a certificate of midwifery from Frontier Nursing University and her master’s from Case Western Reserve University. She said she has no regrets about having an art history degree because she knows that “the art of health care is just as important as the skill of health care.”

Sullivan began her nursing research career while pursuing her doctorate at URI, teaching at the College of Nursing, and as a member of an interdisciplinary scientific group. Before long, she had secured funding from the National Institutes of Health and embarked on studies of a group of premature infants that has lasted for 25 years, one of the longest U.S. study tracking their long-term health and developmental outcomes. Sullivan, of Narragansett, works to raise awareness about the important role of nursing science and how it informs practice, noting that nurses “make clinical judgments based on science to ensure better outcomes.”

The 2018 Excellence in Nursing awardees will be honored at a celebration Thursday, Sept. 27, at Harbor Lights in Warwick.