Cullman Regional receives Community Partner Award from UAH

University of Alabama in Huntsville College of Nursing Graduate Program has chosen Cullman Regional as the recipient of its annual Community Partner Award.

The award is in recognition of Cullman Regional’s continued commitment to provide nurse practitioner students important precepting opportunities despite the extraordinary challenges during the COVID pandemic.

“Nursing is the backbone of healthcare,” said Charna Brown, RN, Chief Nursing Officer at Cullman Regional. “We commend these students for continuing their education in nursing and are grateful for the opportunity to contribute to that learning.”

Cullman Regional Clinical Educator Kelly Burnham, RN, was in attendance at the recent UAH Graduate Student Awards Program to receive the award. She works with multiple schools to provide student nurses with hospital-based training opportunities. For nurse practitioner students, these opportunities are necessary to earn an advanced degree and to be eligible to sit for the national certification exam.

“Most hospitals recognize the importance of providing these opportunities, especially when there is a nursing shortage,” said Burnham. “We’re also looking at it as an opportunity to showcase Cullman Regional and share what a great place it is to work.”

On average, Cullman Regional hosts 125 graduate and undergraduate student nurses each semester for onsite group clinical training with their instructors and individual preceptorships with Cullman Regional staff nurses.

 

Pictured in photo left to right:

Karen H. Frith, Ph.D., RN, NEA-BC, CNE, Dean and Professor College of Nursing; Kelly Burnham, RN, Cullman Regional Clinical Educator; Tracie Clark Morgan, DNP, CRNP, FNP Program Coordinator and Clinical Assistant Professor; Louise C. O’Keefe, Ph.D., CRNP, CNE, FAANP, FAAOHN Interim Associate Dean of Graduate Programs and Associate Professor, College of Nursing