Fay Whitney Receives UW Medallion Service Award |
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Oct. 10, 2005 -- Fay W. Whitney, a University of Wyoming emeritus professor of nursing for whom the university's school of nursing is named, is the recipient of the 2005 Medallion Service Award.
The Medallion Service Award, initiated in 1968 but not given annually, recognizes outstanding service and dedication to the university.
Whitney will give a presentation at 9 a.m. Friday, Oct. 14, in Room 364 of the UW Health Sciences Center, followed by a reception at 10 a.m. in the center's third floor lobby. She will ride in the UW Homecoming parade at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 15.
Whitney, who was born in Syracuse, N.Y., says she always knew the direction her life would take. "I wanted to be a nurse from when I was a tiny girl," she says.
Both she and her future husband Roy attended the University of Rochester. They later moved to a farm outside Syracuse. Roy first studied liberal arts but later went back to school to earn his M.B.A. degree. He joined an investment banking firm, of which he is now president and CEO.
Fay earned a Ph.D. from the University of Syracuse and joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, teaching social science and economics to nurse practitioners. Ten years later, she and Roy bought a ranch near Wheatland, so Fay could continue teaching at UW.
Whitney started in 1993 as a visiting professor and later became the director of UW's nurse practitioner program. At that time, the UW program graduated only five to 10 students every other year. Under her supervision, the school began offering courses that allowed working nurses to attend classes during weekends. She also helped create an interdisciplinary program that reflects real-world needs.
Today UW's nurse practitioner program graduates an average of 11 students each year, about six or seven of whom typically stay in Wyoming. The state had 27 nurse practitioners when Whitney arrived; now there are more than 200, many of whom work in underprivileged and rural areas.
"It's hard to get primary care for those folks," Whitney says.
To help provide care for seniors, Whitney helped open a wellness clinic at Laramie's Eppson Senior Center.
"We did a lot of training of health providers for elderly with pharmacy students, social work students and others," she says. "We focused on health programs, not sick programs. That's become popular around the country now."
Much of Whitney's own research has focused on stroke, an area that didn't receive a lot of attention in the past. "It needed to grow," she says. "This is what I do: I find something that needs to grow and grow it."
Fay taught at UW until retiring in 2002, though as an emeritus professor she continues to have an office on campus and work with graduate students. In 1999, Roy "surprised" Fay by donating $3 million to help renovate the College of Health Sciences Center. Fay says the new center consolidates several health science disciplines under one roof.
"It makes research and interdisciplinary practice easier," she says. "If you're doing health care, you have to work with other nurses, pharmacists, physicians. If you're going to work together, you need people to be educated together. It promotes a team approach, which is important."
Posted on Monday, October 10, 2005
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