UWs Burman Named American Academy of Nursing Fellow

Mary Burman, dean of the University of Wyoming Fay W. Whitney School of Nursing, has been selected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (AAN).

Burman is among 164 leaders in the field of nursing from around the world who will be inducted during AAN’s 2016 “Transforming Health, Driving Policy” Conference Oct. 20 in Washington, D.C.

The academy is composed of more than 2,400 nurse leaders in education, management, practice, policy and research. AAN fellows include hospital and government administrators, college deans and renowned scientific researchers.

“Invitation to fellowship is more than recognition of one’s accomplishments within the nursing profession,” according to AAN’s goals. “Academy fellows also have a responsibility to contribute their time and energies to the academy, and to engage with other health leaders outside the academy in transforming America’s health system.”

“I am delighted to welcome this superb cohort of talented clinicians, researchers, policy leaders, educators and executives as they join the ranks of the nation’s leading nursing and health care thought leaders,” says AAN President Bobbie Berkowitz. “We look forward to celebrating their accomplishments at our conference, and then working with them to advance the academy’s mission of transforming health policy and practice by applying our collective nursing knowledge.”

Selection criteria for AAN fellows include evidence of significant contributions to nursing and health care, and sponsorship by two current AAN fellows. Applicants are reviewed by a panel composed of elected and appointed fellows, and selection is based, in part, on the extent the nominee’s nursing career has influenced health policies and the health and well-being of all.

Burman, Fay W. Whitney School of Nursing dean since 2008, has accumulated many accolades, among them being named a Fellow of the Robert Wood Johnson Fellowship Executive Fellows Program in 2007; as Fellow in the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners in 2008; as “Trailblazer” by the Wyoming Women’s Foundation in 2014; as “Advocate of the Year” from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing in 2014; and as winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Wyoming Nurses Association in 2014.

The Wyoming award was for Burman’s innovation and development of programs, and her contributions to boards and committees to advance the practice of nursing and health care in Wyoming.

She has been among the leaders of ReNEW (Revolutionizing Nursing Education in Wyoming), working to bring about the cooperation of the university and the state’s community colleges to write a statewide nursing curriculum. That curriculum will make it easier for nurses prepared at the associate-degree level to earn baccalaureate and higher degrees. The implementation of the new ReNEW curriculum is scheduled for this fall.

“As you look at the future of nursing, we need a different type of nurse clinician,” Burman says.

She focuses on encouraging higher education, which will help nurses build the skills they need to care for an increasing and increasingly complex population of patients.

For more information, contact Burman at (307) 766-6569 or mburman@uwyo.edu.

For more information about AAN, visit www.aannet.org/fellows.