June 24, 2016 News Release:
Mary Burman, PhD, FAANP, 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). According to the June 24, 2016 news release from AAN, Burman is one of 164 leaders in the field of nursing from around the nation who will be inducted during AAN’s 2016 “Transforming Health, Driving Policy” Conference Oct. 20 in Washington, D.C.
Invitation to fellowship
The American Academy of Nursing is comprised 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. The AAN web site states, “Invitation to fellowship is more than recognition of one’s accomplishments within the nursing profession. 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 Academy President, Bobbie Berkowitz, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN. "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."
About Burman
Burman, who has filled the deanship at the University of Wyoming Fay W. Whitney School of Nursing 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 certainly not least, as winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Wyoming Nurses Association in 2014.
The latter award was granted 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 at the center of revolutionizing nursing education in Wyoming (“ReNEW”), 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 associates-degree level to earn baccalaureate and higher degrees. The implementation of the new “ReNEW” curriculum is scheduled for this fall 2016.
“As you look at the future of nursing," says Burman, "we need a different type of nurse clinician.” So she focuses on encouraging higher education, which will help nurses build the skills they need in order to care for an increasing and increasingly complex population of patients.
Fellows welcome Burman
Fay Whitney
The University of Wyoming Fay W. Whitney School of Nursing namesake and AAN Fellow, Fay W. Whitney [pictured, left] expects great things of Burman's inclusion with the AAN Fellows:
"Dr. Mary Burman is the type of person everyone wants to be part of their 'team.' That is one of Mary's outstanding personal attributes that has made my 20+ years of friendship and work together in Wyoming wonderfully productive in many ways. It is also one of the basic values that the Academy has depended upon in members who have been inducted since its origin. The Academy made a fine choice in Mary, and she will not be a disappointment. She has the focus, determination, courage, ethical stamina, sense of the word 'collaboration,' and the social and mental intelligence to help others work together for goals that will change how our country views health, nursing and care for the people it serves.
And so, she will be a leader in the Academy, but also in facing the present/future health care arena. I am humbled by her accomplishments here in Wyoming and our rural arena. It is seldom that nurses/teachers/administrators/ and people in general can be proud to be on a 'team' together. I am certainly on this team.”
- Fay W. Whitney, PhD, RN, FAAN
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Gaurdia Banister
UW Nursing Alumna Gaurdia Banister, Executive Director for The Institute of Patient Care at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, is also a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and is impressed with Burman’s accomplishments:
“I see Mary as a trailblazer, innovator and a collaborator. She has been able to raise
the profile and importance of nursing and nursing practice throughout the state of
Wyoming. I’m especially impressed with the nursing model that despite having only
one four-year BSN program in a very large and rural state, she has forged impressive
relationships with community colleagues to ensure nurses from community colleges receive
a BSN as recommended in the [IOM] Future of Nursing report.”
- Gaurdia Banister, RN, PhD, NEA-BC, FAAN
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Diane Boyle
Nursing faculty Diane Boyle, Wyoming Excellence Chair in Nursing and also one of the few nurses in Wyoming to have been inducted as a Fellow into the AAN, agrees with Whitney and Banister:
“Dr. Burman is so deserving of this honor. She has worked tirelessly to lead development of innovative nursing programs designed to meet significant regional health needs and to provide greater access to BSN and graduate education in Wyoming and the region. She will bring considerable experience to the Academy in leadership development and board experience, which are key to the Academy’s specific goals, such as positioning nurses to lead change to improve health and health care.”
– Diane Boyle, PhD, RN, FAAN
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Selection criteria for AAN Fellows
The selection criteria for naming 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.
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Updated: 03-14-2017