The 31st annual Congress of the Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) in May drew more than 6,000 oncology nurses to Boston. Pearl Moore, left, executive director of the ONS for three decades and a founding member of the association, presents the International Award for Contributions to Cancer Care to Margaret Fitch, PhD, RN, president of the International Society of Nurses in Cancer Care, at the opening session. Moore is retiring in January 2007; the ONS has not yet named a new executive director.
The Jonas Center for Nursing Excellence made its official debut on May 3 in New York City with a celebration and the announcement of the 11 organizations to receive the first grants in their "Who Will Care for Me?" program. The center is the first of three initiatives to be funded by the Barbara and Donald Jonas Family Fund and the only one to focus specifically on nursing. Grants between $150,000 and $400,000 were awarded for up to three years to develop and implement projects focused on improving nurse recruitment and retention in New York City health care agencies. The recipients are the Columbia University School of Nursing; the Greater New York Hospital Association Foundation; New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation; Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing; the Lehman College Department of Nursing, City University of New York; Long Island University; New York-Presbyterian Medical Center; the New York University College of Nursing; the Lienhard School of Nursing, Pace University; Queens Hospital Center; and the Visiting Nurse Service of New York. Pictured here are Donald Jonas and Marilyn DeLuca, the executive director of the Jonas Center for Nursing Excellence.
The Fourth National Conference of State Workforce Centers, held in Jersey City, New Jersey, in April brought together leaders of more than 30 nursing workforce centers from around the country to discuss issues and strategies surrounding nursing workforce research and development. Geri Dickson, executive director of the New Jersey Collaborative Center for Nursing, based at the College of Nursing at Rutgers University, was host of the meeting. She noted that about half of the states developed centers as an outgrowth of the "Colleagues in Caring" projects, which were funded from 1996 to 2002 by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and were designed to foster collaboration between practice and education settings. Pictured are (from left) Dawn Ard, Martha Catlette, and Rosalyn Howard from the Mississippi Office of Nursing Workforce, whose work-force shortage issues in the southern part of the state were compounded by the destruction of health care facilities and displacement of personnel after Hurricane Katrina. For more information, go to http://www.nursingworkforcecenters.org.