Associations News

NPWH Award Winners

Inspirations in Women’s Health Awards

NPWH and Teva Women’s Health are proud to announce the 2009 Inspiration in Women’s Health Award recipients. Each award recipient received full tuition and travel expenses for the NPWH Annual Conference. In addition, the winner receives a $2000 scholarship and each honorable mention recipient is awarded a $500 scholarship.

Normadeane Armstrong, PhD, RN, ANP-BC, was this year’s recipient of the Inspirations in Women’s Health Award. Normadeane, of New York, was a founding committee chairperson of the Community Health and Environment Coalition. Her passion for women’s health has led her to go door to door throughout her community to educate people about the risk for cancer. Normadeane serves as a member of Congressman Tim Bishop’s Breast Cancer Advisory Board. In addition, she has become an international expert on rubella and congenital rubella syndrome.

Shali Sanders, WHNP, OB/GYN NP, is an honorable mention recipient for 2009. Shali established two private practices in rural areas of western Massachusetts. Since establishing these practices in small factory towns, she had the opportunity to provide services to Sudanese women who have suffered from female genital cutting. Shali is a bladder incontinence specialist who uses biofeedback to help women learn proper muscle control, rather than undergo surgery or use medications, to stop incontinence. Shali also teaches dance, yoga, and body awareness classes.

Susan Elliott, PhD, RNC, FNP, WHNP, hails from California but volunteered in a mission hospital in Swaziland. While there, she was trained in midwifery and realized that this practice was her calling. She returned home, studied US obstetrics, and became a WHNP. Susan has provided women’s health care in many countries, ranging from Russia to Rwanda. She has trained many medical students and nursing students, both here and abroad. Susan was the first to author a textbook chapter on international family nursing, and she created a graduate International Health Family NP Program.

NPWH Women’s Health Champion Award

NPWH awarded Amy Niemann, of Teva Women’s Health, the Women’s Health Champion Award. Amy was presented with this award at the conference for her outstanding efforts and persistence in ensuring over-the-counter access for Plan B and for pursing FDA approval for the single-dose regimen for the Plan B regimen. We congratulate Amy on her continued work to improve the health of women worldwide.

Susan Wysocki Leadership Award

Mary Rubin, RNC, PhD, CRNP, was recognized at NPWH’s 12th annual meeting with the prestigious Susan Wysocki Leadership Award. This award recognizes nurse practitioners who have made substantial contributions to the advancement of the field of women’s health, the NP profession, and/or NPWH. The annual Swy Award is sponsored by NP Communications, LLC.

Dr Rubin is an associate clinical professor at the University of California San Francisco School of Nursing and a research coordinator for Gyn Oncology at UCSF. She has been a clinician, educator, and researcher in the field of women’s health for more than 35 years. In particular, the award recognizes Dr Rubin as a pioneer of the role of NP colposcopists. Dr Rubin has taught hundreds of students in colposcopy or influenced their training through programs she developed. She was a major contributor to the Colposcopy Education & Clinical Training Standards developed by NPWH in 1993.

In 1998, Dr Rubin received the American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology (ASCCP) Meritorious Award for championing the inclusion of advanced practice clinicians in that role. She was also the first NP on the board of ASCCP. In 2008, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from ASCCP for her contributions to the field of colposcopy.