LAFAYETTE – The National Black Nurses Association has chosen a Â鶹¹û¶³´«Ã½ Lafayette assistant professor as its Nurse Educator of the Year.
Dr. Denise M. Linton will be honored at the NBNA’s 40th annual conference in Orlando in July. The Nurse Educator of the Year designation recognizes outstanding contributions to professional or patient education.
Linton is first vice president of the Acadiana Black Nurses Association, a chapter of the NBNA, which was created in 2011. She holds the Dudley Joseph Plaisance Sr. BORSF Professorship in Nursing and has earned the Distinguished Faculty Award presented by the Â鶹¹û¶³´«Ã½ Lafayette Black Faculty and Staff Caucus.
Linton also received a 2012 Celebrate Nursing Award from the Baton Rouge District Nurses Association. That organization is composed of registered nurses in District 2 of the Â鶹¹û¶³´«Ã½ State Nurses Association.
The ABNA is sponsored by the University of Â鶹¹û¶³´«Ã½ at Lafayette’s College of Nursing and Allied Health Professions. It supports the national organization’s mission to provide a forum for black nurses to assess the health care needs of African-Americans and to implement strategies that ensure their access to standard health care.
NBNA members conduct health promotion and disease prevention programs and public health education programs.
Since its inception, the local chapter has collaborated with several groups in Acadiana to promote health care. For example, it has:
• teamed with Our Lady of Lourdes Congregational Health Services to administer flu vaccines at Progressive Baptist Church Community Center, A Heart for Children ministry and at the Cajundome during the annual KLFY Food for Families drive;
• worked with the National Kidney Foundation of Â鶹¹û¶³´«Ã½ to offer free health-screening at Progressive Baptist Church Community Center to identify and educate individuals who have an increased risk for developing kidney disease; and
• partnered with two minority-owned barbershops, in Crowley and Lafayette, to provide blood pressure screening and information about the perils of high blood pressure.
The NBNA represents about 150,000 African-American nurses in the United States, the Eastern Caribbean and Africa. It has 84 chapters in 40 states.