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The University of Akron’s College of Nursing will host the area’s first Cameos of Caring awards gala on Nov. 16 at the Radisson Hotel Akron City Centre, beginning at 6 p.m. Monica Robins, health reporter and anchor for WKYC-TV in Cleveland, will serve as emcee for the evening.
The gala will bond the University, the health care community and presenting sponsor Johnson & Johnson in a celebration of nursing excellence. A cameo is defined as a gem carved in relief, and eight Akron-area nurses will be honored as “gems” at the event.
Akron General Medical Center, Children’s Hospital Medical Center of Akron and Summa Health System are co-sponsors of the event. In addition, Barberton Citizens Hospital and Cuyahoga Falls General Hospital will participate in this community salute to the nursing profession.
The gala is patterned after a program instituted four years ago in Pittsburgh. Akron is the third community in the nation to adopt a Cameos of Caring program.
Cynthia Flynn Capers, dean of the College of Nursing, says the program is designed to enhance the image of nursing, retain current nurses and recruit new nursing students.
“By publicly promoting the nursing profession, we hope to bring attention to the opportunities in the field and to honor and recognize clinical nurses who are making a difference in the lives of patients and their families,” Capers says. “The event also will establish a scholarship fund to attract students to the nursing profession.”
Cameos of Caring was created in 1999 by Ellen B. Rudy, former dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing, to honor “those unsung heroes on the front lines of health care.”
During a recent visit to UA as a distinguished lecturer within the College of Nursing, Rudy expressed her delight at the prospect of a Cameos of Caring event in Akron.
“Cameos of Caring has proven to have a positive effect on the profession of nursing and recruitment,” she says. “It is time to give nurses a pat on the back and to encourage nurses to continue their work on the front lines of health care.”
The participating hospitals identified the nurses who will be honored at the Nov. 16 event. The honorees were chosen because of their demonstrated excellence in patient care, and their work as advocates for patients and their families.
Each honoree will receive a glass sculpture depicting a nurse comforting a patient. They are:
Mary Ellen Bonin, staff nurse, and Dana Nelson, clinical nurse specialist, Akron General Medical Center; Beth Diefendorff and Susan Gough, staff nurses, Children’s Hospital Medical Center of Akron; Rita Yvonne Hagen, staff nurse, Cuyahoga Falls General Hospital, Summa Health System Hospitals; Linda Jeffis, registered nurse, Barberton Citizens Hospital; Mark Knaus, registered nurse, Akron City Hospital, Summa Health System Hospitals; and Susan Sheppard, staff nurse, St. Thomas Hospital, Summa Health System Hospitals.
Tickets are $75 and can be obtained by calling ext. 6674. A reception begins at 6 p.m., followed by dinner at 7 p.m. and then the awards ceremony dinner.
For more information about the Cameos of Caring program, contact Linda Linc, a UA professor of nursing who is coordinating the event, at ext. 5933 or linc@uakron.edu .
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