Celebrating Alumni Award Winners

Celebrating Alumni Award Winners

Duke University School of Nursing (DUSON) is holding its annual Nursing Reunion Weekend April 6-7 with more than 100 alumni representing years ending in 2 and 7 along with the Half Century Club, faculty, staff and students expected to attend.

During the Alumni Luncheon Celebration, our distinguished alumni, faculty and friends will be recognized and awarded for their significant contributions to the School and the nursing community at large. This year’s award recipients are:

Distinguished Alumnus Award

Robert T. Dodge, PhD, MSN’96, RN, ANP, BC, CNS, AACRN

Dodge is a clinical associate professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine and a clinical director of the Infectious Diseases Clinic at Wake County Human Services in Raleigh, N.C.

He has been working in the field of HIV/AIDS since 1992 through clinical care, education, research and administration. His clinical experiences range from public health to private institutions. Dodge has participated in the educational training of nurses, physicians and pharmacists and has guided clinical trials that have created new ways of practice.

Dodge developed the Bridge Counselor Program for Wake County Human Services to educate and provide short-term case management for newly diagnosed HIV patients in the community. The program tracks patients who have not been seen by a medical provider for the past nine months. The bridge counselor position has become a standard of care for all clinics in North Carolina funded by the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency (CARE) Act.

He earned a diploma in nursing from St. Joseph’s College of Nursing in Syracuse, N.Y.; a bachelor of nursing science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; a master of science in nursing from Duke University School of Nursing; and a PhD from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

Humanitarian Award

Robin P. Goff, MAV, BSN’68

Goff is the spiritual leader of The Light Center, a Unity Worldwide Ministries center dedicated to living, learning and growing in partnership with nature, in rural Baldwin City, Kan. For 22 years, the center has pioneered in the field of holistic health education, offering a wide range of retreats and workshops on spiritual healing and self-development.

She has been a leader in the conversation about integrative health care in the greater Kansas City area and has been a program presenter at numerous national and international conventions. Goff served as a hospice chaplain for 10 years and held a stress management consultant position at Kansas City Hospice. She taught extensively about the use of complementary modalities in terminal illness as well as stress management.

Over the past 12 years, Goff has led The Light Center’s Love Light program, which offers outreach in South Africa. The program provides leadership development camps for teens and focuses on youth empowerment. Goff and her team served the small town of Riviersonderend, South Africa, which experiences 60 percent unemployment as well as tuberculosis and HIV pandemics. Currently, 13 young people attend major universities with mentorship and financial assistance from the program.

Goff earned a bachelor of science in nursing degree from Duke University School of Nursing and a master of arts in values from San Francisco Theological Seminary.

Distinguished Contributions to Nursing Science Award

Eun-Ok Im, PhD, MPH, RN, CNS, FAAN

Im is the Mary T. Champagne Professor of Nursing at Duke University School of Nursing. Her most outstanding contribution to nursing is a research program that adopts Internet and computer technologies to eliminate gender and ethnic disparities. She has taken the lead in this burgeoning field, and her current studies are among the first of their kind to use these technologies to build nursing knowledge.

She has gained national and international recognition as a methodologist and theorist in international cross-cultural women’s health. She has served on more than 45 research review panels of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and is also a reviewer for the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute and the American Heart Association.

Im’s current research focuses on gender and ethnic differences in health and illness experiences of midlife women. Her doctoral research and postdoctoral study focused on international cross-cultural women’s health. Im’s work has extended to oncology areas, and she has developed an Internet research methodology as an area of expertise. She serves as principal investigator (PI) in a series of NIH-funded awards on gender and ethnic differences in cancer pain, menopausal symptoms and physical activity. She has obtained about $17.5 million of research funding and other grants, including four R01 grants as the PI.

Im earned bachelor of science and master of public health degrees from Seoul National University in South Korea and a master of science degree and a PhD in nursing from the University of California, San Francisco.

Honorary Alumna Award

Brigit Carter, PhD, MSN, RN, CCRN

Carter is an associate professor and director of the Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (ABSN) Program at Duke University School of Nursing. She joined the School in 2010 and teaches pediatrics and complex conditions. Carter continues her clinical practice as a staff nurse in the Duke University Medical Center Intensive Care Nursery, where she has 16 years of experience.

She has increased nursing education opportunities for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, including underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities. She is the project director and academic coordinator of the Health Resources and Services Administration Nursing Workforce Diversity grant at the School of Nursing – the Academy for Academic and Social Enrichment and Leadership Development for Health Equity. Carter also served as the academic coordinator for the Making a Difference in Nursing II program, a federally-funded program committed to increasing the number of underrepresented minorities in nursing, until the program ended in 2013.

Her research focuses on nursing care of premature infants with feeding intolerance, and she seeks to identify measurable methods for early detection of the phenomenon.

Carter has 28 years of U.S. Navy service, including nine years on active duty, and is currently serving in the rank of Commander in the U.S. Navy Reserves. She is stationed at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, Va., and serves in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Carter earned a bachelor of science degree from North Carolina Central University, a master of science degree in nursing education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a PhD in nursing from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Congratulations to all of our Nursing Alumni Award winners! Share your congratulatory messages with them via Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

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