NEW YORK NURSE: February 2008
Mary Byrne received the Audrey Hepburn Award for Contributions to the Health and Welfare of Children at Sigma Theta Tau International’s 2007 convention. Byrne, the Stone-Fish Professor for Clinical Health Care of the Underserved at Columbia University, was described as instrumental in her school’s research success. Her own program of research has studied ways to improve the lives of vulnerable populations, including HIV sero-reverter infants, children raised in prison, children receiving primary care in low-income neighborhoods, and seriously ill children. Byrne’s most recent work addresses maternal and child outcomes of a prison nursery program. She is the first nurse to assess maternal-infant attachment, parent-child interaction, parenting competency, and child development in a prison environment, a topic on which she was interviewed for National Public Radio. Byrne has been a member of the honor society since 1968 and is a candidate for the Doctorate of Nursing Practice at Columbia University School of Nursing.
NYSNA nursing representative Lillian Graham-Cox recently received the Eileen M. Hickey Labor Award from the Dutchess County Democratic Committee. Graham-Cox was nominated by the nurses of Arlington School District for her service to their bargaining unit, and is the first NYSNA staff member to receive the honor. Graham-Cox, a nurse for more than 24 years, developed a wealth of experience at a number of facilities, including Elmhurst Hospital, Lincoln Hospital, Montefiore Medical Center, Hudson Valley Hospital Center in Cortland Manor, and Vassar Brothers Medical Center in Poughkeepsie. At Vassar she developed an interest in understanding labor management relations and became grievance co-chairperson of her bargaining unit. Graham-Cox joined NYSNA in 2005 as a nursing representative, and describes it as “one of the most rewarding and most difficult jobs I’ve ever accepted…my goal is to give the nurses a voice in their workplace that would not ordinarily be there if it were not for NYSNA.”