Posted: 8/17/2009
In honor of their work on health care disparities, Fannie Gaston-Johansson, PhD, RN, FAAN and Phyllis Sharps, PhD, RN, FAANboth professors at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing (JHUSON)have been inducted into the National Black Nurses Association (NBNA) Institute of Excellence.
“These faculty members have worked tirelessly to improve the health status of all people, especially those who are underserved, and to strengthen the profession of nursing,” says Dean Martha N. Hill, PhD, RN, FAAN. “They are certainly deserving of this honor.”
Gaston-Johansson, the first African-American woman to be a tenured full professor at Johns Hopkins University, is an internationally renowned nurse educator, researcher, and clinical practitioner. In 2007, she was named the inaugural chair of the JHUSON Department of Acute and Chronic Care. In the research arena, Gaston-Johansson directs the Center on Health Disparities Research, which works to advance understanding of health disparities across the lifespan, and leads the international and interdisciplinary Minority Global Health Disparities Research Training Program. She also is co-director of a post-doctoral training program in breast cancer research for underserved and minority women.
Sharps, also an inaugural Chair of a JHUSON Department – Community Public Health – serves as the director of three health and wellness centers operated by the School and provides care in a Baltimore shelter for homeless battered women and their children. Working at the forefront of community and public health nursing and at the interface of mental and physical health, Sharps conducts ongoing community-based, participatory research and consults on cultural competency in research conducted among African-American women and in African-American communities.
Gaston-Johansson and Sharps were inducted into the Institute of Excellence at an NBNA luncheon on Tuesday, August 4, 2009 in Toronto, Canada. NBNA is a non-profit organization representing 150,000 African American registered nurses, licensed vocational/practical nurses, nursing students, and retired nurses from the USA, Eastern Caribbean and Africa, with 79 chartered chapters in 34 states.