Nurses Educational Funds, Inc.

Whittaker scholarship winner, Esther Bernhofer, has combined a diverse nursing career with the raising of 8 children. Graduating with her BSN from the University of Akron in 1981 and went on to work at various institutions in the Cleveland area. After joining the Cleveland Clinic as staff nurse on a respiratory unit, she renewed her interest in nursing research and education and returned to school in the BSN to PhD program at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. She has one more full time year to complete her dissertation “light, Sleep, Mood and Pain in the Medical Inpatient”. Her passion for pain management led her to take on a full time position as the Pain Management/Education Coordinator for the Medicine and Digestive Disease Institutes.

 

Scholarships for Education

Nurses Educational Funds, Inc. (NEF) is a not-for-profit organization which seeks and distributes funds to baccalaureate- prepared registered nurses who are in need of scholarship assistance for graduate study. NEF is administered by a Board of Directors comprised of prominent leaders in nursing, other professions, and in business. Nurses comprise the majority of board members.

 

NEF is preparing for an exciting 100th anniversary year. It was in 1912 that the first two Isabel Hampton Robb scholarships were awarded to two nurses,Cecelia Evans and Lisle French. From then til 2011, NEF has continued to support our nursing professional going on for graduate degrees. Hopefully, with the support of all our friends, we can continue with this work.

 

 

BOARD MEMBERS UPDATE

KATHLEEN DIRSCHEL, RN, PhD, one of NEF’s past Presidents and long time Board Member has just moved into a new top position at St. John’s = Vice President for Community Relations in the hospital.
Kathleen, who had been Dean of the Cochran School of Nursing assumed her new post at the in mid-
October. Many congratulations and best wishes to Kathleen.

And, in addition, last year Kathleen received recognition via a reception in her honor, as the Founding Dean of the Graduate School of Nursing at U Mass Medical Center in Worcester, Mass. With the beginning of the GSN (thanks to Kathleen) in 1986, the academic of the campus were considered complete. The GSN is still going strong today and has grown. It’s now involved in doctoral education. (It was started with just the Masters level.)

 

Madeleine Sugimoto, RN, M.Ed, Board Member and Chairman of the Criteria and Eligibility Committee was picked to do a cable TV interview discussing her experiences in the Japanese interment camps during World War 2. Below is the link so that you can see and hear Madeleine's informative and interesting interview.

http://vimeo.com/27647144

 

 

 


 

 

 



 

 

 

 

News and Updates

Meet Our Board

DANIEL M. SUAREZ, RN, MA started with the Nursing Spectrum in 2000 as NY/NJ Division Sales Manager and today is the New York Region Associate Director of Sales. Prior to joining the Spectrum, he was with North Central Bronx Hospital and New York Downtown Hospital as Associate Director of Nursing. Dan got his Masters in Administration of Nursing at Teacher’s College at Columbia and his BSN at Stony Brook University. (When he first entered nursing in the 70’s, he was became one of a small handful of male nurses and an even smaller handful of Hispanic nurses.

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Jerelyn Peixoto Weiss, RN, MS, FNP, JD

From 2005 to present Jerelyn has been the Director of Administration/In House Consultant for the Cochran School of Nursing. While holding this position, she also started working in 2007 as Pri-Med Moderator for the M/C Communications in Boston- and – spent time as Project Health Care Consultant for the American Italian Cancer Foundation in New York. Prior to that, she was VP of Clinical Operations and the Director of the New York/Chicago Executive Centers for EHE (Executive Health Exams International). Jerelyn started her nursing career as a Family Health Practitioner and Public Health Nurse at the Family Health Center in California. For two years, she worked as an Associate Attorney with a prominent New York Law firm specializing in medical malpractice.

Her BSN is from the University of California, School of Nursing in San Francisco and her MS from the University of California Family Nurse Practitioner program in Davis. She also found time to get a JD from the Santa Clara University School of Law.

Her numerous publications include “Nurse Practitioners and Women’s Health Care” and “The Nurse Practitioner Legal Handbook”. She is widely sought after as a lecturer giving presentations at Columbia, Bernard, CW Post Long Island University School of Nursing and Hunter College among others.

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