Dean named 'nurse hero' for work following Hurricane Katrina

Janet S. Rami, dean of Southern University, Baton Rouge's School of Nursing, has been named a "Nurse Hero" for her visionary leadership in providing primary health care services for residents of Renaissance Village, the FEMA trailer park for evacuees of Hurricane Katrina.

The award cited Rami's mobilization of nurses and volunteers to get health care to the more than 1,000 residents of Renaissance Village. The award goes to "Nurse Heroes for their Acts of Valor."

Family nurse practitioners in collaboration with a family practice physician provided on-site healthcare for two years via the School of Nursing's mobile health clinic, the Jag Mobile. Rami was cited for her leadership role in the coordination of health care at Renaissance Village and in the efficient delivery of those services.

"I do not see myself as a hero," Rami said. "I think all of those brave nurses that stayed behind in New Orleans in those awful days after Hurricane Katrina, in unbearable conditions, are nurse heroes."

She says the experience made clear the power of nursing. "The idea that a nursing school could actually go into a FEMA village of 1,500 people ... and they would allow us to independently control all the health care in their village - that's the most amazing thing when I look at it. But we did it," Rami says.

Rami was one of 10 nurses to receive the honor, which was co-sponsored by the Johnson & Johnson Campaign for Nursing's Future, Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing, Nursing Spectrum and NurseWeek magazines.

For more, see article from Nursing Spectrum and Nurse.com.