Gifford Medical Center offers healthy cooking classesGifford Medical Center offers healthy cooking classesGifford Medical Center offers healthy cooking classeGifford nurse educator wins state 'excellence' award
RANDOLPH, April 7, 2008 – Gifford Medical Center clinical nurse educator Andra Perreault receives an Excellence in Clinical Education award this week in Killington from the Vermont Organization of Nurse Leaders.
One of five people to receive the award statewide, Perreault was nominated for the honor by nurse manager Effie Farnham. Farnham nominated Perreault because of
the “great job” she’s doing at Gifford.
“She’s very enthusiastic about teaching,” Farnham says. “She loves following up on the latest research and
including it in her teaching so that Gifford is up-to-date
on the newest and best in clinical areas.”
A registered nurse, Perreault has worked at Gifford since 2006 in the Emergency Department and was promoted last
June to nurse educator, a role that involves training hospital nursing staff in telemetry and advanced cardiac life support among other skills.
Telemetry was among the first courses Perreault offered at Gifford. “Every one of my nurses loved it and learned a lot,” Farnham said.
“I’m really blown away with her ability to set-up a curriculum,” Farnham added of Perreault.
Perreault praised the support she has received particularly from nurse managers and doctors in her new role.
“The support that I have gotten from management for this position has been phenomenal,” she says.
Recognition from the Vermont Organization of Nurse Leaders is all the more “humbling,” Perreault says. “To get the recognition was significant for me.”
Perreault will receive her award at the organization’s Nursing Leadership – Summit 2008 at the Killington Grand Hotel to be held Thursday and Friday.
Perreault had already planned to attend the summit and is even a presenter. Receiving an award, however, came as a complete shock.
“I was totally surprised,” said Perreault, who was notified of the award recently by summit organizers.
Several Gifford nurses will be present to see Perreault receive her award and give her presentation. She’s presenting “an evidence-based, nurse-managed pain management protocol for patients presenting to the Emergency Department with a chief complaint of acute abdominal pain.”
“The presentation is a great example of how nurses can utilize current research to develop protocols that will improve the quality of health care we provide to our patients,” Perreault said.
It’s based on research she had done while in graduate school and working in Massachusetts. A nurse for nearly 14 years, Perreault came to Gifford from Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital, where she worked in the Emergency Department and also as a medical/surgical clinical instructor at the University of Massachusetts-Boston and part time at Children’s Hospital.
She previously worked in oncology and bone marrow transplant departments at Massachusetts General and with hospice patients. She also completed medical missions to underserved areas in Ecuador.
Perreault now lives in Barnard. She is married and has a 1-year-old son. The family is currently trying their hand at backyard sugaring.