SoN student and alumna honored by the NBNA for their achievements

Tamaria Parks

When the National Black Nurses Association, Inc., (NBNA) holds its 32 nd Annual Institute and Conference this year, two UW-Madison School of Nursing (SoN) alumnae will be present to accept the institute's prestigious nursing awards.

The NBNA will extend its highest praise at the President's Gala the evening of August 7, 2004, to Tamaria Parks '04 for academic accomplishments as a nursing student and Brenda Dockery '77, MSN, CFNP, APNP, for demonstrating excellence in advanced practice nursing.

Parks will be conferred the Student Nurse of the Year Award, which recognizes outstanding academic achievement. This award comes on the heels of a comparable award bestowed in May of 2004 by the SoN recognizing her strength in academics. At this year's SoN convocation, classmates lauded Parks for being strong academically and undertaking sacrifice to complete nursing school. As a returning adult student, Parks wanted a career that made a positive effect in people's lives--hence, nursing became her choice. She currently is active in the Foundation of Life Family Worship Center, where she heads the greeter and health ministry. Parks also is a member of the Milwaukee Chapter of the National Black Nurses Association.

Dockery is a family nurse practitioner at CH Mason Health Center in Milwaukee and an exemplary advocate of the center's mission: to emphasize the respect and dignity of patients, employees and the communities it serves by providing quality, compassionate care. She is the recipient of the NBNA Advanced Practice Nurse of the Year award, which recognizes excellence in the clinical area at the advanced practice level. Dockery also is president of the Milwaukee Chapter of the NBNA.

The NBNA, which represents 150,000 African American nurses across the USA, in the Eastern Caribbean and Africa, provides them a forum for collective action to examine the health care needs of African Americans and to make available health care that is commensurate with the larger society.