Nancy Turrubiates, lecturer and public health clinical coordinator in the School of Nursing, has received the North Dakota Legendary Nurse Award for Faculty Achievement from the North Dakota Center for Nursing.
The recipient demonstrates excellence in teaching, engaging students in the love for nursing and supports student growth. North Dakota nursing peers nominate candidates for the award.
Nominators noted that Turrubiates demonstrates both excellence in teaching and ingenuity in developing public health clinicals each semester.
Turrubiates led students to address aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic by incorporating public health interventions such as screening, case finding and outreach. She also is a U.S. Army major who provides nursing students with opportunities — often embedded in the community instead of the classroom.
“Providing healthcare always takes skill and teamwork, but the pandemic is an ‘all-hands-on-deck’ event where NDSU nursing students across the state stepped up in many ways to help their communities,” said Carla Gross, nursing chair and associate dean. “NDSU Nursing faculty, including Dr. Turrubiates, were among many coordinating that critical assistance.”
Under the guidance of Turrubiates, nursing students in NDSU’s community health class helped the homeless population of the Fargo-Moorhead community, the YWCA, residents of permanent supportive housing, NDSU campus community, migrant population of the Fargo-Moorhead area and NDSU Food Pantry. Nursing students also provided nutrition and screening education, blood pressure screening and food pantry resources to families.
In addition, under Turrubiates’s leadership, nursing students provided mental health information and resources to students living on campus at NDSU as the pandemic resulted in an increase in stress and mental health concerns.
“Providing assistance to an individual within your own community takes the concept of intervention out of the textbook and makes it real; showing just how capable we all are of making a difference,” said one NDSU nursing student who participated in those activities.
In addition, during the pandemic NDSU nursing students delivered care packages to more than 200 students quarantined on campus, providing information and support.
NDSU nursing students also were trained and provided COVID-19 testing and contact tracing at the beginning of the pandemic. NDSU Nursing students in Fargo and in Bismarck were among the first to help vaccinate healthcare workers and community members during the pandemic.
Turrubiates helped arrange for NDSU nursing students to lead a community health fair for an underserved group in Moorhead, Minnesota, providing services in the clients’ primary language with the help of translators, while gaining cultural and community awareness.
Turrubiates is also a member of the Red River COVID Task Force. In her Army duties, she was mobilized in 2020 as part of an 85-person team providing COVID-19 education to civilian hospital personnel and screening or testing support.
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