A local nurse was honored by the Colorado Nurses Foundation with a Nightingale award – Colorado's highest honor in nursing.
Rhonda Lewis, RN, BSN, CDE, also the director of Diabetes Education at Parkview Medical Center, received Colorado's highest honor in nursing on Saturday, May 13, during the Nightingale Gala. She was one of 12 recipients to earn a Nightingale award -- the highest honor to be awarded to a nurse. Lewis has been with Parkview Medical Center since 2000, but has worked as a nurse for nearly 36 years. At Parkview, she leads a team in creating an education program for the community that's focused on diabetes, as well as operating the department. [caption id="attachment_15777" align="aligncenter" width="348"]
Rhonda Lewis (left) pictured with Jan Philson, who is another nurse that was recognized at the Gala (photo courtesy of Fox21 News)[/caption]
Her husband, Larry, received a Nightingale award in 1997 for his work establishing a pediatric hospice.
According to the Colorado Area Health Education Center, the Nightingale Awards were first founded back in 1985 in order "to recognize excellence in human caring by Colorado registered nurses."
It's an award given to nurses who best exemplify the philosophies and practices of Florence Nightingale, who once said,
Nursing is an art and if it is to be made an art, it requires as exclusive a devotion, as hard a preparation as any painter's or sculptor's work; for what is the having do with dead canvas or cold marble, compared with having to do with the living body -- the temple of God's spirit? It is one of the Fine Arts; I had almost said, the finest of Fine Arts."Congratulations to all of the recipients! We can't thank you enough for everything you do.
