July PBNIA Health Blog! Reflections and Celebration! Read and Share your comments!

July 2015 Blog
Reflections and Celebration

We are now in the middle of summer. Weather is hazy, hot, and humid requiring taking it slow and enjoying time with family and friends at the pool or in the park. As we are enjoying summer, we thought it was a good time to reflect on the first six months of Health Topics of Interest to the Pittsburgh Community (HTIPC) blog sponsored by Pittsburgh Black Nurses in Action (PBNIA).

• Flog launched Dec. 2014 with the focus on the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
• First 2015 blog in January summarized significant 2014 health events the included Ebola and mumps outbreak among the Pittsburgh Penguin hockey team.
• The influenza epidemic in the Pittsburgh area was the focus of the February blog with recommendations provided on how to prevent.
• As spring arrived, attention turned to a health problem, seasonal allergies, and Women's History Month celebrated in March.
• National Minority Health month was celebrated in April.
• Continued to celebrate in May given the focus was on National Nurses Week/International Nurse day. Also celebrated nurse graduates from the programs, colleges, and universities in the area.
• Celebrated Men's Health month in June with Quentin Smith, RN serving as the blogger of the month providing a male nurse's perspective in June.

We hope the blogs have been of interest to you. Let us know by contacting
Pittsburghbalcknursesinaction@gmail.com. Look forward to your continued to support of the blog during the remaining 2015 months. Plans include noted nurse leaders from our community serving as guest blogger. We hope that you will send the name(s) of possible guest bloggers to our email address by submitting the information using the subject indicator of: Guest Blogger Name.

We have reminisced about the past months and hopefully stimulated you with our future plans. It's time to move on to another topic.

We cannot complete the July blog without sharing another celebratory event with you, the Pittsburgh Black Nurses in Action 2015 Evelyn Paige Parker Scholarship Brunch. The event was held at the Lemont Restaurant on June 20th. If you did not attend the event, you missed a treat given the focus was "911 Pittsburgh EME Then & Now" Freedom House "Street Saviors." The work done at Freedom House located in the Hill District serves as the template for the current national EMS system. Other highlights of the 2015 Scholarship Brunch are listed below.

- Mary Eliza Mahoney Award presentation to Adena Johnson Davis, BSN, RN. Mrs. Davis is one of the first African American graduates from the University of Pittsburgh, School of Nursing in 1947. Following her graduation, Mrs. Davis worked at Magee-Women's Hospital, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), and the Veterans Administration Hospital where she became a head nurse. A full year
endowed Scholarship at the University of Pittsburgh is in Mrs. Davis' name. The award Mrs. Davis received is in honor of the first African American nurse graduate in the United States, Mary Eliza Mahoney.

- Two nursing scholarships respectively funded by Pittsburgh Black Nurses in Action
(PBNIA) and the Office of Inclusion & Diversity of the Center for Engagement & Inclusion at UPMC were awarded. Yolanda Henry and Adrianna Gilbert-Furby, both nursing students at Carlow University, received UPMC Scholarships.  Along with receiving a UPMC Scholarship, Yolanda Henry was also recognized as the 2015 Evelyn Paige Parker Award Recipient.

Don't miss the 2016 Scholarship on June 18, 2016 by saving the date.