Kathleen Stevens, R.N., Ed.D., F.A.A.N., professor and director of the Academic Center for Evidence-Based Nursing, is presented with the 2004 TNA Nurse of the Year award by Claire Jordan, M.S., R.N., executive director of the Texas Nurses Association (TNA) and K. Lynn Wieck, Ph.D., R.N., president of the TNA.
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: Kathleen R. Stevens, R.N., Ed.D., F.A.A.N., professor and director of the Academic Center for Evidence-Based Nursing, received the Texas Nurse of the Year Award from the Texas Nurses Association (TNA) in a ceremony on Sept. 16.

The award honors a nurse who has a demonstrable effect on raising the quality of nursing care through scholarly pursuits, research, writing, education and/or practice and has made a distinguished contribution to the profession of nursing at the local, state or national level.

Dr. Stevens was nominated for the award by Margo Layman, president of the TNA’s District 8.

“Throughout her career, Dr. Stevens’ unwavering desire was to build bridges between education, research and practice for excellence. She has lived this dream as a trail-blazer,” Layman said. “Her long-standing devotion to research application to improve healthcare has positioned her as one of today’s top experts in evidence-based practice.”

Dr. Stevens is a champion of evidence-based practice (EBP) in nursing and is the originator of the national Summer Institute on EBP, which is an ongoing interdisciplinary conference that seeks to improve healthcare by advancing the EBP paradigm. She is a member of the Respect Advisory Board for the Por Vida Academy Charter High School that is working to develop a strategic plan to implement integrated HIV/STD prevention curriculum in alternative school.

She is newly-elected Secretary of the Board of Governors for the National League for Nursing, and a member of the American Academy of Nursing, Council for the Advancement of Nursing Research, and the honor society for nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International. In 2003 she received the Excellence in Nursing Education Research national award from the National League for Nursing. She has written several books and chapters and had many papers published on evidence-based practice and nursing education.

The TNA, founded in 1907 is a state-wide membership-based association of registered nurses and is the oldest professional nursing association in Texas.