ITNS Members Inducted into American Academy of Nursing
Sabina De Geest, PhD, and Ann Cashion, PhD were each nominated for this prestigious honor by two current Academy Fellows and selected by a fifteen-member Fellow Selection Committee for their outstanding achievements in the nursing profession. Drs. De Geest and Cashion were formally inducted as Fellows with fifty-three other nurse leaders during the Academy’s Annual Awards Ceremony and Induction Banquet in Miami, FL in November of 2006.
The Academy is constituted to anticipate national and international trends in health care, and address resulting issues of health care knowledge and policy. Not only is the invitation to Fellowship recognition of one’s accomplishments within the nursing profession, but also it affords an opportunity to work with other leaders in health care in addressing the issues of the day. The Academy’s mission is to serve the public and nursing profession by advancing health policy and practice through the generation, synthesis and dissemination of nursing knowledge.
Dr. De Geest is Professor of Nursing and Director, Institute of Nursing Science, Faculty of Medicine, University of Basel, Switzerland and Center for Health Services and Nursing Research, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. She received her Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing in 1984 from St. Elisabeth Institute for Nursing, Affiliated with the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. She received her Master’s Degree in 1990 in Medical Social Sciences – Clinical Nursing Track from the Medical and Social Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. In 1996 Dr. De Geest completed her PhD from School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. Dr. De Geest has lead an international interdisciplinary research team that has conducted an extensive number of studies on adherence in chronically ill populations for the past 15 years. She is current leading the BRIGHT Study (Building Research Initiative Group: adHerence in Transplantation) in collaboration with ITNS.
Dr. Cashion is an associate professor and chair of the Acute and Chronic Care Department at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Nursing. After receiving her BSN in nursing from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Dr. Cashion completed her master’s degree at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, and her doctorate in nursing at UTHSC. She also completed post-doctorate work at Georgetown University and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Additionally, Dr. Cashion is actively involved in redesigning nursing curricula to incorporate rapidly expanding genetics content. Her most recent National Institute of Nursing Research study, “Genetic Markers of Acute Pancreas Allograft Rejection,” examines specific genetic biomarkers for the ability to identify transplant recipients who are in sub-clinical stages of acute rejection.