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Cedars-Sinai nurse to be inducted into American Academy of Nursing

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Bernice Coleman, Ph.D., (American College of Nurse Practioners) ACNP, lead heart transplant nurse practitioner in the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, will be among the nursing elite inducted this fall as Fellows of the American Academy of Nursing.

The 176 nurses joining the prestigious group at the academy’s 39th annual meeting in Washington, D.C., in October include top nurse researchers, policymakers, scholars, executives, educators and practitioners. The academy counts as members more than 1,800 nurse leaders in education, management, practice, policy and research. Nurses chosen as fellows have made significant contributions to nursing and healthcare.

“Selection for membership in the academy is one of the most prestigious honors in the field of nursing,” said Academy President Joanne Disch, Ph.D., RN, FAAN (Fellows of the American Academy of Nursing ). “I congratulate all of the new fellows and look forward to honoring their accomplishments and welcoming them into the fellowship this October.”

A clinical researcher in applied immonogenics with nearly three decades of advanced practice nursing experience, Coleman was the first nurse to be accepted into Cedars-Sinai’s Clinical Scholars Program. She has a National Institutes of Health grant to study whether inflammatory genes may be responsible for the difference in heart transplant survival rates between African American and Caucasian patients. She was instrumental in establishing Cedars-Sinai’s ventricular assistance device program for patients who are not candidates for heart transplantation.

“As nurses, it is our calling to not only care for our patients in their greatest time of need, but also to be instrumental in improving the health of our communities,” said Linda Burnes Bolton, (Doctor of Public Health) RN, FAAN, vice president of nursing and chief nursing officer at Cedars-Sinai. “Bernice Coleman embodies this in her dedication to her patients and to her research that is committed to helping us better serve them.”

Coleman joined Cedars-Sinai in 1987 as a clinical nurse specialist in cardiac surgery. She has presented and published on the care of cardiac surgical patients, critical nursing issues and ethnic immunogenics of heart transplantation. She was awarded the 2008 Distinguished Alumna Award by the Yale School of Nursing, where she earned her master’s, and has been honored with the GE Healthcare and American Association of Critical Care Nurses Pioneering Spirit Award. She earned a doctorate from UCLA’s School of Nursing in 1999.

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