Alumni Award Winners
Below are our alumni award winners for 2010. To see the past award winners, click here.
Distinguished Alumni Award 2010
The Distinguished Alumna Award is the highest honor given by the FPB Alumni Association to an alumna/us who has demonstrated continuous, outstanding, creative and exemplary contributions to the discipline of nursing or to healthcare.
Patricia Gorzka, BSN '64, PhD, ARNP, FAANP
Dr. Patricia Gorzka is associate professor and director of continuing education, College of Nursing at the University of South Florida (USF). She received a diploma in nursing from the University of Rochester, and a BSN from FPB. She earned an MS in nursing with a focus on child health from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1973, a PhD from Adelphi University in 1988 with a major in nursing and a minor in education, and a post-master’s certificate as a child health nurse practitioner from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1997. She is an elected Fellow in the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners.
Dr. Gorzka began her career in clinical practice in pediatrics, working at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland while also being a student in the BSN program. Upon graduation, she worked as a school nurse and in public health, before beginning her career as a nurse educator. Dr. Gorzka has held faculty positions at the State University of New York at Buffalo and Stony Brook, Rocky Mountain University of the Health Professions, and at the University of South Florida for the last 22 years. She has taught in undergraduate, graduate, and DNP programs, and earned many teaching honors and awards, which reflect an ability to share her nursing knowledge, and to mentor and motivate nurses and students to strive for excellence. Dr. Gorzka has published and spoken on her research interests in homeless families and children, as well as temperament in children.
Award for Excellence 2010
The Award for Excellence recognizes an alumna/us who has demonstrated outstanding leadership and achievement in nursing, and has made significant contributions in nursing or related areas of healthcare.
Posthumously conferred upon
Valmi D. Sousa, PhD '03, APRN, BC
1958-2010
Dr. Valmi Sousa was a beloved associate professor at the University of Kansas School of Nursing. He earned his BSN at the School of Nursing and Obstetrics of Guarulhos in São Paulo, Brazil, and his MSN at Federal University of São Paulo, Brazil.
He earned his PhD in nursing from FPB, and had completed a post-doctoral research fellowship at the University of Iowa. Dr. Sousa had also earned a graduate certificate in molecular genetics from Georgetown University. He was a member of the American Nurses Association, Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing, Midwest Nursing Research Society, and the Council for the Advancement of Nursing Science.
2010 Alumni Association President's Award
Rebecca M. Patton, MSN '98, RN, CNOR
Rebecca M. Patton MSN ’98, RN, CNOR, is currently serving her second term as president of the American Nurses Association (ANA). She was elected to her first two-year term in June, 2006 and then re-elected to a second term in June, 2008. ANA is the nation’s leading professional nursing organization, representing the major health policy, practice, and workplace issues of 3.1 million RNs in the United States.
A nurse since 1980, Ms. Patton has extensive inpatient and outpatient experience. She has been responsible for the start-up and ongoing operations of ambulatory medical centers, an inpatient acute facility, and a skilled nursing facility. Currently, she is the director of perioperative services for EMH Regional Healthcare System in Cleveland. She has previously served as director of nursing, director of surgical services, and director of ambulatory operations for hospitals in the University Hospitals Health System in Cleveland. She has also been a clinical instructor at FPB. A member of the Editorial Board of OJIN: Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, she has written chapters for books on medical-surgical nursing and for nursing journals. She has also written for popular publications, including an article on “What You Must Know Before You go to the Hospital” for Redbook Magazine. She writes regularly for ANA publications. In 2009, Ms. Patton was named as one of the 100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare by Modern Healthcare magazine, one of the nation’s largest health care trade publications.
