Fete the 2019 Fellows
This fall, the American Academy of Nursing will induct more than 230 distinguished nurse leaders into the ranks of its 2019 class of new Fellows. Among them will be professors Clareen Wiencek, director of the MSN and DNP programs, and Tim Cunningham, director of the School's Compassionate Care Initiative.
The nation’s more than 2,600 Fellows include leaders in education, management, practice and research who devote time and energy to the organization and engage with other health care leaders to transform the American health care system. The newest class of FAANs hail from 38 states, 17 countries, and will be honored at the AAN's annual meeting October 24-26, 2019, in Washington, D.C.
47
Number of UVA Nursing faculty who are fellows of national academies, including 34 FAANs
Wiencek and Cunningham bring to 47 the School’s number of national academies fellows, and to 34 its number of Fellows of the American Academy of Nursing. Currently, 50 percent of the School's full-time faculty are FAANs.
Wiencek, who was president of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses from 2017-2018 - the largest specialty nursing organization in the world - directs the School's advanced practice programs, develops and teaches courses on and is an expert in palliative care.
An acute care nurse practitioner, an advanced certified hospice and palliative care nurse and a long time critical care nursing alumnus, Wiencek has been an associate professor at UVA since 2015, and a passionate advocate for teaching palliative care to nursing students at all levels.
With a BSN from the University of Cincinnati, a masters in medical-surgical nursing, and PhD from Case Western Reserve University, prior to her arrival at UVA, Wiencek was nurse manager at the Thomas Palliative Care Unit at VCU Health System, program director at VCU's Center for Integrative Pain Management, and a nurse practitioner at University Hospital's Case Medical Center in Cleveland.
Cunningham, who holds a joint appointment in UVA's department of drama, graduated from UVA's CNL program, and later worked as a pediatric and adult emergency nurse in New York, NY, and Charlottesville, VA, while concurrently serving as executive director of Clowns Without Borders, USA - work that took him around the world.
He's worked as a nurse to patients suffering from Ebola in West Africa and Rohingya refugees in Myanmar, been featured in documentary films, hosted clown camps, and is a sought-after speaker on the importance of self-care and resilience for nurses and clinicians of all stripes. With funding, he's currently assessing the impact self-care activities have on nurses' professional resilience, and recently. he authored his first children's book.
An award-winning writer, a graduate of the College of William and Mary (BA in English), Cunningham earned a master's from UVA in 2011 and a doctorate in public health from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in the department of population and family health. Later this summer, he leaves UVA to continue his work in Atlanta, GA.
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