USI graduate to receive national neuroscience nursing award

Lauren Perrey ’08 BSN, has been selected as the recipient of the 2015 Rising Star in Clinical Practice Award from the American Association of Neuroscience Nurses (AANN). She will receive the award on March 31, 2015, at the AANN’s Annual Education Meeting in Nashville, Tennessee.

Perrey, of Indianapolis, is a registered nurse in a 33-bed Neuroscience Critical Care Unit at IU Health Methodist Hospital, which is a Comprehensive Stroke and Level 1 Trauma Center.

“In her short two-year experience on our unit, she has demonstrated a remarkably quick transition from the novice to competent stage in her career and is well on her way to expert,” said Julia Johnson, one of Perrey’s co-workers who nominated her for the AANN honor.

In her job, Perrey cares for patients who have had strokes, traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, brain and spinal tumors, and vascular abnormalities such as aneurysms and arterial venous malformations.

“[Perrey] has skillfully cared for patients with each of these unfortunate diagnoses, validating her astute assessment skills, strong clinical judgment and most notably, compassion,” wrote Johnson. “As a tenured nurse on this unit, it is incredibly rewarding to witness a novice nurse blossom into a confident, well-respected part of our team. She has worked diligently to educate herself by staying current on practice improvement initiatives and becoming involved in supporting change for the better of our patients.”

Perrey thanked the nursing faculty at the University of Southern Indiana for preparing her for her career in nursing. “They gave me invaluable training and preparation … this award is a testament to the advanced and superior nursing education I received at USI.”

Perrey said she would be remiss if she didn’t also thank her co-workers on the Neuro Critical Care Unit. “They helped guide me through my first years as a nurse, and continue to amaze me daily with their hard work and compassion for our patients,” she said. “They are the best team I could have asked for, and I’m proud to call myself one of them.”