School of Nursing professor among 32 recipients of Florence Nightingale Medal

Tener Veenema, an internationally recognized expert in disaster nursing and public health emergency preparedness and a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, has been named one of 32 recipients worldwide of the 2013 Florence Nightingale Medal, the highest international distinction a nurse can achieve.

Image caption: Tener Veenema

The Nightingale Medal, instituted in 1912 by the International Committee of the Red Cross, is awarded to nurses or nursing aides for "exceptional courage and devotion to the wounded, sick or disabled or to civilian victims of a conflict or disaster" as well as for exemplary service or a pioneering spirit in public health or nursing education.

Veenema, who joined the School of Nursing faculty in April, is one of five 2013 recipients from the United States. She will receive her medal at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 23.

"I hope that while I'm at Hopkins I can use my experience as a Red Cross nurse to prepare nurses and other emergency medicine professionals here at Hopkins, and in the greater Baltimore area, to respond to a national disaster," she said.