Nursing faculty receive prestigious Rhode Island Monthly Excellence Awards

Two Community College of Rhode Island Nursing Faculty members have been honored this year as part of Rhode Island Monthly’s annual Excellence in Nursing Awards.

Sandra Megerdichian, MS, RN, of Cranston was named 2021 Nurse of the Year in an Academic Setting and Assistant Professor Alison Kelley, MSN, RN, of Providence earned 2021 Clinical Nurse Educator of the Year honors.

Rhode Island Monthly brings readers the best of what Rhode Island has to offer, from people and politics to food and finance, including its annual Excellence in Nursing Awards, presented in association with the Rhode Island State Nurses Association. Nurses are nominated by their peers with winners selected by a panel of nursing professionals and educators in a variety of categories, including Clinical Practice Nurse of the Year, Nurse Researcher of the Year, and Community Health/Home Health Nurse of the Year.

Megerdichian joined CCRI’s Nursing Department in 1998 and served the college for 23 years before retiring in June. As part of the department’s leadership team, she served as a Course Coordinator for a decade. Megerdichian also co-authored the Second Edition of Clinical Nursing Calculations with Department Chair Susan Sienkiewicz in 2019.

Kelley, an emergency medicine and pediatric oncology specialist, has been teaching at CCRI since 2017, most notably working with medical/surgical nursing students. She has also been a nurse at the Hasbro Children’s Hospital Emergency Department for the past 13 years.

CCRI offers the state’s only public associate degree registered nursing program with seamless options to become a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) or Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) while providing students with the opportunity to acquire the knowledge, and attitudes necessary for developing effective communication, critical thinking, clinical reasoning and teamwork/collaboration skills.