Nancy Pate, RN, of North Carolina

Nursing Education Award

The Nursing Education Award recognizes an emergency nurse who has made significant contributions to the education of colleagues, nursing students, EMS personnel, patients, families or the community through the publication of articles, formal or informal courses or the development of a specific emergency nursing program or curriculum.

Nancy Pate developed an Emergency Department Boot Camp that, for more than two decades, has transitioned hundreds of new graduate nurses into successful ED nurses, nurse leaders, nurse educators, trauma coordinators, nurse practitioners and DNPs. This program has been the passion behind her career, as well as a source of inspiration and empowerment for new nurses to become whatever they dream of being.

Pate, an emergency department educator at Onslow Memorial Hospital, also developed a Hands Only CPR community outreach program with the goal of empowering bystanders who witness an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. The program included female manikins to educate bystanders about performing CPR on women.

She joined ENA in 2006 and became a TNCC Instructor in 2008. As an involved member of her local ENA chapter, she has served as its secretary and president, and she has been an educator for many chapter conferences.

Pate is currently co-developing a pediatric readiness program that will include a detailed pediatric assessment review and age-appropriate interventions with access to simulation labs to improve nurse confidence and outcomes when caring for the pediatric population.