Valerie Carter Brumfield, MSN, RN, CNS, CCRN, CEN, of Texas

Lifetime Achievement Award

The Lifetime Achievement Award honors nurses whose career achievements reflect dedicated service, accomplishments or contributions to emergency nursing that have value to emergency nursing beyond the recipient’s lifetime.

Over her decades-long career, Valerie Brumfield has worked with individuals and assembled teams to improve care and develop new nurses. One of her notable achievements includes successfully building a primary stroke center at her hospital from the ground up. She assembled a multidisciplinary team that included nursing and physician leaders, as well as department leaders from environmental services, volunteer services, security, transportation and others. Together they shared a commitment to ensuring every stroke patient – regardless of income, insurance or social status – received timely, evidence-based stroke care. By breaking down departmental silos and fostering collaboration, Brumfield and her team created a highly effective program that grew from a primary stroke center into a comprehensive stroke center.
Although retired, she continues to serve as a part-time adjunct faculty at University of Texas Medical Branch Galveston, where she still enjoys mentoring future nurses and sharing skills needed for safe, compassionate care.
She has been active in her local ENA chapter and the Texas ENA Council, promoting excellence in emergency nursing and supporting professional growth. Her longstanding involvement in ENA includes serving for 22 years as a Texas delegate to the ENA General Assembly, serving as president of the Gulf Coast ENA Chapter, and chairing numerous committees in each. She has been a TNCC instructor since 2006.