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Nurses Week was celebrated a little differently this year at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. In addition to the myriad awards and accolades for its nurses, the medical center encouraged friendly competition between nursing units by way of a poster contest and provided fun and exercise with free classes in Zumba, a form of latin dance, and yoga that emphasized the theme for the week, “Montefiore Nursing on the Move.”

For the poster contest, units had to create a poster that best illustrated the components of the Magnet Award for Nursing. Mona Hart, RN, patient care coordinator of the heart progressive unit-Moses Division, and Grace Robinson, RN, staff nurse on maternal/newborn at Weiler, were on the poster committee. “Each unit had to produce a plan first,” Hart says. “Access to the information was easy, but they needed to do research to make the posters successful.”

Because it was a contest, the nurses would go from unit to unit to see what each unit was up to. “Most of the units were very competitive,” Robinson says.

The posters were showcased in the lobbies of the Weiler and Moses campuses so staff could vote for their favorite. “What made this contest unique was how each unit represented the information,” says Giselle Melendez, RN, administrative nurse manager of the NICU and pediatric units.

The week’s theme also referred to movement within Montefiore. “One of the highlights of the week was finding out what our nurses were up to during the year,” Robinson says. She herself reconnected with Hart while working on the poster committee.

“With four hospitals and three campuses, we’re a really large organization,” says Mary Anne Gallagher, RN, C, MA, clinical director of nursing at the Women’s and Children’s Health Center at Montefiore. “A lot of our nurses don’t know what we’re doing. This week was about helping them know what we’ve accomplished.”

Among many achievements, 23 nurses received bachelor’s degrees, 28 received master’s degrees, and 30 received certification. Following are other achievements — six achieved RN; three were published professionally; 13 received external appointments; 11 received internal promotions; 17 received awards; and six volunteered on medical missions.

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Tracey Boyd is a regional reporter. To comment, e-mail editorNY@nursingspectrum.com.

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