Martha Dawson, DNP, RN, FACHE, assistant professor in the Department of Community Health, Outcomes and Systems in the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Nursing, has been elected secretary of the board of directors of the National Black Nurses Association (NBNA).
Dawson was installed during the NBNA’s 41st Annual Institute and Conference in New Orleans. Dawson is also a PAHO/WHO Collaborating Center senior scholar in the school, a principal investigator for a Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Workforce Diversity Grant – Enrichment Academy for Nursing Success (EANS) – and an HRSA grant reviewer. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from UAB and her doctor of nursing practice at Case Western Reserve University. The NBNA's mission is to provide a forum for collective action by African-American nurses to investigate, define and determine what the health care needs of African-Americans are, as well as to implement change to make available to African-Americans and other minorities health care service commensurate with that of the larger society.
Dawson is also the 2013-14 president of the Birmingham Regional Organization of Nurse Leaders (BRONL). BRONL is a group of nurse leaders from academia and practice that meets monthly to address management, leadership, educational and professional-development needs of nurse leaders to improve the work environment and quality of patient care.