UAMS Doctor Honors Wife with Nursing Scholarship
| LITTLE ROCK – The importance of patient care in the operating room isn’t lost on Nicholas Lang, M.D., chief medical officer of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Medical Center. Lang was recognized today with a luncheon ceremony for establishing a nursing scholarship to honor the career of his wife, Helen Lang, R.N., a longtime surgical nurse serving both Arkansas Children’s Hospital and the John L. McClellan Veteran’s Hospital. “As a doctor married to a longtime registered nurse, I’m in a unique position both professionally and personally to fully understand the importance of nursing in patient care and with assisting doctors,” Lang said. “What better way to honor that relationship than by ensuring the training of more skilled professionals through a scholarship?” The Helen F. Lang RN Scholarship Fund will be awarded annually to a senior Bachelor of Science in Nursing student holding a grade point average of 3.5 or higher. The student must also be interested in surgical nursing with the commitment to pursue working in the operating room or caring for patients recovering from surgical procedures upon graduation. The Lang family will make a yearly pledge of $20,000 for four years that will be matched by UAMS’ Faculty Group Practice, the group practice for UAMS physicians, to total $160,000. “This is a very special gift to our students enrolled in our Bachelor of Science Nursing (BSN) program that signifies the importance of the role that registered nurses play in the medical profession and the surgery subspecialty,” said Claudia Barone, Ed.D., R.N., dean of the UAMS College of Nursing. “We are honored to receive this gift and look forward to being stewards of this scholarship.” Once fully funded, the scholarship will be awarded annually beginning with the fall 2013 semester. UAMS is the state’s only comprehensive academic health center, with five colleges, a graduate school, a new 540,000-square-foot hospital, six centers of excellence and a statewide network of regional centers. UAMS has 2,652 students and 733 medical residents. Its centers of excellence include the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, the Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute, the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy, the Harvey & Bernice Jones Eye Institute, the Psychiatric Research Institute and the Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging. It is the state’s largest public employer with more than 10,000 employees, including nearly 1,150 physicians who provide medical care to patients at UAMS, Arkansas Children’s Hospital, the VA Medical Center and UAMS’ Area Health Education Centers throughout the state. Visit www.uams.edu or uamshealth.com