Stony Brook University School of Nursing Announces 50th Anniversary Gala and Names of Distinguished Alumni

Stony Brook University School of Nursing will celebrate their 50th Anniversary Gala on May 5, 2022 at Flowerfield in St. James, NY where Dr. Maurie McInnis, President of Stony Brook University and Ms. Jacqueline Routh, representing Governor Hochul’s office will speak along with campus leaders to recognize the long history of innovation in online nursing education and to celebrate 50 years of excellence in education, research, practice and community engagement.  The School of Nursing was one of the first schools to open on the Health Science Center campus in 1970 and graduated the first 16 graduates in 1971, before the opening of Stony Brook University Hospital.  Graduates of the School of Nursing were the first to complete any professional degree program on the Health Science Campus and graduate from Stony Brook University. Today, the School of Nursing has over 11,000 graduates in all 50 states and in 23 countries across the globe. During the celebration five new alumni will be recognized:

1. Joan Furey – Outstanding Alumnus – Lifetime Achievement: Ms. Joan Furey is a United States Army Nurse Veteran who served in Vietnam and received a Bronze Star serving as a second Lieutenant. After leaving the US Army Nurse Corps she had a 30-year career in the Department of Veteran’s Affairs where she with colleagues started programs to meet the needs of women veterans suffering from PTSD. Her tireless and unrelenting efforts to improve the health care of women veterans experiencing PTSD followed a path that through persistence, drive and personal experience began with the development of programs working in the Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital system subsequently publicized in a feature article in the New York Times Magazine (November 7, 1993) and eventually testimony before members of the U.S. Congress.  See below for more details about this remarkable alumnus.
2. Maria Colandrea – Distinguished Alumnus – Clinical Practice: Dr. Colandrea serves on the National Veterans Health Administration (VHA)/Office of Nursing Service (ONS) Advance Practice Registered Nurse (APRN) Council where she represents 8,471 APRN’s at the national level where she has assisted in the development of APRN legislation and national policies.
3. Beverly Dean – Distinguished Alumnus – Community Service Leadership: Dr. Dean is a nurse practitioner and community activist and champions equity in multicultural affairs and increased access to quality health care, education, and affordable housing.  She was the first African American woman to serve as Fire Commissioner of Gordon Heights in 1987.  She is an active member of the NAACP and Women in the NAACP (W.I.N). She currently serves her community as President of the Brookhaven Rosa Parks Democratic Association.
4. Peg O’Donnell – Distinguished Alumnus – Advocacy: Dr. O’Donnell has been active in the national Nurse Practitioner Association (NPA), the NPA of Long Island (NPALI), and the American Association of Nurse Practitioners to advocate for the removal of mandatory written collaborative practice agreements in New York State.  She developed the first primary care practice fellowship for nurse practitioners at Northwell Health. She developed the first adult immunization program at South Nassau and successfully linked the system EMR to the NYS immunization registry. 
5. Connor O’Sullivan – Outstanding Recent Graduate: Connor served as an inspiring President of the Stony Brook Student Nurse Association elevating and leading the organization to being recognized with a National Stellar Award from the National Student Nurse Association (NSNA) for their outstanding accomplishments in service to the community. He has completed 17 medical missions to various foreign countries through Blanca’s House as an active volunteer and mission coordinator. He will embark on his 18th mission to Guayaquil, Ecuador this Spring. During the pandemic he completed his ICU Fellowship and worked in the ICU at LIJ Medical Center and will continue his career and pursue a Doctorate of Nursing Practice in nurse anesthesia this Fall. He is an Emergency Medical Technician and has worked in the 911 system across Suffolk County, Long Island, NY.

Stony Brook University School of Nursing offers bachelors (BS), masters (MS), master’s certificate, doctorate of nursing practice (DNP)and doctoral degrees (PhD) in nursing. The School of Nursing is currently ranked #8 by US News and World Report for the Best Online Master’s in Nursing Program and #13 for the Best Online Master’s in Leadership and ranked #27 for Midwifery.  This is the third year in a row that the School has ranked in the top ten where they have been innovators in online nursing education since 1995 when they started the first online midwifery program in the Nation. The Schools graduates excel on the NCLEX (National Council Licensing Exam) exam for entry into practice and last year achieved a 95.5% pass rate, outperforming the average pass rate for every state in the Nation.  Graduates and faculty of the School are highly acclaimed leaders in providing optimal clinical care and have achieved national recognition by the American Nurses Association (ANA) (Dr. Justin Waryold), American Academy of Nursing (AAN) (Dr. Pat Bruckenthal, Dr. Mary Jean Buhse and Dr. Annette Wysocki), American College of Nurse Midwives (ACNM) (Dr. Heather Findlater Hines), Heart Failure Society of America (HFSA) (Dr. Ken Faulkner) and American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) (Dr. Terrie Cavaliere). 

Additional information about Ms. Joan Furey who will be recognized with the Lifetime Achievement Award: 

Ms. Furey began her long march to achieve treatment for women veterans experiencing PTSD when she returned to the United States following her own service as a Lieutenant in the US Army Nurse Corp in the Vietnam War.

After returning and beginning to work first in the hospital setting and then in the VA system, she found that there were no services being provided to women veterans experiencing PTSD in the VA system where the programs were directed at male veterans.  During her work in the VA system as she was promoted to increasing levels of responsibility, she moved to act on her observations concerning the care of returning veterans across a variety of in-patient units that included psychiatric care.  Working with colleagues across multiple VA Medical Centers in Boston, MA and White River Junction, VT she worked to develop a comprehensive educational program to educate health care providers in the VA system on how to treat war zone related PTSD.  She co-founded the first in-patient treatment programs for women veterans suffering from war-zone related PTSD.  It was this work that became the feature article and cover story for the New York Times Magazine on November 7, 1993.  

This work then led her to her next position as the Associate Director of Education at the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in the Clinical and Educational Division at the VA Medical Center in Palo Alto-Menlo Park, California.  It was during this time that she began to write and pursue research.  Her research team efforts led to groundbreaking research to develop a war-time stressor scale for women (Journal of Psychological Assessment (1993), 5(3): 330-335); and subsequently research to understand how PTSD and war zone exposure correlates with perceived health in female Vietnam veterans (Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology (1994), 62(6): 1235-1240). Over time other publication emanated from this work and appeared in the American Journal of Epidemiology, Journal of Traumatic Stress, JAMA Psychiatry, and in the journal Women’s Health Issues.

Other publications that she co-authored ensued during this time and appeared in the professional literature: “For Some the War Rages On” (American Journal of Nursing, 82(11): 1694-1695); a highly acclaimed book in nursing, “Visions of War: Dreams of Peace” with co-author Linda Van DeVanter highlighting the writings of women from the Vietnam War (New York: Warner Books); and “Women at War: The Impact of Combat Casualty Care on Military Nurses” (Nursing Spectrum, Washington DC/Baltimore Edition, 8(23): 1.   

To bring focus to this issue she served on a number of national interdisciplinary VA committees and committees at the federal level targeted at improving the diagnosis, assessment and treatment of PTSD in the veteran population to include war-related trauma and military sexual trauma.  This led to further work on how to prepare military personnel deployed to care for combat casualties during deployment in war zones and then to provide health care services to women veterans upon return.  Over time she gave over 150 presentations to professional audiences focused on PTSD, Women’s Veterans Health Issues, Military Sexual Trauma, and Health Care Delivery of Women Veterans in the VA Health Care System.

From 1984 to 1994 she was a member of the Congressionally Mandated VA Special Committee on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder charged with assessing the VA’s capacity to assess, diagnose and treat PTSD.  Her work on this committee led to a number of recommendations that revamped the VA’s approach to the care of veterans suffering from PTSD; obtained funding to develop new and innovative programs; and made changes across the entire VA system to care for and educate health care providers. Then from 1996 to 2000, she served on the President’s Interagency Council on Women and on the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Subcommittee on Women’s Health and the Environment.  

All of this work was further supported by her multiple appearances before members of the US Congress starting in July of 1988 through June of 2000 where she appeared before subcommittees of the US Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee and the US House Veteran’s Affairs Committee on seven separate occasions.  Her testimony was recorded and entered in the Congressional Record. 

Along with these targeted efforts to improve the care of veterans suffering from PTSD she was featured in multiple media outlets and productions: “Their Own Vietnam” (Lifetime Production); “Sexual Trauma and Military Women: Issues and Treatment “ a series of live radio interviews on radio talk shows in 20 states arranged by the VA Affairs Community Outreach Department; “Women in Vietnam: Trauma and Recovery” (CBS “Underfire” Documentary); “In the Public Eye” (CBS – Bryant Gumbel Show); and an appearance in the Ken Burns and Lynn Novick Documentary, “The Vietnam War” that aired on PBS in 2017.