Dr. Elaine Tagliareni of the School of Nursing and Dr. Suzan Kardong-Edgren of the Department of Health Professions Education are recognized for their work in advancing nursing and simulation education.

Elaine Tagliareni and Suzie Kardong-Edgren have known each other and worked together for the past 20 years. So, it’s fitting that the MGH Institute faculty members became the first two people from the same school in the same year to receive the President’s Award from the National League of Nursing (NLN).

“Our paths have crossed for years,” said Dr. Tagliareni, director of faculty development in the Institute’s School of Nursing and who was president of the NLN from 2007 – 2009. “Suzie has done so much to advance simulation education and that’s a big part of what the NLN does. I’m happy to have been able to work with her and to benefit from her expertise.”

“When we found out that both of us had won, we said this the greatest thing ever because Elaine is a legend in nursing, and to be listed with her and the other people who have previously won this award is cool,” said Dr. Kardong-Edgren, an associate professor in the MGH Institute’s Department of Health Professions Education, a leader in simulation education. “I’ve known Elaine and known her great work forever so to have been able to work side by side and follow in her footsteps in some way is a great honor.”

The award, handed out at the NLN’s recent Education Summit, recognizes outstanding leaders in nursing education who have a lifetime of career achievements in advancing nursing education.

“I have had the privilege to work with both of this year’s honorees and value them as my esteemed colleagues who have dedicated so much of their talents, time, and wisdom to the National League for Nursing, among their many professional commitments,” said Dr. Beverly Malone, the NLN’s president and CEO. “Their creativity, professional brilliance and dedication to nursing education excellence has inspired me personally, along with generations of their students and colleagues, to help us all strive for transformative excellence to advance the practice of nursing and public health.”

Tagliareni, who spent a decade as chief program officer at the NLN after her term as president ended, is an internationally known speaker and scholar of nursing education. She helped develop the Advancing Care Excellence (ACE) professional development resources that spurred a collaboration between the NLN and the Independence Foundation—and subsequent funding by The Hartford Foundation, the Hearst Foundations, and Laerdal Medical—which resulted in ACE curriculum case studies and teaching strategies being adopted by nursing programs across the globe. The program provides culturally humble, equitable, and accessible care to a range of population sectors. She also has led the efforts of the National League for Nursing Archives Project to preserve the history of nursing education.

Tagliareni joined the Institute in 2018 as a professor of nursing before serving as dean from August of 2019 until August 2021. She served in that position until 2021 when she moved onto a faculty development role. Earlier, she was a faculty member from 1979-2007. She received the Living Legend Award in 2022 from the Massachusetts chapter of the American Nurses Association, the Daisy Nurse Leader Award in 2021 from the Institute, was named 2008 Professor of the Year by the Pennsylvania Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), and that same year was named Professor of the Year by the Northeast Region Association of Community College Trustees.  She is a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.

“I just love nurse educators and being one,” said Tagliareni, who also was inducted into the 2023 class of fellows in the NLN Academy of Nursing Education. “And it’s been a gift to continue working with nurse educators again at the Institute and to help them with their scholarship.”

A renowned leader in the specialized field of simulation in health care, Kardong-Edgren was a consultant to the landmark National Council of State Boards of Nursing National Simulation Study, which determined that as much as 50 percent of traditional clinical preparation could be effectively transmitted through high-quality simulation instruction. “It’s now more critical than ever because post-COVID-19, a lot of people are doing stimulation. but not very well,” she said.

Kardong- Edgren, who has more than 140 publications to her credit and has garnered more than $2 million in research grants, was editor-in-chief of Clinical Simulation in Nursing for 10 years and is currently editor-in-chief of two new interactive online review guides for candidates seeking certification in the Society for Simulation in Healthcare. She was awarded the National League for Nursing Debby Spunt Lectureship and the Michael Gordon Lectureship in Simulation from the Society for Simulation in Healthcare.

She is the immediate past president of the International Nursing Association for Clinical Simulation in Nursing, served as chair of the Research Committee for the Society for Simulation in Healthcare, and was vice president of research and president of the International Nursing Association of Clinical Simulation in Nursing. She is a fellow in the Society of Simulation in Healthcare, the NLN Academy of Nursing Education, and the American Academy of Nursing. In addition, she is a senior fellow at the Center for Medical Simulation.

“It is hard to overstate their contributions to nursing, nursing education, and the public health, reflected in their decades of leadership in education, scholarship, and advocacy,” noted NLN Chair Kathleen Poindexter, an assistant dean of undergraduate programs at Michigan State University.

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