Professors Drake, Phillips Named American Academy Of Nursing Fellows

University of Virginia School of Nursing associate professor Emily Drake and associate clinical professor Elayne Kornblatt Phillips will be initiated as fellows of the American Academy of Nursing at a Washington, D.C. ceremony this October.

The distinction, among the highest professional honors a nurse may receive, is awarded annually to select individuals invited by the academy. The nation’s nearly 2,200 American Academy of Nursing fellows include nursing leaders in education, management, practice and research, individuals who commit their time and energy to the organization, engaging with other health care leaders to transform the American health care system.

Drake’s and Phillips’ inductions will bring the School of Nursing’s number of fellowships to 34, 27 of which are with the American Academy of Nursing.

Drake is an associate professor in the Department of Family, Community & Mental Health Systems and teaches courses on maternal child health. She earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from U.Va., and a Ph.D. in nursing from Virginia Commonwealth University. She specializes in high-risk pregnancies, infant development, breastfeeding and technology, and held a clinical position in labor and delivery at U.Va. Medical Center for many years. She has served on the national board of American Association of Women’s Health, Obstetrics and Neonatal Nurses, is an active member of the nursing honor society Sigma Theta Tau International and is a member of the International Lactation Consultants Association. In addition to teaching, she has been certified as a lactation consultant, an in-patient obstetrics expert and a clinical nurse leader. In 2013, she received the Excellence in Education Award from the American Association of Women’s Health, Obstetrics and Neonatal Nurses at its annual convention.

Widely published and the recipient of a National Institutes of Health grant to study a novel e-screening for postpartum depression, Drake has presented papers at numerous conferences, workshops and special events.

Phillips earned her bachelor’s degree from Temple University and her master’s and Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. A U.Va. professor with the Nursing and Medical schools between 1982 and 1991, she returned to U.Va. nursing in 2014 as a clinical associate professor after six years as the director of research for U.Va.’s International Health-care Worker Safety Center. Phillips has also worked as a lecturer at Johns Hopkins and the University of North Carolina, as a community health nurse and an operating room nurse.

In 2008, Phillips was awarded a $323,000 National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health research grant on “The impact of the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act on hospital worker injury.” Fervent in the belief that nurses must understand their rights and employer obligations when it comes to workplace injury, she has spoken across the U.S. and collaborated internationally with groups from Mexico to Japan, working to protect health-care workers from needlestick and similar injuries.

A member of the American Nurses Association, the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, and former public health nursing program chair for the American Public Health Association, Phillips is also a member of Sigma Theta Tau International and Delta Omega, an honorary society in public health, and a reviewer for a host of professional journals. A sought-after lecturer and an expert on unintentional injuries from sharp instruments and needle-sticks, particularly in international settings, Phillips has lectured in China, South Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo, among other countries, to document existing risks to health-care workers and to design interventions to prevent injuries.

Drake and Phillips will be among those initiated as fellows of the academy at its 41st annual meeting and conference this fall.