Biography of Sandra Jacobs Summers, MSN, MPH, RN

Sandy Summers, MSN, MPH, RN
Executive Director

Sandy Summers has served as Executive Director of The Center for Nursing Advocacy since she and fellow Johns Hopkins graduate students founded it in April 2001. Ms. Summers is an Advanced Practice community health nurse, with Masters Degrees in Nursing and Public Health from Johns Hopkins University (2002). She received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Southern Connecticut State University in 1984.

Prior to her graduate work, Ms. Summers practiced nursing in the emergency departments and intensive care units of some of America's major trauma centers, including San Francisco General Hospital, Charity Hospital at New Orleans, Washington Hospital Center (D.C.), Georgetown Hospital, and D.C. General Hospital. From 1994-97, Ms. Summers lived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where she taught nursing teachers at the Central Nursing School, undertook nursing research for the International Research Development Centre and Redd Barna (Norwegian Save the Children), and served as Office Manager for the American Bar Association's Law and Democracy Project. From 1989-90, Ms. Summers established a New Zealand branch office of her brothers' company, CNC Software, Inc., which is a global leader in computer-aided manufacturing software. From 1985-86, Ms. Summers practiced ICU nursing at St. Thomas Hospital in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Ms. Summers is a member of Sigma Theta Tau, the international nursing honor society, and Delta Omega, the public health honor society.

Ms. Summers lives in Baltimore, Maryland with her husband and two children. She spent her childhood in Vernon-Rockville, Connecticut.

Awards

The Center for Nursing Advocacy, under Sandy Summers' direction, won media awards in 2004 and 2005 from the American Academy of Nursing.

Sandy Summers was awarded an Outstanding Alumna award from Southern Connecticut State University in November 2006.

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List of Upcoming and Prior Speaking Engagements

Publications:

Summers, Sandy & Summers, Harry Jacobs (2008). Chapter 7, pp. 105-129, Decision-Making in Nursing: Thoughtful Approaches for Practice, Sandra B. Lewenson and Marie Truglio-Londrigan, eds., Jones and Bartlett Publishers, Inc.

"Nursing Our Beer Back to Health," RATTLE, online essay accompanying Winter 2007 issue (No. 28), http://www.rattle.com/rattle28/nursingourbeers.htm.

Gebbie, Kristine & Sandy Summers (December 8, 2006). "Nurses' achievements merit international recognition." Op-ed published in the Baltimore Sun.

Summers, Sandy & Summers, Harry Jacobs. (2006). Changing Poor Portrayals of Nurses in the Media: The Center for Nursing Advocacy. In D. J. Mason, J. K. Leavitt, & M. W. Chafee (Eds.). Policy and politics in nursing and health care, 5th ed. (pp. 184-194). St. Louis, MI: Saunders Elsevier.

"The Nursing Shortage," Kango Jissen no Kagaku (Science of Nursing Practice), the Japanese Journal of Nursing Science, Nov. 2005, Vol. 30, No. 12, pp. 37-45, and Dec. 2005, Vol. 30, No. 13, pp. 48-57 (co-author with Claire M. Fagin and Harry Jacobs Summers); republication as part of book tentatively titled Nursing Strategies to Protect People's Lives, LifeSupport Company [anticipated 2008].

Summers, Sandy & Summers, Harry J. (2004). "Viewpoint: Media 'Nursing': Retiring the Handmaiden: What viewers see on ER affects our profession." American Journal of Nursing 104 (2), p. 13.

Summers, S. (2004, April) "Nursing students should be seen and heard." Imprint, Journal of the National Student Nurses Association, pp 57-59 and 55.

Ms. Summers published an account of one of her Cambodian experiences in Culture crash: Trauma in 1994 Cambodia, Journal of Emergency Nursing, 25 (6), 26A-28A (1999).