2006 Inspired Comfort Award Grand Prize Winner — Advanced Practice Nurse Category

Nomination Letter

Recipient:	Linda Lopez-Ochart Summers, DSN, CNS, CFNP 2006 Cherokee Inspired Comfort Award Top National Winner APN Category
Job Title:	FNP, CNS Assistant Faculty
Employer:	Memorial Medical Center Las Cruces, NM
Nominated by:	Elizabeth Kuchler, MSN, APN-BC, FNP
How do they know the nominee :	Clinical Mentor for recipients Masters in Nursing, Family Nurse Practioner
Employer:	Memorial Medical Center
Title:	Nurse Auditor and Future Adolescent FNP

Dr. Linda Summers, DSN, FNP, CNS, commitment to the teenagers in our community is beyond the norm. The most important thing you will take away from this nomination of Linda, is that she is devoted and accessible to anyone needing her help. She does all she can to foster relationships with the youth in our community. She does not believe a bad teenager exists, only circumstances and situations they get themselves into which escalate out of their control. She works with the State Department of Health, local Public School Districts, the local University, Residents at our hospital residency program, our hospital Behavioral Health Unit, our local Community Foundation, Physician’s, Advanced Practice Nurses and local psychologists to ensure this population receives all the services possible to be physically and mentally healthy. There are many stories of how Linda has helped teenagers and the people in our community.

She has been my mentor for my APN clinical and I have caught the “adolescent fever”. Through her example and devotion to the adolescents and young adults in our community I have a new understanding of the needs of this age group and that the main theme is that “All they want is to be listened to…I can get a teenager to tell me anything”— Dr. Summers . Which is very true and they seek her out. She gives her cell-phone to those that she is concerned about or may have a crisis they cannot handle. She does not receive many calls. The calls, when she does receive them, are emergent. She inspires me to— like the commercial "Be the best I can be" as a person and a new Family Nurse Practitioner.

Linda runs a program/clinic, which provides integrated mental health and primary care to adolescents in Dona Ana County. I need to mention that she will do almost anything to get the adolescents what they need. This would include begging supplies, equipment and services for the clinics. She also acts as Faculty for the hospital residency program, Mentor and Clinical Instructor to Advanced Nursing students, Master’s and Doctorial Counseling students and currently practicing Doctorial prepared Psychologists working towards their prescriptive authority in regards to their state licensing. In addition to her adolescent programs and her teaching responsibilities, Linda has an active behavioral therapy practice.

This year— 2005 she applied for grants and State money to expand the clinic services to another local High School. The School Based Clinic provides both primary care and mental health care on site at the school. This helps the students and their families, as most are not insured and do not receive regular medical care…Did I mention that the services are FREE to the students and the providers work for next to nothing. No one or entity is billed for services. She has a very limited budget for the school clinic; she works as staff and through her devotion and example many of the providers she has recruited to the cause are just as committed to the teenagers and will work for next to nothing. I know this personally as I cannot imagine not working with teenagers now that I have “listened” to them. The teenagers come to school when they are sick because they know they can receive care. Appointments are also scheduled during school, this way the child does not miss the entire day of school and the parent an entire work day. The parents are contacted for Medical problems and treatment within the state laws.

Linda has presented on the local, state and national level. Her presentations are around her work with the adolescents. She has also published articles on adolescence in Nursing Journals and publications. Linda is well known in the community. She is respected and liked by all who know her. She is committed to the expansion of services to adolescents, and to the health and welfare of our local and surrounding Communities.

Finding someone as devoted to the Adolescent Community’s well being is rare. This is what sets Dr Linda Summers, DSN, FNP, CNS, apart from the norm.

She deserves to be recognized for her devotion and service as a nurse seeking to provide care to— 1 a complicated and multifaceted group, as well as— 2 those persons adjusting to the ongoing changes in their individual adolescent.

Thank-you for your consideration of my nomination for the 2006 Cherokee Inspired Comfort Award.

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