February 16, 2010

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Nursing Professor Teena McGuinness, Ph.D., CRNP, has been named a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. McGuinness joins 10 other nursing faculty fellows.

The AAN's approximately 1,500 Fellows are nursing leaders in education, management, practice and research. Invitation to Fellowship recognizes one's accomplishments within the nursing profession, and AAN's Fellows also have a responsibility to contribute their time and energies to the academy.

McGuinness teaches psychiatric nursing at both the graduate and undergraduate levels and leads the HRSA-funded grant, "Psychiatric NP for the Rural Deep South." In addition, she leads the UAB School of Nursing Honors Program. Her research focuses on rural foster care and international adoption. Beyond her teaching and research responsibilities, McGuinness maintains a faculty practice at UAB's 1917 Clinic where she provides mental health care to medically complex patients.

McGuinness is an elected member of the Board of Directors of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association and is a section editor for the Journal of Psychosocial Nursing. She earned her bachelor's degree from Old Dominion University, her master's from Virginia Commonwealth and her doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh.

The American Academy of Nursing anticipates and tracks national and international trends in health care, while addressing resulting issues of health-care knowledge and policy. Its mission is to serve the public and nursing profession by advancing health policy and practice through the generation, synthesis and dissemination of nursing knowledge.

Fellows of the AAN are expected to engage with other health-care leaders outside the academy in transforming America's health-care system by enhancing the quality of health and nursing care; promoting healthy aging and human development across the life continuum; reducing health disparities and inequalities; shaping healthy behaviors and environments; integrating mental and physical health care; and strengthening the nursing and health-care delivery system, nationally and internationally.

About the UAB School of Nursing
Building on a century of nursing education on the UAB campus, the UAB School of Nursing prepares nurse leaders to excel as clinicians, researchers and educators and advances knowledge and delivery of high-quality health care in Alabama and worldwide. The school offers leading-edge bachelor, graduate and doctoral programs and offers students the opportunity to learn with faculty and student teams across health disciplines at UAB.