4th year student perpetual awards

4 Oct 2018

Elaine Drummond Perpetual Award & Niall O'Mahony Perpetual Award

Elaine Drummond Perpetual Award

The Elaine Drummond Perpetual Award is an annual award that remembers Ms Elaine Drummond who was an esteemed colleague here in the School, Cope Foundation and beyond. Elaine graduated as an RNID in 1991. She worked in a number of community and residential services for children and adults before joining UCC as a lecturer on the Intellectual Disability Nursing programmes. Over the course of her career, she was steadfastly committed to supporting people with intellectual disability and their families. She passionately and resolutely promoted and advocated the advancement of intellectual disability nursing and services. Unfortunately, she died all too soon in July 2010. Elaine would be honoured to have a perpetual trophy recognising excellence in intellectual disability nursing in her name. In the same vein she would expect the student receiving this award to be performing to a high standard academically and clinically. The student receiving this award has shown personal and professional growth since commencing the programme. When asked about this student, lecturers, CPCs and preceptors used words like a team-worker, courteous and respectful, passionate, eager to learn, professional, willing, adaptable and committed to providing excellent, high-quality, individualised care. All the while you’d be greeted with a smile. Given these qualities, I know Elaine would approve of Edina Hanley receiving this award.

Niall O'Mahony Perpetual Award;

The Niall O'Mahony Perpetual Award is an annual award that remembers Mr. Niall O'Mahony who was a nurse tutor on the Diploma programme for Mental Health Nursing programme and worked closely with some of us present here today. Niall was a visionary and an academic and worked tirelessly to promote and develop Mental Health nursing.  He was committed to Nurse Education and was a fantastic advocate for the profession.  Unfortunately, Niall past away unexpectedly in December 2003 at a young age.  In honour of his memory and commitment to the profession of Mental Health nursing we in the clinical team established a perpetual award in 2004.  Each year this award is presented to a graduate on the Mental Health Nursing programme. 

Today this award will be presented to a student who excelled in clinical practice from year 1 to year 4.  The criteria for selecting a recipient to name a few include personal & professional development, attitude, responsibility, accountability, commitment, motivation and a role model to junior colleagues. The recipient is chosen in collaboration with clinical and academic staff. The student receiving the award today has developed and shown all these attributes over the past 4 years of the programme and was quietly committed to becoming a Mental Health nurse. As you can appreciate this was a difficult decision to reach due to the high standard of professionalism shown by all Mental Health nursing students in the 2014 group. However there can only one recipient and today it gives me great pleasure on behalf of the Mental Health team to present the Niall O’Mahony perpetual award to someone who has worked extremely hard and wears his achievement lightly. He is empathic and compassionate. He is an unassuming person and I know he will be taken by complete surprise. The 2018 recipient of the Niall O’Mahony Perpetual award for is:   James Verling