Ernest Grant Receives the ANA Honorary Nursing Practice Award

Ernest Grant, Chapel Hill, is a Nursing Education Clinician II at the UNC Hospitals Burn Center.  He received two national nursing awards this year. He received the ANA Honorary Nursing Practice Award at the ANA Convention on July 1, 2002 in Philadelphia.  In addition, he was named Nursing Spectrum Nurse of the Year in late June.

Ernest Grant has provided bedside care for hundreds of patients over the past 19+ years as a burn nurse, witnessing first-hand devastation and human suffering.  By stressing the importance of self-reliance and the need to begin a new life; patients are groomed for life outside the comforts of the burn care facility.  Uppermost is his philosophy that the patient and their families come first.  He addresses the finer unique qualities of nursing - nurturing, strength and self-assurance.

When Ernest began work at the North Carolina Jaycee Burn Center, he was a licensed practical nurse.  While working full-time, he returned to school first for his baccalaureate in nursing and then his masters in nursing.  He serves as a role model to his peers and co-workers.  He is constantly reminding the staff of their ethical and moral obligations as health care providers and not allowing their own prejudice and misconceptions interfere with their ability to provide the best possible care.   

Ernest has been an active participant on the Burn Center's QA Committee.  One of the most important components of his contribution to quality of care is the prevention of burn injuries.  Ernest routinely provides programs to the public concerning burn prevention and burn care.  His programs are highly regarded and considered a model for others attempting similar community outreach efforts.  He open poses as "Sparky, the Firedog" who is the Burn Center's Dalmatian mascot.

Ernest developed a joint project with the NC Department of Insurance, NC Department of Public Instruction and the NC Jaycee Burn Center.  This project implemented a National Fire Protection Association's Learn Not to Burn curriculum in all fourth grade classes across the state.  It has been documented that 15 lives have been saved in the sate as a direct result of this program.  On any given school day, over 85,000 fourth grade students are exposed to some form of fire and burn prevention education.

In 1989, Ernest successfully lobbied the North Carolina legislature to pass a bill making it mandatory that all hot water heaters in the state be pre-sent at a temperature of 120 degrees.  In 1996, when a fraternity house fire took the lives of five UNC-Chapel Hill students, he was instrumental in working with university officials and the Greek campus organizations to design a comprehensive fire and burn safety program.  He has just completed a five-year study in conjunction with the NC Department of Insurance and Injury Prevention Research Center on the effects of fireworks injuries.  Recently North Carolina legalized pyrotechnics and Ernest hopes to have the law repealed using the results of his study.  He is also participating in the campaign to overturn the relaxation of standards related to flammability of children's sleepwear.