Longtime nurse receives Florence Nightingale Award
By Per Peterson
The last place Deb Bjorklund wants to be for any lengthy period of time is behind a desk.
Thankfully for Sanford Tracy Medical Center and all the patients Bjorklund has helped treat over the last 40-plus years, she rarely finds herself in such a place.
“I couldn’t take it at a desk for eight hours a day, I couldn’t do it,” said Bjorklund, an RN who on May 7 was awarded the Florence Nightingale Award, which recognizes nurses for outstanding involvement in the provision of the art and the science of nursing.
The 42-year nurse said she was taken aback after learning she had won the prestigious award.
“I was totally surprised; I had no clue,” she said. “I got a letter in the mail saying I was nominated, so I appreciated that from my co-workers. I did not know that I was going to get it. When they called my name it was a big surprise. It still gets to me.”
Bjorklund trained from 1972-76 at the now-defunct Abbott Northwestern School of Nursing.
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