AACN to present Flame of Excellence Award to VCU researcher

The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) will present the Flame of Excellence Award to noted researcher and educator Mary Jo Grap, RN, PhD, FAAN, professor, School of Nursing, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond.

Grap will receive the award at the 2011 National Teaching Institute & Critical Care Exposition, Chicago, April 30-May 5. The Flame of Excellence Award honors sustained contributions to acute and critical care nursing at a high level and with broad reach.

Grap's research — funded by the National Institutes of Health, the American Nurses Foundation and AACN — focuses on optimizing lung function in critically ill adults who undergo mechanical ventilation and includes studies on airway management, prevention of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) and, recently, sedation evaluation during mechanical ventilation. She helped to develop and test the Richmond Agitation Sedation Scale, considered the first of an improved "second-generation" sedation evaluation tool.

In 2009, AACN recognized Grap with its Distinguished Research Lecture award. Her interdisciplinary research team of respiratory therapists, physicians, biomedical engineers, basic scientists, physical therapists and developers of critical care equipment were among the first to evaluate use of actigraphy to assess agitation in critically ill patients.

Grap continues to practice as an acute care nurse practitioner in the medical respiratory ICU at the Medical College of Virginia Hospitals, Richmond. A research consultant, she mentors staff nurses, graduate students and faculty in a variety of intensive care settings to improve critical care nursing practice.

The 30-year veteran of the U.S. Army Reserves retired in 2002 with the rank of colonel. Recognized for excellence in critical care nursing with a special commendation from the U.S. Army Surgeon General, she earned the Army Commendation Medal for meritorious service to the 4215th U.S. Army Hospital USAR, Richmond, Va., as its first chief nurse.

Grap, associate editor of the bimonthly journal American Journal of Critical Care since 2003, serves on the editorial board for the international Intensive and Critical Care Nursing Journal, published in the United Kingdom, and as a contributing author on pulse oximetry for AACN Protocols for Practice: Noninvasive Monitoring. A prolific author with more than 50 articles, she also wrote an AACN Practice Alert on oral care.