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News Release
Contact: Mark McGowan, NIU Office of Public Affairs
(815) 753-9472
September 15, 2003
Tri-County Clinic director
honored for nursing leadership
DeKalb — Winners of SAGE recognition – Significant Advisor, Guide and Enlightener – from the University of Illinois-Chicago’s College of Nursing are mentors of today’s leaders of nursing.
Eligible candidates are “a nurse administrator, educator, researcher or expert clinician who has impacted the lives and spirits of many nurses” – qualities the selection committee found in Mary Uscian, longtime director of the Tri-County Community Health Center, who will receive the honor Oct. 17.
“No more deserving a person exists,” said Donna Plonczynski, a faculty member in the NIU School of Nursing and one of nearly 20 people who wrote letters of support.
“I can tell you what people have said about her: selfless, thoughtful, dynamic, tireless, honest, compassionate, expert, funny, impressive, enthusiastic, necessary,” Plonczynski said. “Mary epitomizes caring in nursing. She mentors every person who comes into Tri-County, as a student or staff, and she exudes kindness and competence to every patient. Despite all her other responsibilities, she makes sure to contact everyone who comes into that clinic to make sure they know she is there for them.”
Marilyn Frank-Stromborg, chair of the School of Nursing in the College of Health and Human Sciences, agrees.
“No one who visits, participates or observes nursing at Tri-County escapes hearing Mary rave about the difference community health nursing makes in the lives of the working poor,” Stromborg said. “It is rare that we don’t have a few graduating students select to enter community health nursing because they were exposed to the opportunities for creative, caring nursing that makes a difference at Tri-County.”
Uscian will receive her award during the Power of Nursing Leadership Celebration in Chicago.
“I’m tickled to death,” Uscian said. “There is no recognition like the recognition one gets from one’s peers. If your peers think you’re doing a good job, that to me feels like the highest recognition you can get.”
She is one of the three founders of Tri-County, a joint effort between the NIU School of Nursing and the Kishwaukee Community College nursing program to provide affordable health care to low-income residents of DeKalb, Ogle and Lee counties.
The mission: to increase access to health care for community residents and to educate nursing students in primary care.
About 15,000 different people of all ages have sought treatment at the bilingual clinic since it opened in 1994. Ninety-nine percent are classified as low-income; one of three is a minority. No one is turned away for an inability to pay.
The clinic’s work has earned the financial support of generous benefactors who have contributed and pledged more than $2.25 million in recent years.
And, in 2001, U.S. Speaker of the House and NIU alum J. Dennis Hastert helped to identify more than $450,000 in the federal budget to help Tri-County buy much-needed medical, educational and office-related equipment.
“While Mary will espouse the virtues of community health nursing, her actions are more powerful than her words since she ‘walks the talk,’ ” Stromborg said.
“Students are faculty are profoundly influenced by viewing her commitment to delivering the finest health care possible to the poor, her never-ending work on behalf of Tri-County by constantly raising money to assure its continuation, her deep respect for fostering the autonomy of all patients and her willingness to share her expertise with anyone.”
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