2008 Henning Award Honors Gail Gibson of Louisiana

By Kay Nidiffer Rogers, CPM,
Chair, 2008 Henning Award Committee

Receiving national recognition from your peers for career, organizational and community service is a treasured honor, and the Academy's most prestigious award, the annual Henning Award, recognizes career accomplishment, leadership and service to the Academy, Society, profession and community.

In September, the 2008 Henning Award was presented to Gail P. Gibson, CPM of New Orleans, Louisiana.
   
The Henning Award, named in honor of Ken Henning, was inaugurated by the Academy in the late 1980's. Because of his belief in the profession and dedication to improving public service, Ken Henning is an Academy hero and person to whom we owe a great debt. His legacy is one the Academy is proud to honor annually with the presentation of the Henning Award.

Each year the selection of one Academy Fellow who has made the greatest contribution is a difficult task because of the exceptional service and outstanding achievements of the individuals nominated by their Societies for consideration. Kay Rogers chaired the 2008 Henning Award Selection Committee and was joined by Patti Barnett, Happi Hansen, and two other previous recipients of the award, Barbara Pepper and Haywood Poole.

This year's field of candidates was strong and competitive. However, members of the selection committee were unanimous in their scoring and rankings of Gail's remarkable contributions to her profession, Society, Academy and most especially, her community, and she clearly stood out among the rest. It is ironic that while the Academy was celebrating her service, heroism and bravery three years after Hurricane Katrina, Gail was unable to attend the annual conference and personally accept her award due to events occurring as a result of Hurricane Gustav that roared through New Orleans and the Gulf Coast a few weeks prior to the conference.

Let me tell you more about Gail. She earned her bachelor and masters degrees in nursing from Louisiana State University Medical Center. She has been on the nursing staff at Charity Hospital in New Orleans since 1986, where she was named Associate Nursing Administrator for Maternal Child Services in 1993.

She earned her CPM credential in 1994, and was awarded the Charles E. Dunbar Career Civil Service Award in 2004---Louisiana’s highest award for career public service. She has twice been named "Department Director of the Year" at the Medical Center of Louisiana and has also been honored as one of Louisiana's "Great 100 Nurses."

She is recognized in Who's Who of International Professionals and Who's Who Among Students in American Universities & Colleges; is a member of the International Honor Society of Nursing; and was designated a Distinguished Woman of Louisiana and a Distinguished Woman of the Louisiana Child Care Association in 1994.

Among others, her innovations and contributions to management include restructuring management and staffing patterns to improve efficiency of obstetrical and pediatric services; researching and implementing an infant security system; implementing a fetal monitoring system which improved surveillance and documentation, and restructuring and expanding the Childbirth Education and Lactation Services Programs.

She served the Louisiana CPM Society as President-Elect, President, and Past President, and has served in the AACPM House of Delegates each year since 2005. When elected Louisiana's President-Elect in 2004, she almost immediately assumed the presidency due to the office suddenly becoming vacant. She had served on the Society's awards and conference committees and represented the society on Louisiana's CPM Policy Board.

The December 18, 2005 issue of Time Magazine detailed a remarkable account of Gail Gibson's response to a natural and human disaster. The narrative reads:

"As Katrina roared toward New Orleans, more than a million people fled the area, but 29 of the city's littlest, most sickly babies were left to ride out the storm in University Hospital. Many, born prematurely, were too weak to make the trip. Her job was to make sure they stayed alive--and Katrina posed an extraordinary challenge, isolating her, her staff and their charges for five days. The incubators had stopped working, so the nurses had to carry the babies in their arms most of the time to keep them warm.

"The horrors began the first day when the staff heard that the levees had been breached. 'People got really scared and thought they were going to drown,' she said, 44 years old, a nursing administrator. 'The staff was getting calls from members of their families who were stuck in attics as the water was rising.'  Some wanted to leave any way possible--and take their tiny charges with them.

"She went from group to group, telling them that they would get out 'when it is safe.' But she too was worrying--about her husband and two children, whom she had not heard from. With no electricity and the backup generators flooded, the staff got news from the hospital's lone ham radio.

"At one point, a helicopter rescue was planned, with a pickup point atop Tulane University Hospital, three blocks away. Nurses carrying babies boarded rowboats--respirating the sickest ones by "hand bagging," a method of forcing air into the lungs. But the helicopter was commandeered for another mission, and the nurses returned with their swaddled patients.

"'The staff was just emotionally drained. They were crying and upset as they came back.' She walked the units to reassure them. 'They needed to look in my face and see that it was going to be all right. I told them our No. 1 focus is our patients. We don't want to rush out of here and die in the process.'

"She was near exhaustion, having had no sleep most of the week. Yet she took on more duties, overseeing nurses in other areas of the hospital. On what turned out to be their last night, the staff successfully delivered a 23-week-old preemie using lights and minimal equipment run by three portable generators.

"The next day, they were finally evacuated. All the babies are fine. 'We don't feel like heroes,' she said. 'We just wanted our babies to go home alive and be reunited with their parents.'  Mission accomplished."  (Thomas, C., Time Magazine, December 18, 2005) 

She then worked with the command team to plan and implement the evacuation of not only the maternal child division but the entire hospital complex. After overseeing the successful emergency evacuation of Maternal Child Services, including obstetrical, neonatal and pediatrics services, she was one of the last people to leave the medical complex.

She was evacuated out of the flooded city by boat then bussed to higher ground, talking the bus driver into making an unauthorized stop so that she could be reunited with her family. Unable to find housing, they stayed with church families in a city 90 miles from home from August until November where they remained until able to return home.

More than 90% of her extended family was not as fortunate. For over a year, she and her family housed numerous family members and friends who were continuing to work toward returning to their own homes and normal lives. She returned to work in January and by late March 2006 was making final preparations for the reopening of her hospital.

During this traumatic time, she also demonstrated exemplary dedication to the Louisiana Society, by conducting society meetings by speakerphone and video conferencing, using every means possible to effectively lead the society during this natural disaster and period of rebuilding.

The Academy has presented the 19th Henning Award to an outstanding Certified Public Manager®, a lady of courage and commitment who is always an outstanding leader, our hero and recipient of the 2008 Henning Award, Ms. Gail P. Gibson of Louisiana!

© Copyright 2008, American Association of Certified Public Managers®