Every VUSN graduate has exciting things happening in her or his life, both professionally and personally. Class Notes – printed twice a year in the Vanderbilt Nurse Magazine and available online on this page – is an opportunity for you to not only learn what other alumni are doing but also share news about your life. We would love to hear what you've been up to! Please contact us with any updates, or call 615-322-4836. And, when posting on social media please tag us! #VUSN

Look below for news from your classmates as of December 31, 2022. Items received since July 1, 2022 are shown in red font.

Adrienne Ames, MSN'75, received the Elizabeth Jacobs Service Award from the Nashville Council on Aging, in December 2016.

Mary Day, MSN'75, retired after a career that includes director of the nurse midwifery program at the University of California Los Angeles, faculty member at UC San Diego and certified nurse-midwife with Kaiser (2015). 

Karen Degerberg, BSN'75, retired after 31 years as a nurse practitioner at George Washington University Student Health Center in Washington, D.C. (2018).

Carol Etherington, MSN'75, was chosen as an ex-officio member of the Vanderbilt University Public Health Advisory Task Force, formed in March 2020 by Interim Chancellor and Provost Susan Wente as a resource during the COVID-19 pandemic. She was named to the Tennessee Health Care Hall of Fame in May 2018 and serves on the Metropolitan Nashville Board of Health.

Chita Cisneros Farrar, BSN'75, MSN'80, co-authored "Pain Management," in the December 2017 issue of Critical Care Nursing Clinics . She served as president of District 3 of the Tennessee Nurses Association.

Joan Furman, MSN'75, is a nurse practitioner and clinical experiential therapist offering counseling, experiential therapy and a variety of healing services in her private practice in Nashville (2017).

Sara Hutchison Hampshire, BSN'71, MSN'75 , of Nashville, passed away May 2, 2020.

Deborah Hart-Bowley, BSN'75 , of Richmond, Virginia, passed away December 28, 2018.

Leslie Jones Higgins, BSN'72, MSN'75, presented "Nursing: Managing Chronic Pain Using the TDH Guidelines," in February 2019 at a Belmont University (Nashville) homecoming event about the opioid crisis and trauma informed care. She was named professor emerita of nursing at Belmont that May. She received the Tennessee Nurses Association Nursing Excellence–Nursing Education Award in October 2015.

Becky Moreland Hoffmeister, N'75 , of Saint Petersburg, Florida, passed away January 28, 2020.

Sally Tucker Jasper, BSN'75, MSN'83, retired in June 2018 after 43 years of nursing. She taught at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Oregon, for 20 years and established the school's simulation lab.

Joan Michael King, BSN'72, MSN'75, PhD'84, co-authored "Improving Efficiency within a Trauma Nurse Practitioner Team," published in the Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners in May 2020, and was named professor of nursing, emerita at Vanderbilt University in May 2019. Joan was appointed to the Nurse Practitioner Residency/Fellowship Standards Committee for the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education in 2018. That year, she received the American Association of Heart Failure Nurses Distinguished Member Award and the VUSN Sara K. Archer Excellence in Teaching Award from students in the Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner specialty. Joan is on the advisory board of Nursing in Critical Care: The Journal of the British Association of Critical Care Nurses.

Jeanne Latimer, BSN'75, was appointed in 2015 to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission for a six-year term.  

Diane Lauver, BSN'75, co-authored "How Could Nurse Researchers Apply Theory to Generate Knowledge More Efficiently?" which became a top downloaded item on the Journal of Nursing Scholarship website in 2020. She was an organizer of and presented at the Student Health Coalition event "Looking Back, Looking Forward," in May 2017 at Vanderbilt University. Diane is former director of the PhD program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and recipient of the Norma Lang Excellence in Nursing Research Award from the Wisconsin Nurses Association.

Rebecca Bruning Manyak, BSN'75 , of Chevy Chase, Maryland, passed away October 19, 2017.

Deborah McMillan, N'75, retired from the U.S. Army in 1992 as a lieutenant colonel. She has since served as hospice nurse in Dayton, Ohio, taught nursing in Fairborn, Ohio, worked in home care and adult daycare in Columbus, Ohio, and been a private duty nurse in Delaware, Ohio (2018). 

Ginny Place Myer, BSN'75, was appointed to the Vanderbilt University Alumni Board in 2016 for a three-year term.  

Sherrie Raby Nichols, BSN'75, is senior medical analyst and advisor at Overbook Medical Review Company in Nashville (2020).

Catherine Nweke, N'75 , of Austin, Texas, passed away May 17, 2021.

Trish Trangenstein, BSN'75, is co-author of "Education to Improve Point of Care Documentation in Home Care Nurses: A Quality Improvement Project," published in CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing in July 2021, and of "Using Contemporary e-Learning Tools to Teach Staff How to Use New Online Documentation Systems," published in July 2019 in Studies in Health Technology and Informatics . She received the VUSN Dean's Award for Faculty Achievement in Informatics Endeavors in May 2018 and retired from her position as professor at Vanderbilt later that year.

Patsy Trimble Yarbrough, BSN'75, was a finalist in the Tennessean's 2015 Salute to Nurses for her work in the Vanderbilt Eskind Pediatric Diabetes Clinic in Nashville.