Barbara Crane, MN, APRN awarded the Barfield Nursing Section Award*
4/28/2015
"The Barfield Award was initiated by the Nursing Section of the Georgia Public Health Association in 1983 to honor Dorothy Barfield who served as the Chief Nurse at the State level. The purpose of this award is to recognize papers that promote public health by contributing to public health issues, programs, and philosophies."
"Barbara Crane, MN, APRN, a native of Atlanta, has been practicing nursing for almost 45 years. She is the Deputy Director for Prevention, Screening and Treatment in the Chronic Disease Section of the Georgia Department of Public Health. In her current role, she oversees Cancer State Aid; the Breast and Cervical Cancer Program Colorectral Cancer Screeening Program; and a team that works on chronic disease related health systems change, healthcare quality improvement, and community-clinical linkages across chronic diseases.
Barbara received her Diploma in nursing from the Crawford W. Long School of Nursing, a Bachelor's degree majoring in nursing from Georgia State University's School of Allied Health Sciences, and a Master's degree with clinical specialty in Nurse Midwifery from Emory University's Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing.
Following 30 years of practicing obstetrics, Barbara retired from midwifery to find another challenging career where she could continue to improve the public's health. As the Women's Health Coordinator for the Clayton Health District for almost 9 years she developed a true love of Public Health Nursing. In 2009, she transferred to the State Office as a Nurse Consultant for the Breast and Cervical Cancer Program and to support the CDC cooperative agreement, "Enhancing Breast Cancer Genomics through Education, Surveillance and Policy." The genomics work became a passion for Barbara because it means the prevention of one of the leading causes of cancer deaths in Georgia through early identification of women at risk. While working on this cooperative agreement, Barbara authored a paper with partners at Emory, Georgia CORE and DPH that described results from the implementation of new screening approaches for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. This approach has become a model for private health care partners and other state health departments across the country. Outside of work, Barbara is an avid sports fan especially for her adopted school, the University of Georgia. On football Saturday, you will only find her where the Bulldogs are playing. Barbara is also an animal lover and enjoys caring for her 5 year old Golden Retriever, Charlie, and visiting the Giant Pandas at Zoo Atlanta. Barbara's colleagues appreciate her for her sense of humor and her deep commitment to public health nursing and to improving the health of women of Georgia."
*As written up in the 86th Annual GPHA Meeting and Joint Conference with the Southern Health Association Syllabus. You can learn more about this program here: http://www.gapha.org/annual-meeting-conference/.