There is no question that those in the healthcare community perform heroic and lifesaving tasks each day in order to care for others. In the spring of 2009, Santa Clara High School’s staff nurse, Eileen Bowden, performed CPR on the school’s softball coach after he collapsed with no pulse after a team practice.
Bowden’s actions kept the coach alive until paramedics arrived at the school, but then nurse Bowden collapsed. Tragically, she died en route to the local medical center. To read more about Bowden’s story, please click here.
In 2009, Kenneth Dion, Decision Critical Founder and CEO, ran the San Francisco half-marathon for the first time in an effort to help raise funds for nursing scholarships and to increase awareness around the need for future nursing leaders. Dion made his run in remembrance of Eileen Bowden. His efforts raised over $3,200 toward the Eileen Bowden Memorial Scholarship Fund, administered through the Foundation of the National Student Nurses’ Association.
On July 25, 2010, Dion ran the half marathon for a second time in memoriam of Bowden and raised another $2,000 toward the Eileen Bowden Memorial Scholarship Fund to help nurses of today become leaders of tomorrow.
“I am not a runner,” Dion said.
“John F. Kennedy once said that, ‘We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do other things . . . not because they are easy, but because they are hard.’ In an effort to bring increased attention to our need for future professional nurses, I chose this event because it was hard.
“I wanted people to know that this was an idea that I took very, very seriously. I believe that the importance of nurses like Eileen lives on in her memory and if we do not recognize and make others aware of the need for exceptional nurses like Eileen, they will not be there when we need them. We must all support aspiring nurses financially while they make the hard personal sacrifices on their journey to becoming a professional nurse.”
To donate to Dion’s efforts and the Eileen Bowden Memorial Scholarship Fund, please click here.
To learn more about the Eileen Bowden Memorial Scholarship and other nursing scholarships, visit the Foundation of the National Student Nurses’ Association website.