The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) will present the Flame of Excellence Award to Barbara "Bobbi" Leeper, RN, MN, CNS M-S, CCRN, FAHA, cardiovascular clinical nurse specialist at Baylor University Medical Center, Dallas.
Leeper will receive the award at the 2011 National Teaching Institute & Critical Care Exposition, Chicago, April 30-May 5. The Flame of Excellence Award honors sustained contributions to acute and critical care nursing at a high level and with broad reach.
At Baylor, she leads multidisciplinary rounds, protocol development, quality improvement initiatives and standards of practice for critical care with particular emphasis on cardiac surgery and cardiology patients.
A respected expert national speaker and highly rated presenter at the AACN National Teaching Institute & Critical Care Exposition, her chapters on cardiovascular care appear in "AACN Essentials of Critical Care Nursing" and "AACN Essentials of Progressive Care Nursing." As a popular presenter of review courses, she has coached thousands of nurses to become specialty certified in high acuity and critical care. She served on the editorial boards of Critical Care Nurse, Focus on Critical Care and the predecessor to AACN Advanced Critical Care and authored or co-authored a multitude of articles, abstracts and book chapters.
Her many awards include the 1997 Excellence in Clinical Practice Award from the Council on Cardiovascular Nursing of the American Heart Association, which named her a fellow in 2001. A member of AACN since 1972, Leeper served as president of the Greater Kansas City Chapter in 1973 and the Dallas County Chapter in 1994.