UA Nursing Professor Presented With Legion of Merit Award

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – A University of Alabama nursing faculty member who helped reservists injured in Iraq receive follow-up medical care closer to their homes will receive the military’s Legion of Merit Award in a May 7 ceremony on the UA campus.

Maj. Gen. Gale S. Pollock will present retired Col. Marietta Stanton, professor and director of graduate programs in The University of Alabama Capstone College of Nursing, with the award during a 1:30 p.m. ceremony in Room 110 (auditorium) of UA’s Alabama Innovation and Mentoring of Entrepreneurs Center, known as AIME.

The Legion of Merit Award, established by Congressional Act on July 20, 1942, is presented for “exceptionally meritorious service.” It is the nation’s fifth highest military award.

Col. Etta Johnson, deputy surgeon of the Army Reserve, will make a presentation. UA Army ROTC cadets who are nursing majors will escort Pollock and lead the Pledge of Allegiance.

Stanton, who served in the military for 29 years, retired from the service in November 2007.

An Army Reserve officer, Stanton was activated in the U.S. Army in March 2004 and deployed to Fort Gordon, Ga. She was one of four experienced professional nurses with the rank of colonel mobilized by the Army Medical Department to serve as senior case managers in the nation’s regional medical commands. She returned to part-time status, and to Tuscaloosa, in April 2005.

During this mobilization, Stanton was senior case manager, clinical operations, at the Southeast Regional Medical Command. Senior case managers’ specific focus is Reserve Component soldiers activated for duty in Iraq.

When these soldiers are injured on duty and return to the United States, they are treated at military hospitals. This often leaves soldiers a significant distance from their homes and family during treatment.

Stanton was involved in implementing and evaluating a special option for reservists, called Community Based Health Care Initiative, allowing them to receive follow-up treatment within a 50-mile radius of their home. Soldiers requiring follow-up treatment can be assigned a case manager at a Community Based Health Care Organization within their home state. The case manager then coordinates a network of contract, military and VA services to help the soldier return to health.

Stanton’s group set up four such health care organizations in Florida and case managed soldiers requiring follow-up treatment. She served as an adviser, consultant and educator to the nurses, social workers and other health care professionals who have been mobilized as case managers in these facilities.

In October 2005, as a Reserve officer, Stanton was assigned as the Individual Mobilization Augmentee, or IMA, for the chief in the Department of Nursing Science, Academy of Health Sciences at Fort Sam Houston, Texas.

Stanton was earlier awarded the U.S. Army Meritorious Service Medal.

As a civilian, Stanton has been employed by The University of Alabama Capstone College of Nursing since 1999 as director of the graduate program. In that role, she has provided leadership to develop and implement the first master of nursing degree program offered by the College. The initial program was in nursing case management.

Stanton has led an expansion of graduate nursing programs to master’s-prepared clinical nurse leaders and joint programs with the colleges of Commerce and Business Administration and Education. In addition, Stanton has provided classroom and clinical instruction of the case management practicum at UA for more than 120 students during the past eight years.

The University of Alabama, a student-centered research university, is in the midst of planned, steady enrollment growth with a goal of reaching 28,000 students by 2010. This growth, which is positively impacting the campus and the state's economy, is in keeping with UA's vision to be the university of choice for the best and brightest students. UA, the state's flagship university, is an academic community united in its commitment to enhancing the quality of life for all Alabamians.