The scholarship advisory committee of the Barbara “Foof” Forfar Nursing Scholarship Fund announced that it has awarded nursing scholarships totaling $3,000 to six members of the Ocean Medical Center staff.
Samantha Bernard (Brick Township), Juana Maria Buergo (Freehold), Andrea Clauser (Point Pleasant), Jodi Imperato (Howell), Sharon Lubeck (Brick Township) and Nicole Marie Ortiz (Toms River) were presented six individual $500 scholarships during an awards ceremony held Sept. 19 on the Ocean Medical Center main campus in Brick Township.
According to a press release, the ceremony marks the second time in as many years that scholarships have been awarded to Ocean Medical Center employees from the scholarship fund.
The six 2012 scholarship recipients were selected by the Barbara “Foof” Forfar Nursing Scholarship Fund Scholarship Advisory Committee from 15 total applicants after the committee reviewed all scholarship applications and supporting documents from each of the candidates who applied.
Buergo, of Freehold, received her RN degree in 1986 and is currently pursuing her BSN at the Kean University School of Nursing at Ocean with an expected graduation date in the fall of 2015. She is a longtime member of the operating room team and was at one time mentored by the scholarship namesake, Barbara Forfar. Buergo co-chaired the medical center’s Operating Room Committee from 2005-09 and is also a safety officer at the medical center.
Imperato, of Howell, is a team member of the Critical Care Unit who began nursing at the age of 19 and has already obtained her RN, CCRN and BSN. She is pursuing her MSN at Walden University with an expected graduation date of January 2014. Imperato is a member of the Critical Care and Restraint Committees of the medical center.
The Barbara “Foof” Forfar Nursing Scholarship Fund was established to honor the memory of long-time Point Pleasant resident Barbara Forfar, or “Foof” as she was called by her fellow nurses and other colleagues in the operating room, and her 44 years of dedication to the nursing profession with all but three years of her service associated with the Ocean Medical Center or its predecessor hospitals.