If you want to know where Dawn Yost’s passion lies, take a look at the photos on the walls in her office. Look at the photos that scroll across her computer screen for her screen saver. There you will find images of children from all over the world who suffer from clefts, severe burns and hand injuries.

Yost, a registered nurse and pre-operative services manager of nursing operations and sterile processing at WVU Healthcare, recently received the first Barco’s Nightingales Foundation Award for Nursing Excellence.

Since 1994, Yost has annually volunteered two weeks of her time working as an operating room nurse on surgical trips with Interplast, now called ReSurge International. Those trips have taken her to Ecuador, Ethiopia, Honduras, Myanmar, Nepal, Peru, Vietnam and Zambia.

A graduate of both the nursing and dental hygiene programs at WVU, Yost believes that being a professional means sharing whatever talent an individual has with other people. As a result of sharing her talents with children all over the world, Yost said she gets more than she could ever give.

Quick to turn the attention away from herself, Yost said her work is nothing without the volunteers whom she’s worked alongside on these trips. “I make a small impact. The team makes a large impact,” she said. “It’s a team effort, completely a team effort.”

The award was presented in early November at Interplast’s annual Transformations Gala in California. Yost received a custom-designed glass vase based on artwork created to honor New York City firefighters in the wake of Sept. 11. Barco’s Nightingales Foundation will donate 10 surgeries for children to ReSurge in her honor.

For more information on WVU Healthcare see www.wvuhealth.com.

For more information on ReSurge International see www.resurge.org.

-WVU-

CONTACT: Angela Jones, HSC News Service
304-293-7087; jonesan@wvuh.com