Photo By Mark Olsen | U.S. Army Maj. Melinda F. Moyer, right, D.N.P., Director of Clinical Programs, New...... read more read more
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U.S. Army Maj. Melinda F. Moyer gazed across the auditorium at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center; 400 graduates, 120 faculty and staff members, and 2,000 guests waited for her to speak.
Moyer was about to address the Rutgers School of Nursing Convocation 2022 in Newark, New Jersey, May 18, 2022, as the graduate student speaker.
Just a few minutes prior, she had been awarded the Stanley S. Bergen Medal of Excellence, named after first president of the University of Medicine and Dentistry, now part of Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences.
“It wasn’t until I started looking into who Stanley Bergen was as a person and all that he accomplished that I began feeling a sense of pride and ownership in this award,” Moyer said. “Learning that he had three generations of roots within the New Jersey Army National Guard gave me a sense of kinship.”
Moyer joined the New Jersey Army National Guard in 2002 when she was a junior in high school.
“I wanted to be a doctor but knew I didn’t want to pay for it. I was a medic until 2009 when I received a direct commission in nursing and was a case manager until I became a nurse practitioner in 2013.”
In addition to receiving the medal, Moyer was also graduating from Rutgers – again. This time, she was receiving her Post-Master’s Certificate in Nurse-Midwifery. This is her third academic milestone at Rutgers, where she also earned her master’s in the Family Nurse Practitioner program in 2013 and her Doctor of Nursing Practice in 2019. Her credentials include Registered Nurse, Critical Care Registered Nurse, and Forensic Nurse-Certified-Sexual Assault.
Moyer currently serves as the Director of Clinical Programs at the Joint Surgeons Office, Joint Force Headquarters-Army, Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey.
Among the award recommendation letters, Sharon Anderson, associate dean, Division of Advanced Nursing Practice, focuses on Moyer’s work fighting COVID-19 in collaboration with researchers at Yale University while serving at the National Guard Training Center at Sea Girt, New Jersey.
“Committed to her military service, patients, and the nursing profession, Mindy’s [Moyer’s] passion, experience, and expertise within and beyond the classroom exemplify ‘Dr. Bergen's vision to improve the health and quality of life of all New Jersey citizens’. It is without reservation that I and the Women’s Health/Nurse-Midwifery faculty support her nomination for this prestigious award,” Anderson wrote.
This is not the first time Moyer has been recognized for her work in fighting COVID-19 on the Yale University study “Medical surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 infections among military personnel.”
On Dec. 8, 2021, she was awarded the Army Nurse Corps Association (ANCA) 2021 Military Nursing Evidence-Based Practice Award - the first time an Army National Guard Soldier had received this award.
It all began in May 2020 when Moyer was placed on COVID response orders.
“I was working at Sea Girt with the Joint Surgeon's office,” said Moyer. There, she oversaw the safety of more than 1,500 New Jersey National Guard Soldiers and Airmen who had been serving on the frontlines since the beginning days of the pandemic.
When the Soldiers and Airmen were finished, they needed to be tested.
After learning that the Connecticut National Guard was involved in the Yale study, Moyer contacted the Yale researchers and the New Jersey National Guard was added to their study. Between June 3 to Oct. 17, 2020, she drew 728 blood samples from Guardsmen who were on orders.
“We got them tested for both IGG (Immunoglobulin G) and IGM (Immunoglobulin M) antibodies for COVID and based on those results, if they were positive, I followed up with them,” said Moyer.
All this became part of the Medical Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 Infection Among Military Personnel research project, and New Jersey National Guard samples, among others, were used to design the COVID vaccines that are in circulation today.
After completing her address, Moyer then joined the line of candidates and was awarded her Post-Master’s Certificate in Nurse-Midwifery.
“Class of 2022, I am so proud of you,” Moyer said. “I told you superheroes exist; today we all just happen to be wearing our capes.”
| Date Taken: | 05.31.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 05.31.2022 11:56 |
| Story ID: | 421852 |
| Location: | NEWARK, NEW JERSEY, US |
| Web Views: | 455 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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Medicine
Recognition
Army
COVID-19 research
Rutgers School of Nursing
