Immediate Past-President

Mary Gruber, MSN, APRN, AGCNS-BC

Mary is a Cardiovascular CNS with 40 years of heart care experience at HealthEast. Now as a CNS in M Health Fairview, she partners across the Cardiovascular Service Line in multiple hospitals, supporting practice from the CV procedural areas to Cardiac Telemetry units. Mary is leading Fairview system-wide Alarm Management projects and is subject matter expert with cardiac monitoring and telemetry. Mary’s background includes 17 years of CCU and CV-ICU experience as well as 9 years as a Critical Care Educator. Reflected in her work with heart care program development is her long-standing passion about heart failure, women with heart disease, AMI/PCI care, teaching heart rhythms, and 12-lead ECG interpretation. Her undergraduate degree was from the College of St. Benedict and graduate degree was through Winona State. Mary’s recent transition to becoming a Clinical Nurse Specialist was a natural progression, although a long time in coming. Current Memberships: American Association of Critical Care Nurses, National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists, Minnesota Affiliate of the National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists, Member of MN NACNS 2019 Fall Conference Planning Committee. 

President

Mary Gerchman-Smith, MA, APRN, CCNS

Mary is a Critical Care CNS with over 30 years of nursing experience at Essentia Health.  She currently covers the Neurotrauma Burn, Medical, Cardiovascular ICUs and the Infusion Therapy Team.  Her focus is early mobility, trauma, burn care, delirium prevention, ECMO, suicide prevention, organ donation and HAIs.  Mary successfully co-led several multi-disciplinary teams to implement a system-wide suicide screening tool, a behavioral emergency response team, development and implementation of an ECMO program.  Her current project is the development of proning guidelines and a creation of a proning team.  In addition, Mary leads the critical care nursing council, co-leads the system CLABSI and CDI prevention committees.  She is the ECMO nursing coordinator and one of the ALTS coordinators at Essentia Health.  Mary is currently active in the following associations: National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists, Minnesota Affiliate of the National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists, American Association of Critical Care Nurses, Member of 2019 and 2020 MN NACNS Fall Conference Planning Committee.  She has also authored and presented several topics at local and national conferences.

Secretary

Linda Vogel, APRN, CNS

Linda Vogel is a CNS at Essentia Health – St. Mary’s Medical Center in Duluth, MN.  She earned her BA degree at the College of St. Scholastica in 1992 and Master’s degree with a Clinical Nurse Specialist focus in 2001 and is certified by the American Association of Critical Care Nurses in Adult Critical Care Nursing.  Linda currently is the Trauma Program Manager for Essentia Health’s Level I adult trauma in addition to the oversight of the Level II pediatric trauma program.  Her background includes post coronary care, critical care, and trauma.  She has worked in the direct care role for patients with trauma, acute care surgery, burn, and surgical critical care needs.  She was instrumental in the development and implementation of Minnesota’s state trauma system since its inception in 2005 and has served on Minnesota’s state trauma advisory council, a position appointed by the Commissioner of Health.  Linda is involved in the MN NACNS planning committee for the second year. She is interested in continuing to develop relationships across the state by bringing individuals together to strengthen the work of the Clinical Nurse Specialist.

Treasurer

Lisa Douglas, APRN, CNS, DNP

Lisa Douglas has 21 years of CNS experience as at Mayo Clinic. She currently supports Primary Care Nursing Practice with a CNS team in SE Minnesota. Lisa has enjoyed 35 years of nursing, graduating initially from a diploma program, and continuing her education while working as an RN in a variety of critical care settings. After graduating from Winona State University in 2000 with her master's degree

with CNS focus, she began her advanced practice career at Mayo Clinic, working in several positions, supporting trauma/surgical patients (11 years), emergency department (3 years), CV surgery/Transplant (4 years) and 2 critical access hospitals in Mayo Clinic Health System SWMN (2 years) (Waseca and New Prague hospitals). She has been involved in a variety of quality improvement projects. Areas of interest are skin/wound, ethics, and falls. Committee work includes both institutional and departmental involvement: Multidisciplinary Ethics Consult service (12 years), multiple medication/pharmacy collaboratives with an emphasis on event review and safe administration practice and chaired the Nursing Clinical Practice committee. Lisa is grateful for the opportunities to serve as a preceptor and mentor for RN’s and CNS students during her career—watching nurses develop their own strengths and skills is a bucket-filler for me! My experience as a CNS in a variety of settings (inpatient, outpatient, medical/surgical) within both a large facility and critical access hospitals gives me perspectives related to the direct care, nursing and systems spheres which would be assets to the MN NACNS (National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists) board. I look forward to the opportunity to highlight the role of

the CNS across our state and ensure we keep the path lit for the CNSs of the future!

President Elect

Pam Schmidt MS, APRN, ACNS-BC, CEN, PCCN-K

Pam received her BSN from the University of Southern Maine. She has staff RN experience in cardiac telemetry, coronary critical care, oncology/bone marrow transplantation, and emergency nursing. She has been an Adult Health CNS since 2006, graduating from the University of Minnesota where she completed clinical rotations in cardiothoracic, diabetes and pain management while commuting from Fergus Falls, MN. In 2011, Pam began her HealthEast career as a staff ED RN at St. John’s Hospital before being recruited to a CNS position at Bethesda Hospital, the system’s long-term acute care hospital (LTACH), for the vent and tele units.  Starting in Fall 2012, Pam led projects to increase the acuity/complexity of patient populations served including those with left ventricular assist devices (LVADs), insulin infusions, and requiring sedation infusions. In 2019, she transitioned to the ED CNS/APNL role at M Health Fairview’s East Region hospitals. She currently covers Woodwinds, St. John’s, and Fairview Lakes EDs and leads system ED policy integration work. Pam is a past-president of the Minnesota Medical Association Alliance, Park Region Medical Association Alliance, local PTO, and American Association of University Women Chapter (Fergus Falls). She also served on the boards of the United Way of Otter Tail County and the American Medical Association Alliance Foundation. She is a member of the National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists, Minnesota Affiliate of the National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists, American Association of Critical Care Nurses, and the Emergency Nurses Association. She chaired the 2016 MN NACNS Annual Conference planning committee and has served as the ANCC Nurse Planner for the MN NACNS Pharmacology Symposiums since their inception in 2019.