Vernice Ferguson was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on June 13, 1928. She grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, where her father was a minister and her mother was a teacher.[1] Ferguson volunteered at a hospital in high school.[2] She taught junior high school science in Baltimore before she became a nurse. She received an undergraduate degree in nursing from New York University and a master's degree from Columbia University Teachers College. She began her career as a nurse at Montefiore Hospital on its NIH-funded Metabolic Neoplastic Research Unit.[3]
Vernice Ferguson, awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Science from Marymount College, Virginia, 1977.
In 1970, Ferguson won the Mary Mahoney Award from the American Nurses Association, an award that recognizes contributions to racial equality in the nursing profession.[6][7] She was designated a Living Legend of the American Academy of Nursing in 1998. Ferguson received a New York University College of Nursing Distinguished Alumni Award in 2010. She was the first nurse to receive the FREDDIE Lifetime Achievement Award, which recognizes excellence in medical media production.[8] Ferguson was the second American named an honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing in the United Kingdom.[3]
Later life and legacy
In 1992, Ferguson retired from the VA and was named a senior fellow with the nursing program at the University of Pennsylvania. She was 84 years old when she died on December 8, 2012, in Washington, D.C.[1] A memorial scholarship is awarded in her honor by the Nurses Organization of Veterans Affairs.[9]
