Margaret Ferguson Raynor, BSN ‘67, MEd, RN, has established an expendable fund that will help expand and strengthen the sustainability of the School of Nursing Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMNHP) Program. Mrs. Raynor continues her ardent support of psychiatric mental health nursing education by adding this expendable fund to a scholarship she established with her husband Bobby in 2011.
Carolina’s PMHNP Program prepares advanced practice nurses to work with the underserved and underserviced. The program places a special focus on serving people in rural and remote areas of North Carolina, where psychiatric and mental health services can be scarce, unavailable, and/or inadequate. The new fund will help expand the program’s network of mentors and also help build connections and programs that would sustain the program into the future.
Mrs. Raynor has been a psychiatric nurse for more than 47 years, spending most of her career as a nurse leader at Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh, N.C. She is passionate about serving patients in the public sector. “PMHNPs can effectively address the needs of these patients, who often have a combination of physical and emotional needs,” she says. “PMHNPs look at the whole person and focus on empowering the patient versus focusing on the illnesses.”
Mrs. Raynor now uses her skills on behalf of patients at Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro, N.C. and as a member of the Wake County Human Services Board. She has also served as a director and president of the School of Nursing Foundation, Inc. (for two terms); a member of the UNC Chapel Hill Board of Visitors, an executive committee member for the Dental Foundation of North Carolina, Inc.; a General Alumni Association Board member; and was named the UNC School of Nursing Alumna of the Year in 2005.
She named the new expendable fund to honor the work of the PMHNP director, Victoria Soltis-Jarrett, PhD, PMHCNS/NP-BC, who has practiced psychiatric nursing for over 30 years and maintains her PMHNP practice in outpatient settings in Winston-Salem and Durham, which she believes “enriches the student’s experiences in the classroom”. “I have worked with Dr. Soltis-Jarrett, and she embodies all the qualities that I think are needed to address the needs of this population and to train PMHNPs to address these needs,” Mrs. Raynor says. “She focuses on empowering patients.”
Dr. Soltis-Jarrett says, “Mrs. Raynor’s generosity is a testament to her pledge and loyalty to the School as well as to PMHN. Those who have worked in psychiatric nursing in North Carolina know of her caring and dedication to those who suffer from severe and persistent mental illnesses. I am so honored to have her support and proud to call her a colleague.”
If you would like to contribute to the Victoria Soltis-Jarrett Expendable Fund for Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing, please contact Anne Webb, Assistant Dean of Advancement (919) 966-4619 aaldridg@email.unc.edu.