July 2008 – The Visionary Caring Science Award presented to Earl Bakken by Dr. Jean Watson and the Watson Science Institute, Honoring Earl Bakken for Transformation of Nursing and Healthcare

The Inaugural VISIONARY CARING SCIENCE AWARD Was Presented to EARL BAKKEN Inventor of the First Battery-Operated Pacemaker on July 24th at the Mauna Lani Resort ~ Kohala Coast ~ Hawaii

BOULDER, CO. (July 10, 2008) ---The Watson Caring Science Institute, an international non-profit foundation created to advance the philosophies, theories, and practices of The Theory and Science of Human Caring, is proud to recognize Earl Bakken as the inaugural recipient of The Visionary Caring Science Award at the formal ceremony on July 24th, 2008 at 5:00PM Oceanside at The Milo Tree Lawn, Mauna Lani Resort~Kohala Coast~Hawaii. A warm invitation is extended to the national and international print and electronic media to join us to celebrate this outstanding human being.

This Award for Transformation of Nursing and Healthcare brings public tribute to Earl Bakken for his visionary leadership and sustained contributions.  His gifts to medicine have changed the nature of medical-nursing science, shaped the direction of mind/body/spirit medicine and professional nursing, and saved millions of lives through his invention of the first battery-operated transistorized, wearable Pacemaker and his founding of Medtronics, the largest Pacemaker company.

Special friends & associates of Earl Bakken, Jean Watson, and The Watson Caring Science Institute will gather to personally honor Earl for his profound influence, support, and service to medicine, nursing, and humanity.

WCSI’s mission is to restore the profound nature of caring-healing and bring the ethic and ethos of love back into healthcare. WCSI is dedicated to help the current healthcare system nurture its most precious resource, caring professional nurses, while preparing a new generation of health practitioners.  The practical outcome: optimum caring-healing for the public, reduction of high nurse turnover, and decrease of costs to the system.

“We are the light in institutional darkness, and in this caritas model we get to return to the light of our humanity”, shares Dr. Watson about birthing WCSI.

Founded by Distinguished Professor Dr. Jean Watson, who holds the Murchinson-Scoville Endowed Chair in Caring Science at the University of Colorado Denver, WCSI translates Watson’s renowned 30 year Caritas Model of Caring-Healing into programs and services to transform healthcare one nurse / one educator / one system at a time. New website announcement: www.watsoncaringscience.org. Author of over 100 publications and more than 12 books on the Science of Human Caring, Dr. Watson’s newly rewritten edition of the 1979 classic: Nursing. The Philosophy and Science of Caring was released May, 2008 by University Press of Colorado.  Her long awaited meditation CD  accompanies the book for an academically groundbreaking bonus.

Founder of the original Center for Human Caring in Colorado and a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing, Dr. Watson is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the National Fetzer Institute Norman Cousins Award, an International Kellogg Fellowship in Australia, a Fullbright Research and Lecture Award in Sweden, and six Inter/national Honorary Doctorate Degrees.

To schedule interviews www.watsoncaringscience.org please contact Barbara Hope, WCSI Board Director, barbara@barbarahope1.com, 303-604-1662 or Susan Pueschel, pueschel@bakkenfoundation.org , 303-896-4693.