Atlantic General Health System Practitioner Wins Nursing Award

Cheryl Layfield, of Millsboro, Del., received the Delaware Excellence in Nursing Practice Award for Advanced Practice at the Delaware Nurses Association (DNA) Awards Banquet held in Dover in July.

Layfield, who has been a nurse for 27 years and a nurse practitioner for 12 years, provides summer support at the Atlantic General Health System’s Townsend Medical Center, in Ocean City, and Atlantic Health Center, in Berlin.

She also works full time as a school nurse for the Indian River School District at Selbyville Middle School.

A colleague nominated Layfield for the award for her outstanding efforts to positively impact the quality of healthcare for adults and children in her care, and Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner was in attendance to witness her achievement.

Some of the accomplishments for which she was cited are working to initiate the two wellness centers in the Indian River School District and being the first paramedic instructor for the lower two counties of Delaware in 1990.

Layfield was the ENCARE state director during the 1980s and presented the drinking and driving and seat belt programs to more than 15,000 students in Delaware.

Recently, she assisted in the development of a curriculum through the Delaware Department of Education to teach school nurses disaster management and its impact on our youth. Cheryl coordinates the downstate nurse practitioner educational dinner meetings, and she mentors new student nurses and nurse practitioner students.

When she’s not working, you can find Layfield with her parents, her husband of 38 years, her three sons, her two daughters-in-law, or her four grandchildren, enjoying life in Sussex County, Del.