Scholarship established for students who want to become nurse practitioners

David Y.K. Lee has established a scholarship in memory of his late wife to help nursing students pursue the same career she had.

Ann E. Lee was a nurse practitioner in the Bradford area, working in the areas of family planning and women's health, occupational health, and family practice.

Ann Lee died from cancer in the spring of 2016. To remember her, her husband of 50 years thought immediately of a scholarship.

“We've always been very interested in education,” he said. Ann Lee continued learning throughout her career. After attending a hospital-based nursing school in Buffalo, N.Y., she studied to become one of the first nurse practitioners in Pennsylvania, a certification that did not require a bachelor's degree at the time. Later, she would attend Pitt-Bradford and earn her Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 2001, followed by a Master of Science in Nursing from Gannon University.

“She also enjoyed educating,” said her daughter, Allison Lee of Bradford. Ann Lee taught family planning, and served as a preceptor - a formal mentor in the medical field - to Pitt-Bradford nursing students and student nurse practitioners, including Dr. Tammy Haley, associate professor of nursing and director of the nursing and radiological science programs at Pitt-Bradford.

David Lee wanted not only to help nursing students, but to encourage them to go on to earn a nurse practitioner degree. The annual Ann E. Lee Nurse Practitioner Memorial Scholarship will be awarded each year to a senior Pitt-Bradford nursing student who plans to go on to study to become a nurse practitioner.

The annual scholarship is given at Pitt-Bradford to help the recipient defray the cost of his or her undergraduate education. Rilan Galicic, a 2017 graduate from Hughesville, was the first recipient of the award last year. Galicic is now a nurse in the emergency department at UPMC-Mercy and is working on his Doctorate of Nursing Practice at Robert Morris University.

During years in which no student is planning to pursue a nurse practitioner degree, Lee said, the money will roll over for another student in another year.

Pitt-Bradford has been ranked fourth among colleges that devote the highest percentage of their gifts to financial aid by the Council for Aid to Education. To learn more about establishing a scholarship at Pitt-Bradford, contact Jill Dunn, executive director of institutional advancement at 814-362-5091 or jdunn@pitt.edu.