Spotlight on one Unique Contribution Awardee: Profa. Dra. Viviane Martins da Silva
Viviane Martins da Silva, PhD, RN, FNI – her nomination had the largest number of nominators we have ever seen – 22 NANDA-I members from across Brazil & Portugal, from a variety of universities – which reflects Viviane’s contributions to the Association, and to advancing understanding of and research about nursing diagoses.
She is a Fellow Researcher of The Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), and is well known for her high-quality publications on validation of nursing diagnoses, with over 140 articles. Her publications have revolutionized NANDA-I diagnostic validation, as evidenced by the most cited publication in The International Journal of Nursing Knowledge. She is the coauthor of the middle range theory on the causation and validation of nursing diagnoses.
As a renowned educator, she has been an advisor for 22 master’s and doctoral theses and dissertations on the validation of NANDA-I diagnoses. She has served as a member of the NANDA-I Research Committee since 2018 and has collaborated with the Diagnosis Development Committee on multiple occasions. Specifically, in the 2021-2023 edition of the NANDA-I Classification, she contributed to the revision of 10 diagnoses. She is also the coauthor of the recently adopted NANDA-I Revised Level of Evidence Criteria for Diagnosis.
She has been serving as one of the organizers of the Brazilian CE Program (PRONANDA) since 2015, and has contributed as an author or co-author of 12 chapters. She is currently a member of the team reviewing the Brazilian translation of our textbook, NANDA International Nursing Diagnoses: Definitions and Classification, 2021-2023.
On a personal note, I witnessed firsthand her work with graduate students at her university – the Universidade Federal do Ceará, in Brazil – when I spent time there as a Visiting Professor. Her attention to detail, her ability to challenge students – and colleagues – to really consider how best to validate diagnoses in research, was inspiring to me, and to colleagues around the country and throughout Latin America.
Please join me in congratulating our colleague, Dr. Viviane Martins da Silva!
T. Heather Herdman, PhD, RN, FNI, FAAN Chief Executive Officer