Jamaican nurse receives Mentor Award

Merle Fearon Warren of Jamaica, West Indies, a registered nurse at Mount Sinai / Beth Israel Medical Center as well as the NYU Lutheran Medical Center was awarded the 2015 Mentor Award from the International Nurses Society on Addictions (IntNSA) for her continued volunteer work educating the public about addiction.

The IntNSA Clinical Mentoring Award is presented yearly to a member of the association who has demonstrated extraordinary mentorship. In 2015, Merle Warren was nominated by her daughter, Brittanica Fearon.

Fearon said, “My mother has aided in the battle against drug addiction for over 13 years. From since I was a young girl in junior high school, to a young woman now in my early twenties in college, my mother has attended Career’s Day every year consecutively. The students and faculty at Lenox Academy look up to her with the utmost respect, for all her knowledge on the dangers of drug use, and how much she encourages them to stay away from it. Even the patients at her job find my mother to be an inspiration. They constantly thank her for all her efforts in helping them overcome their struggles with addiction. My mother was successful in forming a women’s group at her work place, in which the majority of the women that attended are now in recovery, and have since had their pick-up schedule reduced. She has received both the Caribbean Health Award in 2014 and the Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition in 2011.

“My mother not only serves as an inspiration to those around her, but to me as well. I am currently taking a course this semester that focuses solely on drug use and abuse, and I work in the admissions department at a drug detox and rehab facility in Queens, New York. Merle Warren is the light at the end of a deep and dark tunnel, and the beacon of hope when it seems that all is lost. She makes me proud to call her my mother, and that is why she deserves to be nominated for this award.”