Sinai Hospital honors legacy of Chief Nurse Diane Johnson with scholarship fund
BALTIMORE -- The staff at Sinai Hospital in northwest Baltimore is honoring the legacy of one of their own.
For more than 40 years, Chief Nurse Diane Johnson was the heartbeat of the hospital.
She passed away from breast cancer in March of 2023, and now she has a scholarship for young nurses in her memory.
Most people don't grow and thrive at the same job for 40 plus straight years unless you're Diane Johnson. She started as a staff nurse at Sinai Hospital in 1975, after emigrating to America at the age of 13 from Jamaica.
"She was probably the smartest person I ever knew. She was booksmart, she studied a lot when we were growing up, but also having a great amount of emotional intelligence," Karen Wallace, Diane's sister, said.
That compassionate care would build her legacy as she rose through the ranks at Sinai Hospital, where her role as the chief nurse left a major impact on her patients and staff.
"She always inspired the bedside nurse to have a voice, to speak up, and to be professional. She created the professional development fund at Sinai, she started the clinical ladder at Sinai, she wanted those bedside nurses to feel empowered," Loni Miller, a pediatric ICU nurse at Sinai Hospital, said.
Johnson was known for her presence, hard work, and more importantly, the prestige she brought to Sinai Hospital, including the Magnet Recognition Program for two consecutive cycles.
In her death, her legacy of kindness and excellent bedside manners will live on in a 5,000 dollar scholarship that bears her name, to help young aspiring nurses hoping to follow her path.
"For those that are dedicated to equitable healthcare and those criteria really exemplify everything of who my sister was and what she did," Wallace said.
When she stepped away from her excellent run at Sinai, her staff, who admired her, created this going away video having fun, just like Diane used to do over the years.
"Diane also knew how to have fun, Diane would do some crazy things with us, I remember when we won magnet and she had no qualms about putting on the garb and the crab hats," Diane Bongiovanni, patient care director at Sinai Hospital, said.
Her life helped to bring life to her patients and those she worked with.
