McLeod Health Dillon is honored to announce that four McLeod Health Dillon Registered Nurses (RN) were selected to receive the 2019 Palmetto Gold Award. They join the ranks of the 182 previous McLeod Nurses who have received this outstanding award.

The four nurses from McLeod Health Dillon who received the 2019 Palmetto Gold recognition include: Sherrie Ball, BSN, RN; Marissa Elliott, RN; Beth King, RN; and Suzie Roberts, RN.
“Our nurses are to be commended for devoting their considerable skills and talents to the selfless service of others,” said Marcia Wilds, Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer at McLeod Health Dillon. “Being honored as part of this elite group of South Carolina nurses speaks to their high level of skill. The Palmetto Gold recipients are leaders in the field representing a philosophy of commitment to caring for the individual patient that underlies the profession of nursing and the mission of the McLeod organization”
The Palmetto Gold Award was created by various nursing organizations throughout South Carolina as a platform to recognize nursing and support nursing education with scholarship funds.
Each year, employers from a wide variety of South Carolina health care settings nominate outstanding nurses from their organizations to be considered as one of the 100 nurses honored with this prestigious award.
The nominators are asked to provide evidence of how the nominee demonstrated excellence to the profession by addressing the following criteria: promoting and advancing the profession of nursing; displaying caring and commitment to patients, families, and colleagues; and demonstrating leadership by assisting others to grow and develop.
This is a competitive process, and usually several hundred nominations are submitted with only 100 nurses being selected. Each year the competition for the Palmetto Gold Nurse Recognition Program is more stringent. To select the recipients, a team of six nurses from across the state participate in a blind review process. The nominees are not referred to by name or place of employment on the nomination sections seen by the judges.
The recipients of the 2019 Palmetto Gold Award will be recognized at the Palmetto Gold Gala on April 27 in Columbia. To support the future of nursing, the proceeds from the Palmetto Gold Gala are used to provide scholarships to each of the 23 approved registered nursing programs in South Carolina. In 2008, the Renatta Loquist Graduate Nursing Scholarship was created to honor Mrs. Loquist, a member of the original Palmetto Gold committee and a leader in nursing in our state. This $2,000 scholarship has been awarded each year, and since its inception, Palmetto Gold has awarded over $232,000 in nursing scholarships.