Published: Saturday, November 24, 2012 1:00 AM CST

A Benedictine sister from Yankton was recently named a living legend by the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA).

Sister Mary Arthur Schramm was honored at the AANA’s annual leadership conference in Colorado last week.

Prior to this year, the ANNA awarded Schramm the Helen Lamb Outstanding Education Award in 1991 and the Agatha Hodgins Award for Outstanding Accomplishment in 2003.

Schramm is a native of Siegel and has been a member of the Sa  cred Heart Monastery since 1952.

“I had been involved with anesthesia for more than 50 years,” Schramm said. “I started on job training programs, and I was the one with the college that took the program to academic institutions in 1965, which was a transition until 1970.”

She became the first nurse anesthetist and woman to be admitted and complete her Ph.D. in Physiology and Pharmacology at the graduate School of Medicine at the University of South Dakota. While she was there, she helped in developing the curriculum for the program at Mount Marty College — the first institution to offer a degree in nurse anesthesiology.

“When I graduated, I was about .009 percent of the people who held their Ph.D. in physiology and pharmacology, which was back in the 1970s,” Schramm said. “I helped to initiate programs in Puerto Rico, South Africa, Jamaica and the West Indies.”

She added that one of the programs was intended to be temporary, but all of the programs she initiated continue today.

“I think all of those reasons were why I was selected as one of the living legends,” Schramm said. “This is only the third year the award has been conferred upon members. Each year the AANA recognizes two people: The first two years those were presidents of the association, this year they were educators.”

Schramm served as the program head of nurse anesthesiology and the division chair for health sciences at Mount Marty in the past and had also been active within the South Dakota Association of Nurse Anesthetists (SDANA) where she served as its president from 1969-1970.

She said she was shocked when she found out she won the Living Legends award.

“I didn’t even know they had the award,” she said. “For the people that nominated me, they all think it’s a great honor. I think getting the award means that I’m well respected within the field.”

Schramm, who is now retired and works part-time as a receptionist at the monastery, said there are things she misses about working as a nurse and professor.

“I miss the patient contact that I had. I loved the interaction that you had with other people when I was a professor,” she said. “However, with the aging process, I don’t miss all of the paperwork that you had to fill out in order to get a program accredited. I also don’t miss all of the work that teachers and professors have to do now, with syllabi, correcting papers and making and correcting tests.”

However, she added that she loved being in the classroom and teaching students.

She also thanked the community for its overwhelming support.

“I wouldn’t have gotten here if it wasn’t thanks to everyone else from the community, from Yankton and the state and parish support I had,” Schramm said. “I want to especially thank my own teachers because you don’t get honored like this alone. I think you take the support for granted initially, but when you look back, you think how amazing it is that they helped get you through everything.”

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