Winner: Karen Lange

Karen LangeNurse

Karen Lange of Setauket has received the 2012 Nurse of Excellence Award from the Nassau-Suffolk Hospital Council based on her "demonstration of leadership and quality performance." Lange, a registered nurse, is director of medical-surgical nursing at Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center in West Islip, which she joined in 1974 as a licensed practical nurse on a medical unit. She is also president of the American Academy of Medical Surgical Nurses' Long Island Chapter and serves on the academy's task force for recertification review.