Adelaide C. Eckardt - Career

Career

A few years later, Eckardt became an adjunct member of the faculty at Salisbury State University. Later that same year, she became a Psychiatric Nurse Clinical Specialist at Eastern Shore Hospital Center and worked there until 2003. During that same time, she also served as an adjunct member of the faculty at the University of Maryland School of Nursing. She remained on the faculty from 1991-99.

Eckardt's remained active in her field, but shifted to a more administrative and legislative role. She joined the Executive Committee of the Maryland Hospital Association in 1993 and has served on the Board of Directors for Leadership Maryland, Inc., a non-profit organization committed to the betterment of Maryland, since 2001.

Currently, Eckardt is a board member of the Chesapeake Health Planning Systems, a member of the Maryland Nurses Association, the American Nurses Association, the American Ortho-Psychiatric Association, and Sigma Theta Tau, the honor society of nursing.

She is a past recipient of the Psychiatric Nursing Award from the University of Maryland Graduate School of Nursing in 1981. In 1986 and again in 1991, Eckard was named Nurse of the Year, District 4, by the Maryland Nurses Association . In 1988, she won the Rosalie S. Abrams Legislative Award from the Maryland Nurses Association. She received the Outstanding Board Member Award from the Maryland Nurses Association in 1992. Later she received the Outstanding Rural Legislator Award from the Rural Maryland Council in 2003. Additionally in 2003, she received recognition for her efforts from Local Management Board. Finally, she was listed as a member of Maryland's Top 100 Women by the Daily Record, a local newspaper, in 2003, 2005, and 2007.