Margretta styles wins major nursing award.

Renowned nursing leader Margretta (Gretta) Styles has been awarded nursing's most prestigious international award for her contribution to the profession. The International Council of Nurses (ICN) has awarded her the 2005 Christiane Reimann Prize for outstanding nursing achievement. She is renowned as a nurse scholar and a leader in nursing education, regulation and credentialing.

Styles is a past president of the ICN, the American Nurses' Association (ANA) and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). She was the architect of the first comprehensive study of nursing credentialing in the 1970s. In the 1980s she spearheaded ICN's work on nursing regulation, including the publication of a guidebook.

She is the author of many other articles and books including On Nursing: A Literary Celebration. ICN president Christine Hancock said Styles' "enthusiastic and charismatic leadership" had encouraged nurses around the world to strive for excellence.

Awarded every four years, the Christiane Reimann Prize has previously been won by Virginia Henderson, "the world's most beloved nurse"; Dame Nita Barrow, an expert in public health and health education; Dame Sheila Quinn, a leader in establishing the position of nursing within Europe and improving nursing education throughout Europe; Mo-Im Kim, for enhancing the nursing profession at national and international levels; and Hildegard Peplau, for her revolutionary work in patient-nurse relationships which set the groundwork for the speciality of psychiatric nursing.

Styles will receive the prize in May this year during the opening ceremony of the ICN 23rd Quadrennial Congress in Taiwan.