Princess Srinagarindra Award Foundation
Professor Dr. Erlinda Castro PALAGANAS, Laureate 2021
Professor Dr. Erlinda Castro PALAGANAS, Laureate 2021
Biography :
Professor Dr. Erlinda Castro PALAGANAS, age 64 years old, a Filipino, excels in her nursing expertise and community devotion in the role of the leader in academic, practice, research and professional development, particularly, policy formulation and guidelines for health service delivery at the primary care level for indigenous people, regarding nursing as well as forceful, equitable and universal nursing profession development.
Dr. PALAGANAS has the extensive experiences as a community nurse, providing health care services for rural population and indigenous people for six years. This helps her in understanding culture, beliefs, the way of living, and difficulty of those people. Thus, when she became the faculty members at Saint Louis University and the University of the Philippines at Manila, she was able to integrate this knowledge in services, education and research.
In education, she developed community-based nursing curriculum in one of the leading schools of nursing which has successfully modeled various nursing schools. She also has been recognized as an outstanding clinical instructor as she actually demonstrated and adeptly modeled the nursing skills, procedures as well as community engagement strategies to her students.
In nursing service, she adopted an instrumental role in delivery and organizing primary health care services. She set infrastructure and allocated resources for community health service delivery, formed community-based health programme, built capacity of village workers and community health workers, empowered indigenous people to be able to perform their own self-care in as much as some groups became more independent, better educated and accessible to health service.
In research, she was considered a prime mover in advocating the value of qualitative research in nursing field in the Philippines until it was widely accepted in nursing education. She was the founder of the Philippines Nursing Research Society and served as founding president. More research cells were established in nursing education institutes throughout the country. The Society organized national or international conferences every year. In addition, she conducted and published many studies with both national and international universities. And many of her studies were used to guide practice. For example, “Gender Responsive and Rights-based Integrated Rural Health Service Delivery: A Training Manual” for Department of Health and a chapter in the book on “Transcultural Caring among the Indigenous People of the Cordilleras,” from her study on “Health Consequences of Gender-based Knowledge, Attitudes and Practice.” Her scholarship and research are well-received and acknowledged by the nursing profession as well as multidisciplinary and international communities. As she was invited to be a speaker and present research within and outside the country. Also, she was an editor-in-chief of for many journals both in nursing and medicine and was appointed a one of two nurse scientists and a full professor (professor level 12) of only 6% of the faculty as full professor.
Dr. PALAGANAS gives the importance to environmental protection for better health of people. She spearheaded and mobilized the community people to protect the Abra River, a valuable resource for four provinces, that became a dumping site for the gold mining company. The movement made her vigorously participate at the parliament, national and international forums. To date, the dumping has been significantly reduced and several countries have still actively supported the movement to protect the river.
Dr. PALAGANAS strongly advocates equity and decent job for nurses. When she was the president of Nurses’ Association at Cordillera region and later the Philippines Nurses Association, she initiated position statements of the board and resolutions to address the nurse exploitations and issues; namely reduction of inequity and discrimination, specifications of proper nurse-patient ratio and rational work shift, demands for proper and safe working environment at all levels and lifting the ban for nurses to work abroad. She also mobilized thousands of nurses to participate in the national day to protest on salary range which resulted in 43 % increase in their salary.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. PALAGANAS organized a cooperative group of several nursing organizations to respond to the needs of the nurses in the Cordillera region. They helped prepare personal protective equipment and other equipment to support the rescue operation. The same working group also responded to the communities affected by the two major typhoons that hit the country at the end of 2020.
For her excellent endeavors, Dr. PALAGANAS received numerous awards such as Best Health Research Mentor; outstanding teacher; exemplary alumna in nursing leadership, educator and researcher; outstanding alumni in the field of nursing; and exemplary alumni in community service.
The Board Trustees of the of the Princess Srinagarindra Award Foundation are honored to present the 2021 prize to Professor Dr. Erlinda Castro PALAGANAS.
Address/Work
Country Philippines
Professor Dr. Erlinda Castro PALAGANAS, Laureate 2021
Biography :
Professor Dr. Erlinda Castro PALAGANAS, age 64 years old, a Filipino, excels in her nursing expertise and community devotion in the role of the leader in academic, practice, research and professional development, particularly, policy formulation and guidelines for health service delivery at the primary care level for indigenous people, regarding nursing as well as forceful, equitable and universal nursing profession development.
Dr. PALAGANAS has the extensive experiences as a community nurse, providing health care services for rural population and indigenous people for six years. This helps her in understanding culture, beliefs, the way of living, and difficulty of those people. Thus, when she became the faculty members at Saint Louis University and the University of the Philippines at Manila, she was able to integrate this knowledge in services, education and research.
In education, she developed community-based nursing curriculum in one of the leading schools of nursing which has successfully modeled various nursing schools. She also has been recognized as an outstanding clinical instructor as she actually demonstrated and adeptly modeled the nursing skills, procedures as well as community engagement strategies to her students.
In nursing service, she adopted an instrumental role in delivery and organizing primary health care services. She set infrastructure and allocated resources for community health service delivery, formed community-based health programme, built capacity of village workers and community health workers, empowered indigenous people to be able to perform their own self-care in as much as some groups became more independent, better educated and accessible to health service.
In research, she was considered a prime mover in advocating the value of qualitative research in nursing field in the Philippines until it was widely accepted in nursing education. She was the founder of the Philippines Nursing Research Society and served as founding president. More research cells were established in nursing education institutes throughout the country. The Society organized national or international conferences every year. In addition, she conducted and published many studies with both national and international universities. And many of her studies were used to guide practice. For example, “Gender Responsive and Rights-based Integrated Rural Health Service Delivery: A Training Manual” for Department of Health and a chapter in the book on “Transcultural Caring among the Indigenous People of the Cordilleras,” from her study on “Health Consequences of Gender-based Knowledge, Attitudes and Practice.” Her scholarship and research are well-received and acknowledged by the nursing profession as well as multidisciplinary and international communities. As she was invited to be a speaker and present research within and outside the country. Also, she was an editor-in-chief of for many journals both in nursing and medicine and was appointed a one of two nurse scientists and a full professor (professor level 12) of only 6% of the faculty as full professor.
Dr. PALAGANAS gives the importance to environmental protection for better health of people. She spearheaded and mobilized the community people to protect the Abra River, a valuable resource for four provinces, that became a dumping site for the gold mining company. The movement made her vigorously participate at the parliament, national and international forums. To date, the dumping has been significantly reduced and several countries have still actively supported the movement to protect the river.
Dr. PALAGANAS strongly advocates equity and decent job for nurses. When she was the president of Nurses’ Association at Cordillera region and later the Philippines Nurses Association, she initiated position statements of the board and resolutions to address the nurse exploitations and issues; namely reduction of inequity and discrimination, specifications of proper nurse-patient ratio and rational work shift, demands for proper and safe working environment at all levels and lifting the ban for nurses to work abroad. She also mobilized thousands of nurses to participate in the national day to protest on salary range which resulted in 43 % increase in their salary.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. PALAGANAS organized a cooperative group of several nursing organizations to respond to the needs of the nurses in the Cordillera region. They helped prepare personal protective equipment and other equipment to support the rescue operation. The same working group also responded to the communities affected by the two major typhoons that hit the country at the end of 2020.
For her excellent endeavors, Dr. PALAGANAS received numerous awards such as Best Health Research Mentor; outstanding teacher; exemplary alumna in nursing leadership, educator and researcher; outstanding alumni in the field of nursing; and exemplary alumni in community service.
The Board Trustees of the of the Princess Srinagarindra Award Foundation are honored to present the 2021 prize to Professor Dr. Erlinda Castro PALAGANAS.
Address/Work
Country Philippines
