The Klinidrape EORNA Perioperative Nursing Foudation is a charitable and educational foundation that was established in Brussels in 1997 by Mölnlycke Health Care and EORNA in honour of the first congress of EORNA.
The mission of the foundation was to promote the profession of perioperative nursing by supporting research and transfer of skills in the field of improvements in the Operating Room to benifit patient and staff.

The third winner of the Klinidrape Eorna Perioperative Nursing Foundation is Catherine Tierney from Ireland for her research study: Peri-Operative Nurses Experiences of Cadaveric Organ Donation-: A Phenomenological Study.

Catherine is a registered nurse and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing from the University of Limerick in Ireland. She is currently studying towards her Master of Science degree through Research and Thesis at the same university.
Miss Tierney also holds a Post Graduate diploma in perioperative nursing from Trinity College and St. James' Hospital here in Dublin and a certificate in Midwifery from the Regional Maternity Hospital in Limerick and she has completed courses on clinical placement coordination and introduction to Research.
Miss Tierney started her carrier in nursing as a general nurse in 1993 and as an operating room nurse in 1995. She has been part of the operating room environment since then. She is an active member of various organizations and is chairing committees in educational planning of pre-registration nursing and Midwifery in Ireland besides conducting scientific research and giving lectures.
Miss Tierney's current position as of March 2005 is as Project Manager for the Transition and Integration of Pre-Registration Nurse & Midwifery Education Programmes into the third level sector at University of Limerick, Ireland.

Miss Tierney's winning paper is a qualitative research study on the lived experience of perioperative nurses in Ireland towards participating in surgical procedures involving cadaveric organ donation and transplantation.
This is an area of our profession that has not been explored to date in Europe and therefore makes a very interesting subject with results offering potential benefits to many perioperative nurses.
The author used a phenomenological approach to gather an in depth understanding of perioperative nurses experience of participating in these procedures. By conducting this research the author wanted to establish factors which impact on perioperative nurses' experiences of cadaveric organ donation and to highlight the vital role of the perioperative nurse under those circumstances.