Philip Derf Award Spring 2022

Philip Derf was a student in our nursing program at SF State from 1990-1994 who was known as an extraordinary asset to his fellow classmates. His commitment to public service touched many of the faculty and students. Sadly, he passed away before completing the program. In his memory, it has become a tradition SF State School of Nursing that each graduating class chooses one classmate from amongst its ranks to receive the honorary award aptly titled the Philip Derf Award.

This spring 2022 Philip Derf Award recipient is Maria Angelica Canete Tumandao. Angelica has done exceptional service in her tenure as Nursing Students Association President (2021-2022). To get there, she had spent the previous year being level representative for her cohort. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she volunteered with San Francisco Department of Public Health to do the testing and vaccination, coordinated clinical hours for classmates working at Sunday Streets to perform health screening and educate people in the community about risk of cardiovascular disease. As president, she helped coordinate volunteer opportunities at Sunday Streets events. She worked tirelessly with NSA Board to promote universal membership for every student in all the programs offered at SF State School of Nursing. She organized academic and professional workshops for NSA members such as the Career Day, Entering the Nursing Workforce, Pharmacology tutoring with Dr. Esther Kim, just to name a few. Angelica lead the development of the revision of the NSA mission statement that reflects the student-led organization’s vision for justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. Together with the NSA executive board, she will be presenting this process at the inaugural JEDI Nursing symposium in June.

As faculty advisor for the Nursing Student Association, it is with my honor and pleasure to present the Spring 2022 Philip Derf Award to Angelica.