achieve your possibilities Going the extra mile The academic career of Peggy Doheny, Ph.D.’70 VMC winds back and forth between nursing and education, a little like the twin snakes that surround the winged rod of the caduceus, the emblem of registered nurses. It’s an appropriate symbol for a nurse and educator who contributed greatly to both professions. For 34 years, Doheny was a beloved presence at the College of Nursing at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, where she is now Professor Emerita. It was an academic career that was as gratifying as it was long and achievement-filled, but it was not the career she envisioned for herself when she came to the suburban campus of Villa Maria College in 1966. “My mother was a nurse, and nursing seemed like a good fit when I was looking at college programs,” Doheny remembers. Not wanting to go too far from her home in Cleveland, Villa Maria seemed like a good match. “I was very homesick when I first went away, but then I started to meet people and getting into my nursing courses,” Doheny said. “Dr. [Dorothy] Novello was there at the time and she was quite dynamic. It was a very positive experience and provided me a very positive preparation for the professional life.” That professional life took many unexpected turns that led to rewarding 16
gannon magazine
april 2014
places. As a newly graduated staff nurse at St. Vincent Charity Hospital in Cleveland, she was approached to teach at the hospital’s school of nursing. “I didn’t want to do that,” she remembers. “I liked nursing, but driving home, I thought I should apply.” It was the beginning of a career in education that embraced the possibility of changing the way new nursing students were taught. “I was teaching a beginning class at Kent State and there was no text. With two colleagues, we got the idea that we could write this.” “This” was “The Discipline of Nursing: An introduction.” The book became a standard text used by several hundred schools of nursing to provide a broad overview of various theoretical approaches to the profession. In the meantime, Doheny published widely and made numerous presentations as one of the first nationally recognized nursing researchers on osteoporosis and bone health in men.