Duke Nursing Magazine Winter 2021

WINTER 2021 VOLUME 17 NO. 1

DukeNursing Advancing Nursing Education, Research and Clinical Practice

Years

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Reflections on 90 Years of Progress, Innovation and Scholarship

10 Tending to Today, While Looking Towards Nursing’s Tomorrow 14 Nursing Education Stands the Test of Time

DukeNursing magazine

WINTER 2021 VOLUME 17 NO. 1 DUKE NURSING DEVELOPMENT AND ALUMNI AFFAIRS STAFF

Anita Stallings Associate Dean, Development and Alumni Affairs Diana Staples Senior Director, Development Marla Gregg Director, Alumni and Development Programs Sarah Blumig Director, Annual Giving and the Bessie Baker Society

Stephanie Turner Public Relations Specialist WRITING TEAM

LaWanda McCreary Whitney J. Palmer Cristina Smith Stephanie Turner CREATIVE DESIGN

Niels Bolle and Amanda Shurgin PHOTOGRAPHY

Kara Cockrell Development Associate

Ken Huth and Andrew Buchanan

Monica Roberson Staff Assistant

PRODUCED BY DUKE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NURSING

EDITORIAL STAFF

Marketing and Communications Department

Amy Baskin Assistant Director, Marketing and Communications

Copyright Duke University School of Nursing

LaWanda McCreary Communication Strategist

Reflections on 90 Years 4 Reflections on 90 Years of Progress, Innovation and Scholarship

NURSING BOARD OF VISITORS JULY 2020 – JUNE 2021

Bimal R. Shah, MD‘01, MBA’01 Chair Guy C. Arnall, Jr., BA’85

Pamela M. Sutton-Wallace, MA’94

Amy E. Bell, DNP’17

Orit R. Szulik

Daniel T. Blue, III, BS’95, MBA’01, JD’01 James E. Vanek, Jr., BS’01

10 Tending to Today, While Looking Towards Nursing’s Tomorrow

Michele Chulick, BSN’77 Lynn K. Erdman L. Sue Frederick, BSN’77, MD’83

14 Nursing Education Stands the Test of Time

Joanne L. Mazurki, BA’74 Bettye M. Musham, N’54 Maria Del Pilar Rocha-Goldberg

School News 22

Ruth C. Scharf, BSN’80

Brett. T. Williams, BS’81 EMERITUS MEMBERS

Christy W. Bell Charles C. McIlvaine, BA’87 Sheppard W. Zinovoy

NURSING ALUMNI COUNCIL JULY 2020 – JUNE 2021

New Faculty Appointments

OFFICERS

EMERITUS MEMBERS

Recent Grant Awards Promotions & Transitions

Marianne Tango Williams, BSN’81 President

Sally Ann Addision, BSN’60

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Promotions & Transitions

Elizabeth A. Lee, BSN’82 Vice President

Connie B. Bishop, BSN’75, DNP’12

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Accomplishments & Honors

M. Christine Fulgencio, MSN’99 Secretary

Nancy S. Coll, N’63

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Class Notes

MEMBERS

Susan M. Glover, BSN’70

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Obituaries

Duke Nursing magazine is published by the Duke University School of Nursing.

Issues are available online at nursing.duke.edu.

Your comments, ideas and letters to the editor are welcome. Please contact us at: Duke Nursing Magazine, c/o Marketing and Communications Department, DUMC 3322, 307 Trent Drive, Durham, NC 27710, 919-684-9356, michael.evans2@duke.edu.

Papers for Duke Nursing magazine come from sustainably managed forests, independently certified for environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable forest practices.

Sandra S. Averitt, BSN’67 Laurel J. Chadwick, BSNED’53 Nancy J. Davenport, BSN’67, MSN’69

Susan Beck Davis, BSN’77

Constance C. Kendall, BSN’84

Andrew R. Benson, MSN’09

Carole A. Klove, BSN’80

Ellen G. Donaldson, BSN’81

Virginia B. Lang, BSN’67

Kathleen V. Gallagher, BSN’75

Aliki H. Martin, DNP’13

Luisa Soler-Greene, DNP’14, MSN’13

Marilyn C. McIlvaine, BSN’58

Christine A. Long, BSN’70

Barbara Nims, BSN’71

Heather B. Paradis, MSN’95

Christine S. Pearson, BSN’84

Meghna Patel, ABSN’14

Susan J. Rainey, BSN’70

Steven D. Powell, MSN’19

Martha C. Romney, BSN’77

Joan M. Stanley, BSN’71

Ruth C. Scharf, BSN’80

Melisa A. Wilson, DNP’20

E. Dorsey Smith-Seed, BSN’60

Mary Ellen Wright, BSN’81

Judith K. Snyderman, RN

K. Becky Zagor, BSN ‘80

Martha S. Urbaniak, BSN’67 Barbara D. Yowell, BSN’62

Dean’s Welcome

Honoring the Past and Celebrating the Future

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Marion E. Broome, PhD, RN, FAAN Dean and Ruby Wilson Professor of Nursing, Duke University School of Nursing Vice Chancellor for Nursing Affairs, Duke University Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs for Nursing, Duke University Health System

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Sincerely,

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t’s been said that “we drink from the well dug by those who came before us.” That phrase couldn’t be more appropriate as I welcome you to a special edition of the Duke Nursing Magazine. In the midst of these very challenging times, we at Duke are taking some well-deserved time to celebrate our 90th anniversary and our remarkable legacy of nursing education, research and clinical practice.

It’s difficult to accurately capture 90 years of a School’s story in a single magazine because the story of the Duke University School of Nursing has been, and will continue to be, told by each of the thousands of individuals who have contributed to that story.

Some stories are quite public and well known; others are more intimate and personal.

Nonetheless, each of those personal stories have brought us to where we are today — a top school in the country that is the destination for those who want to contribute to making the lives of individuals, families and communities better.

In this edition of Duke Nursing Magazine, we invited nurse historian Patricia D’Antonio from the University Of Pennsylvania School Of Nursing to dig into DUSON’s past and uncover some untold stories of the School. We also chatted with Susan Hassmiller, of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, as she shared her thoughts about the “Future of Nursing.” Finally, we heard from several distinguished alumni about their thoughts on the past, present and future of DUSON and the profession.

I feel so privileged to be the 11th Dean at the Duke University School of Nursing.

We recently reached out to three former deans to ask them to reflect on their time at Duke and share what they believe has contributed to our lasting success. I hope you enjoy their reflections.

Sadly, we said good-bye recently to former Dean Dorothy J. Brundage, PhD, RN, FAAN, who led DUSON from 1987–1991, and who recently passed away. Dr. Brundage was a calm and steady force in a time in our School’s history when our future was quite uncertain. We owe her a great deal and will miss her presence.

I invite you to take a few moments to learn more about our story and perhaps reflect on those in your community who have written or are writing your school’s story.

Behind theScrubs

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A Different Type of Goal Setting DUSON took part in Duke Athletics history when students founded the University’s first women’s field hockey team. In 1971, when Title IX was just becoming law, several nursing students bonded over their shared love of field hockey and disappointment that Duke did not have a women’s team. They convinced the Department of Physical Education faculty to start the first women’s field hockey team. They were told they could use the field hockey equipment stored in the basement and the team would be provided a coach for games but not for practices.

“So we scraped mold off some old field hockey equipment, bought matching Duke shirts with blue shorts, and I called up four schools and convinced them to play us in games,” said Kathy Viall Gallagher, BSN’75, one of the original field hockey players.

Unfortunately, the team lost every game in their first season, but women’s field hockey at Duke was established as a sport in 1972.

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This team photo from 1974, school of nursing students include Phyllis Christian Harris Ragland (front row, right); Cathy Strachan (second row, second from left); Patricia Kutner Fiume (second row, second from right); and Lynn Magill Schultz (second row, right).

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Reflections on 90 Years of Progress, Innovation and Scholarship

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Patricia D’Antonio

Thelma Ingles

Class of 1971

The Duke University School of Nursing opened its doors for the first time in 1931 to a group of 24 students. That first day set in motion a 90-year story of nursing education marked by struggles, successes and near demise. With its early days set during the Great Depression, the School went from training members of the cadet nurse corps during World War II to taking a leadership role in technological innovation in teaching and practice. Every step, every milestone, has catapulted the School through the ranks and made it into the destination for outstanding talent that it is today.

Patricia D’Antonio, PhD, RN, FAAN, professor and historian of nursing at University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and the consulting historian for the 90th anniversary efforts, believes the School stands out for its willingness to push the envelope in pursuit of excellence, even in trying times.

“Faculty at the School were willing to risk failure,” D’Antonio said, noting that even in its first decades, the School was already imagining and trying to create new models of advanced education in nursing.

In 1958 Thelma Ingles, MA, RN,

professor and chair of the Department of Medical-Surgical Nursing, led the creation of the School’s first graduate nursing program — the clinical nursing specialist, master’s degree program. This program was the first of its kind in the country and focused on advanced clinical knowledge in the delivery and teaching of nursing care.

It was initially refused accreditation.

“Ingles had this idea of a nurse clinician, which is now accepted as nurse practitioner.

Duke was willing to support her and her innovative idea, even though it was a real struggle to bring it to fruition,” D’Antonio said.

The School was also on the forefront of pushing the idea of nursing assistants, or licensed practical nurses. “There was a lot of concern about it, but Duke was willing to experiment with this idea long before other places did,” D’Antonio said.

The School opened on January 2, 1931, and became one of the first Southern collegiate schools of nursing, with a goal

of positioning itself as the “Hopkins of the South,” D’Antonio said, in reference to John Hopkins University in Maryland.

Historically, nursing in the South was commonly seen as a domestic duty that often fell to women and enslaved people.

Therefore, it was not legitimized as a profession but rather demeaned.

In 1958 Thelma Ingles, MA, RN, professor and chair of the Department of Medical-Surgical Nursing, led the creation of ...(the nation’s)... first graduate nursing program.

“It was an additional challenge that nursing in the South had to overcome,” D’Antonio said.

Because the region had no nursing training schools, white Southerners who wanted to pursue nursing headed north, where schools were often supported by rich philanthropists, lending them credibility and respect. North Carolinians, in particular, often went to John Hopkins.

of the U.S. Navy Enlisted Nursing Education Program.

The School faced one of its toughest challenges in the late 1970s, when Duke University prioritized undergraduate education in the liberal arts and sciences and decided that professional education, such as nursing, should happen at the graduate level. At that point, the School of Nursing had primarily focused on undergraduate nurse education. Faced with the possibility of closing altogether, the School met the challenge head-on and decided to reinvent itself in graduate education.

The School’s master’s degree program had given it a head start in this direction with the School also having a blueprint to eventually offer doctoral degrees.

“This is where Thelma Ingles’ idea had finally found its footing,” D’Antonio said.

“Now there was support for her idea of a master nurse clinician, and the School really ran with the idea. It was almost like the phoenix rising from the ashes.”

Duke University and Duke University Medical Center have always been recognized for cutting-edge, advanced research. In the early 1990s, Dean Mary Champagne, PhD, RN, FAAN, believed

that high-quality nursing research that improves the welfare of patients should be part of the School of Nursing’s mission.

In 1993, the creation of the Duke Nursing Research Center, through a partnership with Nursing Service at Duke Hospital, was the School’s first venture into faculty-led nursing research.

Ultimately, the leadership at the School wanted to create a PhD program but first needed to foster an atmosphere conducive to student and faculty inquiry.

Under the leadership of Dr. Barbara Turner, PhD, RN, FAAN, nursing research began to produce significant results and findings. Dr. Turner was one of the first nurse researchers at the School and was named its first associate dean for research affairs.

It was from the research work at the school that its doctoral programs were added in the 2000s with the PhD program being launched first in 2006 followed by the DNP program in 2008.

Even though the School of Nursing is in a relatively urban area, it has had a commitment to rural health as early as the late 1960s in the context of the Civil Rights Movement. “It had a very active primary

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Under Jim Crow, both education and health care were segregated, so Black Southerners had to learn nursing at Black hospitals with training schools. Eventually, integration took hold in the Southern states, and Duke University admitted students of color in 1966. The Duke School of Nursing followed suit the next year, admitting its first Black student, Donna Allen Harris, BSN ’71.

Whether at training schools or universities, the nursing dormitories were places where women could experience independence and camaraderie in a way that was socially acceptable to Southern culture and its constricted views of womanhood.

“A lot of stories that Duke nursing alumni tell of their nursing school experience actually focuses on life in these dormitories. Hanes Hall figures very prominently in a lot of memories of alumni,” D’Antonio said. “Residence halls helped nurses learn about teamwork and cohesiveness on another level.”

Men weren’t admitted to the School until 1966 when Roger Voelkel, BSN’70, and Don Brown, BSN’70, became the School’s first male students as part

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Protests against recommendation to close the School

care program in rural areas of North Carolina, which was not only providing care, but also providing continuing education to a lot of nurses who worked there as well,” D’Antonio said.

In the 1970s as part of the BSN program, Dean Ruby Wilson, EdD’69,

current treatment plans. After the home visits, the students would bike back to the hospital and return to campus.

In 1995, the School began the first-ever online, distance-based graduate program for nurses working in rural areas of the state. Through partnerships with the Southern Regional Area Health Education Center, East Carolina University, hospitals, and physicians, the School of Nursing recruited nurses for the family nurse practitioner program to provide primary care in underserved areas.

Today the School of Nursing exhibits its community outreach through many avenues including through its Duke Community Health Improvement Partnership Program, or D-CHIPP that was established in 2016.

The School’s tripartite focus on education, research and clinical practice has served as the cornerstone of its success. This approach has repeatedly earned the School national awards and

The School has excelled at a very tricky balancing act to be both “of its city and state” and also a national leader.

RN, FAAN, created a public health component of the curriculum that gave students the option to work at a veteran’s hospital in Asheville or a rural hospital in Smithfield, North Carolina.

Nursing students would carpool to the Smithfield hospital and stay overnight in a hotel. The next morning, the students would be given bicycles to ride to patients’ homes, where they conducted blood pressure checks, reviewed diets and nutritional information, and discussed

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Hanes House opened in 1952 as the dormitory for nursing students.

recognition for its various programs. It is currently ranked second in the nation by the U.S. News & World Report in its 2021 Best Nursing Schools rankings.

“The School has excelled at a very tricky balancing act to be both ‘of its city and state’ and also a national leader,” D’Antonio said.

The School of Nursing continues to serve as an educational pioneer as it applies the most up-to-date and innovative approaches of simulation education as well as serving as the home to the Duke Health Innovation Lab and Duke Health Center for Interprofessional Education and Care.

“The School has always positioned itself as being on the cutting edge of technology, technological innovation and the integration of technology into teaching,” D’Antonio said. Strikingly, this dedication to technological innovation has allowed the School, in the face of the COVID pandemic, to continue to deliver top-notch online training and education — pursuing excellence, even in trying times.” n

Racial Justice Task Force

uke University School of Nursing’s Racial Justice Task Force has been diligently working since its formation in Summer 2020 to tackle their charge of making DUSON a more inclusive, diverse environment.

The task force stems from the call for a Racial Justice Action Plan established by the Dean’s Office and Office of Diversity and Inclusion. It is in alignment with Duke University President Vincent E. Price’s request for a university-wide commitment to foster a more diverse and inclusive atmosphere at every level and the Moments to Movement initiative by A. Eugene Washington, M.D., Chancellor for Health Affairs, Duke University, and President and CEO, Duke University Health System (DUHS).

“The Racial Justice Task Force is a pivotal step in moving our School forward during such a trying time in our society and in ensuring that every student and faculty and staff member who chooses DUSON now and in the future feels welcomed and valued,” said Marion E. Broome, PhD, RN, FAAN, dean.

The task force is comprised of DUSON faculty, staff and students with the charge to “engage the DUSON community in developing and/or making recommendations to improve individual and system structures to address racial injustices and/or inequities which exist currently within DUSON.” The Nine Committees After utilizing Design Thinking as a problem identification tool, nine committees, that include alumni, were established in order to thoroughly address the different themes identified: Accountability, Anti-racism and Racial Justice Education, Educational Practices for Equity, Recruitment and Hiring (Faculty), Recruitment and Hiring (Staff), Advancement and Retention (Faculty), Advancement and Retention (Staff), and Student Admissions, Sense of Belonging and Resources.

At the center of the task force are the four people who provide leadership, coordination and guidance to the five groups. In addition to Dean Broome, this

core group includes Brigit M. Carter, PhD, MSN, RN, CCRN, associate dean for diversity and inclusion, Diane Uzarski, DNP, MPH, RN, chief of staff and Monica Russell, Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion program director.

The DUSON community has been able to connect and engage with the task force throughout the year through town halls, surveys and other existing community groups. To remain communicative and transparent, the task force has made its meeting notes and other communications available online.

Russell summarizes the ultimate goal of the Task Force. “My goal would be that we will get to a point where diversity is so talked about that we don’t really have to talk about it anymore because we would just feel it in the community. As soon as you walk through the doors, you are like, ‘Oh, I belong here.’ No matter who you are, what your background is, it’s just there.”

For more on the Racial Justice Task Force, visit its web page on the Office of Diversity and Inclusion website. n

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D

Hard at Work

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by Stephanie Turner

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ILLUSTRATION © RICK SHIERS

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Tending to Today, While Looking Towards Nursing’s Tomorrow

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As the country continues to grapple with COVID-19 and societal unrest, it has become more evident how truly essential nurses are to safe and high quality patient care and how crucial it is that their experiences contribute to health policy decision making. These topics will be among the discussion points for the 58th annual Harriet Cook Carter (HCC) lecture on February 2, 2021, at Duke University School of Nursing.

This year’s HCC Lecture speaker will be Susan Hassmiller, PhD, RN, FAAN, senior scholar in residence at the National Academy of Medicine and senior advisor for nursing at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). Hassmiller will discuss future trends of nursing, the impact of the first “Future of Nursing” report and provide a foreshadowing of the upcoming second report, “The Future of Nursing 2020–2030,” to be released in Spring 2021.

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Future of Nursing Report The first “Future of Nursing” report was delivered in December 2010 by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in partnership with the RWJF. Considered a groundbreaking effort, the report provided a blueprint to expand the capacity of the nursing workforce by making sure nurses were practicing at the top of their education and training while also taking on leadership and partnership roles in their fields. Over the last 10 years, Hassmiller has spearheaded the campaign to put into action the goals of the report.

She helped create and support coalitions nationwide that succeeded in raising the percentage of nurses with a baccalaureate degree or higher to 80 percent, among other things.

The action coalitions over the last decade encouraged nurses not just to continue and expand their nursing education but also to seek leadership positions on boards in health care and industry, in their communities and on policymaking boards in order to diversify the profession. The second “Future of

Nursing” report will reiterate the need for these efforts while addressing the next steps for the profession.

Notably, the report will show that the country’s health statistics are on the decline and its mortality statistics appear bleak, Hassmiller said. More people are living with chronic disease or are homeless, and our country’s life expectancy is one of the lowest in the world. With all indicators headed in the wrong direction, the RWJF is focused on improving the culture of health and eliminating health disparities clearly reflected in communities of color. The upcoming report focuses on what nurses can do to address the social determinants of health and equity in the U.S. The second report was initially intended to be released in early December but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic as the IOM and RWJF felt it was crucial to include perspectives on how the nursing profession has dealt with not just the challenges of the pandemic but the country’s racial unrest and the disparities that COVID-19 has helped illuminate.

“We now know, more than ever, the value of nurses on the front line,” Hassmiller said, noting also the importance for administrators of large health systems, like Duke, to listen to those front line nurses since they are the ones working directly with patients and families — both in acute care, ambulatory clinics and the community. Telehealth has also been a crucial tool for nurses during the pandemic. Input from nurses on all of these issues has informed positive health

Susan Hassmiller, PhD, RN, FAAN

The biggest challenges facing the nursing profession over the next decade include keeping up with the changing faces of health care. Because schools are beholden to accreditation standards and NCLEX, there can be a lag between what nursing schools are teaching and what they should be teaching, Hassmiller said. Keeping up in the classroom is even more essential, though difficult, in a world where technology breakthroughs can appear and shift care quickly in the clinical setting.

These are just a few of the reasons why Hassmiller said that it’s important that nurses on the front lines have a voice in implementing change and that leaders give them a seat at the table.

In addition to admitting well-rounded, intelligent students, schools should also perform a holistic assessment.

Hassmiller describes a successful nurse as a professional who is empathetic or at least is able to understand and assess others’ emotions, who has had experience in their community, and who will devote themselves to addressing the inequities in the country that can make nursing even more critical in times of crises like we are facing now with the pandemic.

“There’s enormous moral distress,” she said.

Nurses are put in a unique position by having to balance caring properly for their patients while also trying to protect themselves. They know which of their patients don’t have readily access to

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Nursing’s Tomorrow

shelter, transportation, or even food, but at the same time, especially right now, they are having to keep themselves safe from contracting a deadly disease.

“Nurses have been sick. They’ve died,” Hassmiller said.

But on the other hand, they’ve answered a call to action and are doing the things they dreamed of in nursing school, she said. “They are saving lives.”

As the second “Future of Nursing” report will show, the critical challenge is figuring out how nurses can get more involved in solving health problems that stem from social issues.

Employers and health systems need to include nurses in their decision-making processes because of their valuable and unique relationship with patients and their families, Hassmiller said.

Communities as a whole would be well served to include nurses on city councils and in transportation and housing departments, for instance, as nurses can bring perspectives to the table that might otherwise go unseen.

“We know now that the things that contribute most to a person’s health in this country are social determinants,” such as education level, employment, access to transportation, food scarcity and homelessness, Hassmiller said. “These are the things that really matter in keeping a person healthy and well in the first place.

This is what we want to do: really instill and empower nurses to understand, so they can help with these things.”

“Nurses are the most trusted profession in the country,” Hassmiller said. Valuing nurses’ voices and input in making health care decisions, not just at the patient level but at the policy and population levels, is crucial to the future of nursing and the impact it can have on addressing the social determinants of health. The health of this country depends on it. n

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“Schools must find a way to give their students an understanding of what they’re going to face when they walk out that door on the first day. They have an ethical responsibility.”

outcomes and provided data not just for nursing care but for nursing education as well.

“Schools must find a way to give their students an understanding of what they’re going to face when they walk out that door on the first day,” Hassmiller said.

“They have an ethical responsibility.”

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Nursing Education Stands the Test of Time

The Head of a Duke Nurse Kevin Sowers, MSN’89, RN, FAAN, president of the Johns Hopkins Health System, executive vice president of Johns Hopkins Medicine, describes a quality nurse simply as

Sowers

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The report has since proven to be a blueprint for expanding the capacity of the nursing workforce and ensuring nurses are practicing at the top of their scope while assuming more leadership and partnership roles in the profession. Over the past decade, significant progress has been made on many fronts within the nursing field.

While we wait for the second “Future of Nursing” report to be released in the Spring of 2021, we sat down with several prominent Duke University School of Nursing alumni to gain their perspectives on how nursing has progressed during their successful careers, where the profession is today, and what the future might hold for the next generation of nurse leaders.

From each conversation, certain qualities and attributes of what a Duke-educated nurse looks like also emerged.

someone who can “connect their head with their heart to serve humanity.”

Nurses have to be adept at applying critical thinking and reasoning skills in order to interpret data, process changing technology, and adapt to constantly shifting models of care delivery. These are just a few qualities that focus on the intellectual and factual aspect, or the “head” component, of the profession. Conversely, nurses must also be able to listen, to thoughtfully engage with the patient and their loved ones, and to advocate for them. These qualities touch on the emotional aspects, or the “heart” component, of the profession.

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The first “Future of Nursing” report was seen as a groundbreaking document when it was released in December 2010 by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Stanley

A central reason why the School continues to be a leader in nursing education and innovation is due to its ability to acclimate to the needs of the day. As health care changes, nursing education must continue to evolve in curriculum and technology in order to prepare its students to not just go out and meet the current standards, but to exceed them. DUSON faculty, through this ongoing research, are adding to nursing scholarship, and students are taught to look towards nursing literature to stay current with innovations and discoveries, Bavier said.

“We (the AACN) facilitated a vision for academic nursing that re-envisions nursing education and building on that vision are now revising the curricular standards,” Stanley said. “These new ‘essentials’ provide room for schools to take a leadership role and be innovative and think about what we need to do to prepare nurses for the future.”

Though technology has become more and more ingrained into health care practice, that doesn’t necessarily mean the change comes at the expense of the patient or the student, as Priscilla Ramseur, DNP’16, MSN’95, RN, CNOR, NEA-BC, chief nursing officer, Duke Raleigh Hospital, points out. For example, health care professionals can use surgical robots to perform highly intricate procedures that were once impossible to do, and students now have access to highfidelity simulation resources to learn new and more advanced skills in a safe environment.

Colleges of Nursing (AACN). “Duke-educated nurses have the ability to approach a situation, or address an emergency (like the pandemic), and think about how their knowledge and skills can be applied differently to meet the challenge; it’s part of their value system.”

Access to interdisciplinary and intraprofessional collaboration opportunities and learning to navigate complicated care team dynamics are experiences that Anne Bavier, PhD, BSN’70, RN, FAAN, professor emeritus and former dean, University of Texas at Arlington, and past president, National League for Nursing, appreciates having explored during her Duke education.

“At Duke, we were taught how to critically look at data and to practice with a focus on the person,” she said. “By honing your critical thinking skills, you can keep up with change in a rapidly changing environment and process new information quickly and accurately.”

Bavier

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Developing the finesse to concurrently practice these core traits — critical thinking, caring and compassion — that is the hallmark of a Duke University School of Nursing education.

“Duke has created individuals (students, faculty and alumni) who know how to think, who are leaders with a big-picture mentality,” said Joan Stanley, PhD, BSN ’71 RN, NP, FAAN, FAANP, chief academic officer, American Association of

The Heart of a Duke Nurse Interwoven with honing their critical thinking and analytical skills, Duke students also learn how to connect to the patient as a person.

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In addition to learning new technology, nurses must also deal with an increased focus on quality improvement metrics such as readmission rates, patient satisfaction measures and improved financial outcomes. Dealing with quality indicators are reasons why it is crucial for nurses to be able to think outside the box and to take a fresh look at common challenges.

“Nursing has no limits,” Ramseur said. “We need to think big, ask a lot of questions, ask for new opportunities but also understand what needs to be done and how to get the right stakeholders at the table.

Nurses come into a situation wanting to solve problems differently and wanting to solve problems which ultimately impact how we approach new information and technology in order to care for our patients,” she said.

Ramseur also looks to the influence nurses are having in research and policy arenas.

“Nurses are more engaged in health care policy decisions at the legislative level and are using research to create connections across the country and around the world,” she said.

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Ramseur

“How we deliver care will change, but we can never forget that, just because we change how we deliver care, at the center of everything we do is a patient and their loved ones who need both our heads and our hearts,” Sowers said.

Both Bavier and Stanley recalled one of their first courses at Duke being an interprofessional and interpersonal relations course. Through this course, they were taught how to better actively listen and engage with colleagues and patients.

“It was transformative,” Bavier said. “It taught us how to listen. We then began looking and thinking from the perspective of the patient, as we moved toward understanding the cultural and societal influences of health and started to realize the patient is a person who needs to be heard and understood. I put my ability to listen and care into all I did in nursing and administration, both in academia and the federal government.”

Bavier cautions that, without a patient-focused perspective, nurses can lose sight of the opportunities to connect with and understand the patient.

“I’ve seen multiple encounters between nurses and patients where the nurse never looks at the patient as they go down their checklist,” she said. “They don’t know if the patient is scowling or smiling when they answer a question. We must practice with a focus on the person and what is going on in their lives that may be contributing to their situation.”

Sowers advises to current and future nurses: Stay flexible and agile in your learning, but never forget why you entered into nursing in the first place.

“Nurses must remain grounded in their core values and in their purpose,” he said. “It will be those values and that purpose which will serve them in difficult times.”

Stanley agrees, “Nursing is a trusted profession, and we have the opportunity to step up and address a lot of the issues that our society is facing whether they are structural issues, policy issues or societal issues. We can and should step up to take the lead in making those changes.”

In a time where information, clinical practice and technology are changing at a lightening pace, it will be the nurses who can continue to learn, to create innovative solutions, to deliver compassionate patient care, and to voice their concerns as they lead and shape the future of nursing and health care. n

Successes, Challenges and Opportunities for the

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D U K E N U R S I N G W I N T E R 2 0 21

Future of Nursing

As a double alumna of the Duke University School of Nursing and President of the American Organization for Nursing Leadership (AONL), I could not be happier to congratulate the school on their 90th Anniversary. In this Year of the Nurse and Midwife, nurses across the U.S. and the world have again risen to the challenge to deliver excellence in care as we serve our patients, students and communities.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS), there are more than four million nurses nationwide, representing the largest sector of the health care workforce (2018). According to the Health Resources and Services Administration, the percentage of nurses from minority backgrounds continues to grow but still does not reflect the people we serve. The average age of a practicing nurse is 45, and we are more educated with 56% of nurses holding a minimum of a bachelor’s degree. Our practice settings are evolving, but hospitals and health systems are still the largest employers of nurses at 61% followed closely by ambulatory settings at 18% (BLS, 2018).

Our patients, communities and the health care system need us now more than ever. We are entering the 11th month since this novel coronavirus emerged, and our country continues to experience civil unrest and the quest for equity and social justice.

These events highlight the vital role nurses play in our society.

Nurses stepped into the spotlight and did whatever was needed to care for our communities and our nation. Leveraging the full range of our capabilities and roles, we delivered health care in drive-through tents, opened additional hospital beds in areas not designed for them, and advocated on the streets, in our state and local governments, and in the White House for the safety of our colleagues and our communities.

With all that we have accomplished, challenges remain. We are facing workforce shortages, payer model changes and other

technological and information-based disruptors, all of which are impacting how we design and deliver care. This becomes increasingly important as the role of the nurse impacts care in other settings outside of the hospital. The movement to ambulatory, home care, and population health requires additional education and preparation of the nursing workforce.

To better prepare our future workforce, there is a need to strengthen and further develop academic-practice partnerships.

AONL and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) have a partnership that is working diligently to deliver on this goal. Together with their practice partners, AACN is re-envisioning the Essentials curricula for baccalaureate and graduate nursing education. This change will be necessary as we equip nurses to prepare and advance their roles to practice in the ever-changing health care environment.

As we have seen in the pandemic, communities of color have been disproportionately affected, both in infection rates and economic impact. This is a sobering reminder of the systemic change needed to achieve health equity and reduce the disparities in health care. It is critical that we build a diverse and inclusive nursing workforce, reflective of the community and patients served. As the most trusted profession, we must actively speak out against injustice and address the social inequities that are keeping our communities and all of our patients from achieving optimal health.

Today’s health care environment is dynamic. It requires that nurse leaders be prepared, available, and engaged to innovate, transform and lead care wherever it occurs, and AONL is uniquely positioned to support the profession in these efforts. I look forward to the upcoming “Future of Nursing 2030” report and all of the ways in which nurses will partner to lead the transformation of the health of our nation, now, and for the next 90 years and beyond.

Mary Ann Fuchs, DNP’10, MSN’90, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN Vice President of Patient Care & System Chief Nurse Executive Duke University Health System Associate Dean of Clinical Affairs Duke University School of Nursing

Improving today, Learning from the Past, Innovating for Tomorrow – Four DUSON Deans Reflect on a Living Legacy From Bessie Baker, BS, RN, in 1931, to Marion E. Broome, PhD, RN, FAAN, in 2021, 11 deans have guided the Duke School of Nursing through its storied 90 years legacy.

Weathering its most challenging of days, each dean has lent herself to the growth and ultimate success of one of the nation’s top nursing schools. Reflecting on the past, with eyes to the future, DUSON’s current dean says the school’s preeminence comes in large part from its culture, attracting top faculty and students, who are passionate about research, teaching, patient care, and innovation. DUSON provides a home for nurses in all stages of their professional development and invites them to find their niche and become the best they can be. “It’s hard to think about the future of our profession without thinking of our school,” Broome says. “It’s interchangeable in my mind as we have become a pre-eminent leader nationally.”

Dean Broome and former Deans Champagne, Gilliss (back) and Wilson.

D U K E N U R S I N G W I N T E R 2 0 21

But the journey to get to that place of national achievement and recognition was not an easy one. Ruby Wilson, EdD’69, RN, FAAN, served as dean from 1971 to 1984, during which time the School almost closed. Wilson fought for the School’s survival and oversaw the beginning of the conversion from offering traditional undergraduate nursing degrees to the model that exists today — a focus on graduate level and advanced nursing. It was the biggest challenge she faced as dean, she said, noting

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Ruby Wilson

that, despite the difficulties, she still remembers the success stories: “graduations and celebrating student achievements and the faculty developing into great scholars.”

Looking ahead, Wilson said her hope for DUSON as it works toward its 100-year mark is “to continue the national excellence it has demonstrated and to continue to do better.”

Mary T. Champagne In their own ways, every dean has embraced the mantra “do better,” seeking to improve upon those who came before them. As Dean from 1991–2004, Mary T. Champagne, PhD, RN, FAAN, continued the work of rebuilding DUSON, establishing the Accelerated Bachelor of Science of Nursing (ABSN) program and implementing initiatives that focused on serving rural North Carolina, particularly the underserved. Champagne said the culture of DUSON has always been about community, and she fondly remembers colleagues at DUSON and in the School of Medicine who believed in the School’s mission and dedication to improving health care for all, as well as their help in convincing the Medical Center and University that DUSON had potential for greatness.

Despite facing financial challenges and troubled alumni who had seen the near closure of the School, Champagne worked hard to build back confidence in the then-small school, and she hopes that the spirit of constant improvement and partnership with other health professionals will guide the School in future years.

“Continue to learn and listen,” she said. “Focus on ways to improve the health of people.”

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D U K E N U R S I N G W I N T E R 2 0 21

Catherine L. Gilliss When Catherine L. Gilliss, BSN ’71, PhD, RN, FAAN, became dean in 2004, taking the torch from Champagne, she already had a long history with the university, entering in 1967 as a freshman nursing student. She said she witnessed the culture of DUSON evolve from a small school, hoping one day to be taken seriously, to a scholarly community in its own right, confident that improvement is always possible. During her tenure, Gilliss oversaw tremendous growth, hiring more than 95 faculty and dozens more staff members, and building an infrastructure to support research.

“We reengaged our disaffected alumni,” she said. “We amplified a culture of innovation, improvement, respect and warmth.” Partnership with the medical community on and off campus helped the school grow. Gilliss said she hopes those

interdisciplinary collaborations continue, as partnerships gather the best minds to solve global and domestic problems. “We need to continue to bring great talent into the School and encourage work with colleagues across campus,” she said, advising the next generation of nurses to focus on health equity and leveraging the public’s trust in the profession to address social determinants of health.

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The last years of Gilliss’ tenure as dean saw DUSON break into the top 10 ranked nursing schools in the country. Marion E. Broome, RN, PhD, FAAN, took up the charge in 2014, continuing this trajectory with DUSON earning the number one ranking by U.S. News & World Report in 2018 and holding steady at number two the past two years. Broome said one of the fondest memories of her tenure has been expanding the research enterprise, including the infrastructure that supports nurse and other scientists as well as other health professionals, such as the development of the Health Innovation Lab. A close second is the partnership between Duke Nursing in the health system. “We are so much more powerful when nurses from academe and practice collaborate on important initiatives that benefit both settings,” she said.

“I think nurses are always innovative, but we rarely have an infrastructure in place to support them and their ideas. It can be scary being innovative, being cutting edge, and you need a lot of support around that. We have had the support from donors, the community and our faculty to be able to make the work of nursing, nurse leaders and nurse researchers visible in the community.” Keeping everyone focused on the vision and making sure they stop and appreciate the individual contributions they make to the School and nursing can be challenging sometimes, Broome said. It’s important to recognize and continue to encourage the passion, dedication and teamwork that makes the culture of DUSON so special.

Broome said her advice to the next generation of nurses is to look for the road less traveled, as those opportunities that can change your life.

Chances to change the lives of your patients and your students are often in the least expected places.

Interdisciplinary partnering at the university and with other health professionals and on and off campus, which has been key to DUSON’s leadership and success, are ways to find those opportunities.

“The absolute beauty of nursing is you can get involved and get engaged with wonderful people-colleagues, students and patients,” she said. “Everyone values the ideas, courage and commitment of nurses. Now we are sought out for our ideas and skills working with others. The future holds so much for the faculty, students and staff at DUSON. I am thrilled to be a small part of what has happened here and look forward to seeing what the future will bring.” n

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Marion E. Broome

New Faculty Appointments (September 1 – December 31, 2020)

Blodgett

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Thomas Blodgett, PhD, RN, AGACNPBC, is an assistant professor within our Adult Populations Division with teaching responsibilities in our ABSN and MSN Programs and involvement in our interprofessional education activities.

Blodgett joined Duke from Valparaiso University where he was on the faculty in the College of Nursing and Health Care Leadership. At Valparaiso, he served on numerous college and university committees, including the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, Interprofessional Education Committee, and Mission Realignment Task Force, and chaired the University Committee on Assessment and Accreditation and the Teaching Resources Committee. In addition, Blodgett brings more than a decade of clinical experiences as a nurse, a geriatrics and medical-surgical clinical nurse specialist, and a hospitalist nurse practitioner. Blodgett studied at the University of Iowa, earning his BSN, MSN, and PhD in gerontological nursing and epidemiology, and at the University of Southern Indiana, earning his post-master’s AGACNP certificate. He has been an active member of various professional societies such as the American Nurses Association, the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing, and the Midwest Nursing Research Society.

Szydlowski Pitman

Jessica Szydlowski Pitman, DNP, CRNA, MSN, ACNP, is an assistant professor within our Clinical Health Systems and Analytics Division with teaching responsibilities within our Nurse Anesthesia DNP Program. Pitman’s previous clinical experience includes work as an intensive care unit registered nurse in the Neurosurgical and Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Kaleida Health in Buffalo, NY, prior to obtaining her nurse anesthesia degrees. She worked clinically as a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA), clinical preceptor, DNP mentor, and new hire preceptor at NYU Langone Medical Center. Prior to joining Duke, she practiced in Westchester, NY as the first CRNA in a multispecialty practice and provided anesthesia at an ambulatory surgery center. She received a BS in Neuroscience and Philosophy from the University of Miami with a minor in Chemistry, a BSN from Mount Saint Mary College, and then her MS in Nurse Anesthesia and DNP degrees both from Columbia University. Pitman was a strong advocate for the nurse anesthesia profession in New York, serving her state association as a member of the GRC committee, board of directors, vice president, president, and past president. She has lectured at NYU Langone Medical Center, the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai, Columbia University, and at various CRNA conferences.

Myers

John Myers, PhD, MSPH, joined our faculty as the director of the Statistical Core in the School’s Center for Nursing Research and is a member within our Clinical Health Systems and Analytics Division.

Prior to joining Duke, he was the director of Quantitative Sciences in the Department of Pediatrics, Child and Adolescent Health Research Design and Support unit (CAHRDS) at the University of Louisville. The unit facilitates and provides biostatistical support for nearly 200 researchers within the department. He has worked alongside nursing faculty and students for nearly a decade, and his collaborative experience spans a wide range of clinical research areas, including fire safety and burns, women’s health, postpartum depression, diabetes, smoking cessation, childhood obesity, mental health issues, asthma, infectious diseases, cardiology, oncology, health services research, and substance abuse.

Myers has published nearly 140 manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals, been a member of research teams awarded nearly $37 million in funding and serves on numerous review panels for the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Recent Grant Awards

Promotions & Transitions

National Institutes of Health/NINDS “Learning to Predict Delayed Cerebral Ischemia with Novel Continuous Cerebral Arterial State Index (DCI)” MPI Xiao Hu Co-Investigator Ran Xiao $3,019,300 (September 1, 2020 – May 31, 2025)

Schneider

Pereira

Stevenson

Derouin

Shaw

Hueckel

Smallheer

Yang

Teague

Petsas Blodgett

Szydlowski Pitman

Blodgett

McGee

National Institutes of Health/NHLBI (U24) “Log2Lose: Incenting Weight Loss and Dietary Self-Monitoring in Real Time to Improve Weight Management” MPI Ryan Shaw Co-Investigator Dori Steinberg $2,014,796 (September 15, 2020 – August 31, 2025)

National Institutes of Health/NINDS “Integrate Dynamic System Model and Machine Learning for Calibration Free Noninvasive ICP (NOVEL)”

MPI Mariam Kayle Co-Investigator Paula Tanabe $723,786 (September 30, 2020 – September 29, 2023)

Gorgon and Betty Moore Foundation, The Betty Irene Moore Fellowship “The TALK: A Novel Mobile Application marketed in Barbershops and Beauty Salons for Black Fathers and Mothers to promote sexual health among Black male adolescents living in the United States South” PI Schenita Randolph Co-Investigator Regan Johnson $499,998 (July 1, 2020 – June 30, 2023)

Susan M. Schneider Associate Professor to Associate Professor Emeritus Katherine C. Pereira Professor to Professor Emeritus Eleanor Stevenson promoted to Professor Track II Anne Derouin promoted to Professor Track II Ryan Shaw promoted to Associate Professor Track I Rémi Hueckel promoted to Associate Professor Track II Benjamin Smallheer promoted to Associate Professor Track II

Qing Yang promoted to Associate Professor Track III Malinda Teague appointed as Assistant Professor Track II Nicole Petsas Blodgett appointed as Assistant Professor Track II Jessica Szydlowski Pitman appointed as Assistant Professor Track II Thomas Blodgett appointed as Assistant Professor Track II Kara McGee appointed as Associate Professor Track II

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NC Department of Health and Human Services / CDC “Sickle Cell Data Collection Program in North Carolina”

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PI Xiao Hu $1,615,595 (August 1, 2020 – April 30, 2023)

Accomplishments & Honors

Randolph

Petsas Blodgett

Broome

Reuter-Rice

n DUSON Joins National Nurses Climate Challenge DUSON is a partner of the Nurses Climate Challenge School of Nursing Commitment. The Nurses Climate Challenge is a national campaign to mobilize nurses to educate 50,000 health professionals on the impacts climate change has on human health. The campaign is a collaboration between Health Care Without Harm and the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments (ANHE). DUSON joins 17 other schools across the country in making this commitment.

n Randolph Accepted to Inaugural Cohort of New

n Broome Appointed to National

Schenita D. Randolph, PhD, MPH, RN, CNE, assistant professor, was selected to

Each of the 11 members of the cohort received $450,000 for their innovative project or study. Randolph is using her funding to develop a nurse-led mobile application to focus on promoting healthy sexual behaviors and addressing health disparities in HIV among Black male adolescents.

Dean Marion E. Broome PhD, RN, FAAN, was recently appointed to the National Board of Directors for the Nurse-Family Partnership, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Denver.

The Nurse-Family Partnership program is an evidence-based community health program implemented in 41 states which empowers firsttime mothers to transform their lives and those of their babies through a two-year home visiting program with registered nurses.

n Center for Nursing Discovery Welcomes New Director

n Reuter-Rice Selected as

Fellowship Program

participate in the inaugural cohort for a new fellowship program focused on nurse leadership and innovation. The program, the Betty Irene Moore Fellowships for Nurse Leaders and Innovators fellowship program, will recognize early- to mid-career nursing scholars and innovators with a high potential to accelerate leadership in nursing research, practice, education, policy and entrepreneurship.

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D U K E N U R S I N G W I N T E R 2 0 21

Nicole (Nikki) Petsas Blodgett, PhD, RN, was named director of the Center

for Nursing Discovery (CND). Prior to coming to DUSON, Blodgett served as the assistant professor of nursing and coordinator of simulation and clinical learning at Purdue University Northwest in Indiana. While there, she oversaw the growth of the university’s simulation program which increased by 1,250 percent.

Board of Directors

HDRC Scholar

Karin Reuter-Rice, PhD, CPNP-AC, FCCM, FAAN, associate professor, was selected as a

2020-21 Duke Clinical & Translational Science Institute Health Disparities Research Curriculum (HDRC) program scholar. Research to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health is a national priority, and the HDRC program is designed to increase knowledge and skill in the design and conduct of health disparities research.

The 10-month program consists of didactic and interactive sessions by leaders in health disparities research.

Accomplishments & Honors

Aroke

De Gagne

Frisch

n DNP Alum Wins Instructor of

the Year Award

Edwin Aroke, DNP ‘11, was named the Didactic

Instructor of the Year Award by the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA). This award, established in 1991, is presented to an individual who has made a significant contribution to the education of student nurse anesthetists in the classroom. Aroke is an assistant professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Brandon

n Brandon Receives Lifetime Achievement Award Debra Brandon, PhD, RN, CCNS, FAAN, associate professor, received the 2020

National Association of Neonatal Nurses’ Lifetime Achievement in Neonatal Nursing Award. This award recognizes an individual’s longstanding commitment to and profound impact on the field of neonatal nursing. Brandon has made significant scientific contributions to the area of neonatal skin care, microbiome and nurse caregiving. She continues to be a highly funded and prolific nurse scientist who’s committed to improving neonatal health outcomes.

n Seven Included as NC Great 100 Nurses

Jennie C. De Gagne, PhD, DNP’14, RN, NPDBC, CNE, ANEF, FAAN, professor, was appointed

as a visiting professor at Ewha Womans University College of Nursing. De Gagne provides faculty consultation on online pedagogy and other educational innovation. Founded in 1886 by Mary F. Scranton, Ewha is the world’s largest female private educational institute and one of the most prestigious universities in South Korea.

n MSN Alum Selected as Post-

Doc Fellow

Affronti

Granger

Fleming

Parathattal

Tetlow

Green

Stephanie Frisch, MSN’ 15, was selected

as one of three Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF)’s Future of Nursing Scholars. As part of the post-doctoral fellowship award, Frisch will be a part of program’s fourth cohort and will receive $50,000 from RWJF for her postdoctoral research.

Nichols

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Visiting Professor at South Korean University

This year’s Great 100 Nurses in North Carolina list features several faculty, alumni and a student. Congratulations go to: Mary Lou Affronti, DNP’13, MHSc, MSN’ 86 RN, ANP, FAAN, professor; Bradi Granger, PhD, MSN’91, RN, FAAN, professor; Louise Fleming, MSN’09; Ann Nichols, BSN’76; Preetha Parathattal, MSN’19; Marybeth Tetlow, MSN’17; and Alishia Green, MSN student. The Great 100, Inc., exists to recognize and honor registered nurses in North Carolina for their commitment to excellence and to promote a positive image of the nursing profession.

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n De Gagne Appointed

Accomplishments & Honors

DNP Student Ellis Selected As 2020 University Scholar

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By Stephanie Turner DNP student Pamila “Pami” Ellis has been chosen as the Fall 2020 University Scholar for the Duke University School of Nursing.

The Duke University Scholar Program is designed to stimulate an interdisciplinary, inter-generational community of scholars.

Undergraduate, graduate and professional school University Scholars are selected for their ability to explore new academic horizons. They represent a range of personal and intellectual backgrounds and share an excitement for original research, collaborative thinking and innovative scholarship.

“I was flummoxed and honored to find out I was selected as a University Scholar,” Ellis said. “I’m looking forward to being part of a diverse and creative multidisciplinary group of scholars that encourages innovative and collaborative scholarly work. I hope to learn from my peers and program leaders, hone my own leadership skills and explore ways I can positively impact the future of nursing.”

Originally from Manila, Philippines, Ellis

currently works as a labor and delivery nurse in California.

“While researching nursing programs around the world, Duke University stood apart from the rest because of its reputation of nursing excellence and collaborative approach to education across academic programs,” she said. “It is a privilege to be a part of a university that emphasizes and prioritizes teamwork, both internally and externally with other disciplines, as the method by which professionals are trained to improve health outcomes.”

Aiding others has always been an integral part of Ellis’s life as she grew up assisting her family as they helped underserved locals at a rural vocational school and in the inner city.

However, her aspiration to serve in the health care field arose from her experiences of being treated for dengue hemorrhagic fever at the young age of 3. To be treated, she received frequent finger pricks for blood tests by professionals who she called at the time “poke doctors.” It was Ellis’s encounters

with the Filipino nurses that fueled her desire to care for others in the same manner for which those very nurses cared for her.

Ellis earned her BSN from California State University Fullerton and remained in California for two years as an orthopedics RN until she got a chance to return to her roots in the Philippines to work at a maternity center for a global nonprofit that supported families living in poverty and sought to increase access to quality health care for underserved mothers. She started as a staff nurse and later became clinical director of the center in addition to serving in leadership roles within the nonprofit. Ellis also assisted in relief efforts after Typhoon Haiyan and collaborated with the World Health Organization to improve regional maternal and neonatal outcomes.

In 2018, she decided to advance her career and started researching DNP Programs.

This desire led her to Duke and, in turn, the University Scholar program. After she graduates, she plans to continue her work of supporting and empowering national leaders in underserved populations in the global community.

“Being a University Scholar affords me the opportunity to participate in intellectual and social exchanges and to contribute my unique perspective as a nurse working in Southern California and as a clinical director in the Philippines,” she said. “It is a chance to continue to invest in future nurses as a mentor and partner with like-minded agents of change to positively impact the future of health care on a domestic and global level.”

The University Scholars Program started in 1998 by the Duke Office of the Vice-Provost of Interdisciplinary Studies with a $20 million endowment gift from Duke University Trustee Emerita Melinda French Gates and her husband Bill Gates.

Accomplishments & Honors

PhD Student Awarded Two Prestigious Duke Fellowships

humanities and science,” she said. “All the science we create, learn from, and practice with is in service of humans and of humanity at large. Nursing is unique in the way we seek to understand and affect the human condition and experience through holistic, person-centered care and healing.”

Harlow began her career as a direct care nurse in the Children’s of Alabama hospital’s pediatric intensive care unit. She has practiced at several children’s hospitals across the country and served subsequently as a direct care nurse, nurse educator, and nurse manager in the cardiac intensive care unit at the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Her background also includes two cardiac surgical mission trips to Morocco and

Uganda, where she mentored local staff nurses recovering complex pediatric congenital and rheumatic heart surgical patients.

“I hope to encourage and mentor future nursing scholars, so they may ‘carry the torch’ of our discipline,” she said.

Harlow currently wants to serve in a direct care role while also conducting research involving children with critical congenital heart disease and their parents.

“Regardless of the path my career takes me, I know my personal values align with remaining connected to the experiences of these patients and their families in the hospital setting,” she said. “If my research, or research that I contribute to, advances the way we care for these kids, I will think of that as a major win.”

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PhD student Ashleigh Harlow has received the University Scholars Fellowship and James B. Duke Fellowship.

The University Scholars Fellowship program is designed to stimulate an interdisciplinary, intergenerational community of scholars, while the James B. Duke Fellowship aims to attract and develop outstanding scholars at Duke. Both programs offer stipends, while the University Scholars program also provides tuition and fee support.

“It’s an honor and a privilege to be selected for such prestigious awards and to represent the School of Nursing through these two fellowships,” Harlow said. “I see excellence every day at the School and across Duke, so I am incredibly humbled to have been selected and am really excited to have the opportunity to bring a nurses’ perspective to these interdisciplinary groups.”

Harlow earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing in 2008 from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and her graduate certificate in 2017 from George Washington University’s Master Teacher Leadership Development Program for educators in academic medical settings.

She is currently part of the School’s 2020 PhD cohort. It was the program’s cohort structure, in addition to the program’s faculty members and strenuous nature, that made Harlow certain that Duke was the ideal place to further her nursing education.

“Knowing I had a deep bench of experts to learn from as well as a supportive group of peers to go through the PhD program experience alongside sealed it for me,” she said. “I want to come out of my doctoral preparation ready to contribute to the science of nursing in a meaningful way.”

Harlow chose to pursue nursing as career due to her aspiration to work in the sciences while also helping others.

“Nursing is the perfect blend of

D U K E N U R S I N G W I N T E R 2 0 21

By Stephanie Turner

Accomplishments & Honors

Broome

Gonzalez-Guarda

n Gonzalez-Guarda Selected As Member of NINR

Dean Marion E. Broome, PhD, RN, FAAN, was selected as chair of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN)’s new ResearchFocused Doctoral Program Pathways to Excellence Task Force. The task force will revise AACN’s 2010 position statement on The ResearchFocused Doctoral Program in Nursing: Pathways to Excellence. The goal is to develop a vision for research-focused doctoral programs and graduates. The task force will consider trends in higher education, nursing education, nursing research, other health disciplinary research, and career trajectories for research scientists, faculty, and other leadership roles.

Rosa Gonzalez-Guarda, PhD, MPH, RN, CPH, FAAN, associate professor, was selected to serve on the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) Pathway Nursing Research Training Working Group. This group will assess needs related to training of nurse scientists/researchers across the United States and will provide recommendations to the NINR. They will also identify current deficits and resulting impacts as well as short and long-term issues that may be averted through the recommendations provided.

n Oyesanya Wins AACN Award Tolulope Oyesanya, PhD, RN, assistant

professor, received the 2020-2021 Novice Faculty Excellence in Didactic Teaching Award from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN). The award recognizes a faculty member of an AACN member school who systematically investigates questions related to student learning and the conditions under which it occurs to improve outcomes.

D U K E N U R S I N G W I N T E R 2 0 21

Chua

n Broome Chairs New AACN

Task Force

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Oyesanya

Pathway Nursing Research Group

n Korean Translation of Book Wins Award The Korean version of the “Teaching in Nursing and Role of the Educator: The Complete Guide to Best Practice in Teaching, Evaluation, and Curriculum Development,” co-authored by Marilyn Oermann, PhD, RN, ANEF, FAAN, Thelma M. Ingles Professor of Nursing, and Beth Phillips, PhD, MSN’93, RN, CNE, CHSE, associate professor, won a Sejong Doseo Excellent Book prize in the academy category by the Publication Industry Promotion Agency of Korea. Jennie De Gagne, PhD, DNP’14, RN, NPD-BC, CNE, ANEF, FAAN professor, led the Korean translation of the book.

n DNP Alum Chua Receives

Highest Nurse’s Award for Singapore

Alice Chua, DNP ‘19, is one of five recipients of the 2020 President’s Award for Nurses in Singapore. The award, Singapore’s highest accolade for the profession, recognizes nurses who have shown sustained, outstanding performance and contributions to patient care delivery, education, research and administration.

Oermann

Phillips

De Gagne

Accomplishments & Honors

Kreider

Carter

Tatis

Cao

n Kreider Inducted as Fellow of the AANP Kathryn E. Kreider, DNP’13, APRN, FNP-BC, FAANP, associate professor and

lead faculty for the DUSON endocrinology specialty, was inducted as a Fellow of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (FAANP). Since 2000, the FAANP, established by the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP), has grown to comprise more than 870 nurse practitioner leaders from across the country who are devoted to the global advancement of their field and the high caliber of health care NPs deliver.

n MSN Student Awarded APNA

Scholarship

MSN student Angela Tatis has received the 2020 American Psychiatric Nurses Association (APNA) Board of Directors (BOD) Student Scholarship.

She was selected as one of 32 pre-licensure/ undergraduate and graduate students who will participate in the program. In addition to the scholarship, Tatis receives a complimentary yearlong APNA membership and an invitation to the APNA 34th Annual Conference.

n Affronti, Muckler and Walton Inducted as Fellows of

the AAN

recent DUSON faculty members to be inducted as fellows to the American Academy of Nursing. Academy Fellows are considered nursing’s most accomplished leaders in education, management, practice and research.

Affronti

Muckler

Walton

n Carter Wins ANA National Award Brigit Carter, PhD, MSN, RN, CCRN, associate dean for Diversity, Equity and

Inclusion, has been awarded a Diversity in Nursing Award from the American Nurses Association (ANA). The Diversity Award recognizes an individual registered nurse or a group of registered nurses for long-standing commitment and significant contributions to the advancement of diversity and inclusion within the nursing profession. Carter is one of 13 recipients to receive an ANA 2020 National Award.

Nurse Faculty Workforce

DUSON recently received a nearly $1.2 million HRSA award to continue offering the Nurse Faculty Loan Program (NFLP). The program supports eligible DNP students and MSN students majoring in Nursing Education who are committed to becoming a nurse faculty member in an accredited school of nursing. After the student finishes up to four years of full-time employment as a nurse faculty member, they can apply to have up to 85 percent of their loan, including interest, forgiven. DUSON has participated in the NFLP for the last 16 years. In that time, 246 students have received financial support.

n Cao Selected at AAUW

International Doctoral Fellow

PhD student Jiepin Cao was selected as an American Association of University Women (AAUW) International Doctoral fellow for the 2020-21 award year. Fellows are selected based on their scholarly promise, academic achievement, and demonstrated commitment to women and girls.

D U K E N U R S I N G W I N T E R 2 0 21

L Walton, PhD, RN, MPH, OCN, CHES, FAAN, assistant professor, are the most

n HRSA Award Aims to Increase

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Mary L. Affronti, DNP’13, MHSc, MSN’ 86 RN, ANP, FAAN , professor, Virginia (Chris) Muckler, DNP, CRNA, CHSE-A, FAAN, associate professor, and AnnMarie

Accomplishments & Honors

Morrow

n DNP Students Appointed to

AANA Committees

Jessica Morrow and Kristen Southwick, first-year Nurse Anesthesia-DNP students, were recently appointed to committee positions for the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA). Morrow serves as the first student representative for the Peer Assistance Advisor Committee. This is a newly created student position with the AANA Peer Assistance Advisor Committee, and Morrow will serve as the inaugural student representative to the committee. Southwick serves as the student representative for their Practice Committee.

Southwick is a valuable contributor to the organization and the CRNAs it serves.

Southwick

n Broome Receives Indiana University Honor Dean Marion E. Broome PhD, RN, FAAN received Indiana University’s (IU) prestigious Bicentennial Medal. The medal honors distinguished and distinctive service in support of IU’s mission as a public university.

Broome served as dean and professor at IU’s School of Nursing from 2004 to 2014. The medals are unique, made from materials salvaged from the old bells which hung in the Student Building on the IU Bloomington campus, giving recipients a lasting piece of IU history.

Presenting Broome with the medal are IU PhD Graduates, Mitchel Knisley, PhD, RN-BC, ACNS-BC, assistant professor, and Staci Reynolds, PhD, RN, ACNS-BC, CCRN, CNRN, SCRN, assistant professor.

n DNAP Graduating Class

Aced It!

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All 24 students of the DNP Nurse Anesthesia Graduating Class of 2020 passed their National Certification Exam (NCE) on their first attempt! The National Board of Certification and Recertification for Nurse Anesthetists administers the NCE to measure the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary for entry-level nurse anesthesia practitioners.

n DUSON Recognized for Diversity in Higher Education The School has earned the 2020 Health Professions Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award. This award is presented by INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine, the oldest and largest diversity-focused publication in higher education, and is considered a national honor that is awarded to colleges and universities that exhibit an outstanding dedication to diversity and inclusion. DUSON previously received this award in 2016.

Accomplishments & Honors

McConnell

Nikpour

Adams

Barstow

n McConnell named JAMDA Senior Associate Editor Eleanor McConnell, PhD, MSN’78, BSN’76, RN, GCNS, BC, associate professor,

has been appointed senior associate editor of The Journal of Post-Acute and LongTerm Care Medicine (JAMDA). JAMDA is the leading peer-reviewed publication for practical information and research directly applicable to health care professionals providing post-acute and long-term care (PA/LTC), as well as policy-makers, organizational leaders, educators, and advocates.

n Gonzales-Guarda

n DNP Students Appointed to

AANA National Committees

Nurse Anesthesia-DNP students Cara Adams and Loraine Barstow were appointed by the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA) Board of Directors to serve on two of its national committees. Adams was selected to serve as a member of the 2021 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee, while Barstow was selected to serve on the 2021 Professional Development Committee.

Receives Excellence in Research Award

The Nursing Network on Violence Against Women International (NNVAWI) selected Rosa Gonzalez-Guarda, PhD, MPH, RN, CPH, FAAN, associate professor to receive the organization’s Excellence in Research Award.

NNVAWI is an international network of researchers, health professionals, community activists, and policy makers with special interest and expertise in gender based violence. The Excellence in Research Award recognizes outstanding contributions to research and/or evidence-based practice in the area of violence against women and children.

n Sixth Time as a Best School for

Student Scholarship

Jacqueline Nikpour, PhD student, is one of this year’s recipients of Academy

Health’s Alice S. Hersh Student Scholarship. The award is judged partly based on the applicant’s commitment to the field of health services research or health policy and their potential to contribute to health services research or health policy. The scholarship is designed to encourage professional and educational development in health services research and policy among student members.

For the sixth time, the American Association for Men in Nursing has named DUSON the Best Schools for Men in Nursing. The School received this recognition in 2010, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. This award is presented to nursing schools or colleges that have provided significant efforts in recruiting and retaining men in nursing, in providing men a supportive educational environment, and in educating faculty, students, and the community about the contributions men have and do make to the nursing profession.

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n PhD Student Nikpour Receives Alice S. Hersh

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Men in Nursing

Accomplishments & Honors

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The Pioneer: How Donna Harris Integrated DUSON You may know the facts already: Donna Allen Harris, BSN’71, became the first African American to graduate from Duke University School of Nursing in 1971. But do you know the full story of the woman and her experience breaking the color barrier?

To begin with, she had done this before.

Before entering DUSON, Harris had been through an earlier trial by fire as one of the first black students to attend her previously segregated high school in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Her memories remain vivid: “I remember…people running out of the bathroom, holding noses, turning desks around when I walked into the room — it was pretty overt for a long time,” she said to Jessica Roseberry of Duke’s Medical Center Archives. She endured because her family and community supported her.

When it came time for nursing school, though, Harris longed for a setting where she wouldn’t need to be the first or the only again. She applied to Fisk University, a well-known HBCU with an excellent nursing program. But a high school counselor, hearing that Duke was actively looking for African American applicants, encouraged her to apply there. “I just did it because of the pressure, not expecting to hear anything,” Harris recalled.

When she did hear back from Duke, the news forced a change in her plans. Not only had they accepted her — they were offering a four-year, full scholarship. “That was hard for the adults to let me turn my back on,” said Harris. “But I didn’t want to do it. All I could envision was more of the same, and I didn’t want to go through that type of environment and experience again.”

Still, when Fisk couldn’t match Duke’s offer, Harris made her peace with being a pioneer one more time.

Harris arrived in Durham in the fall of 1967, ready to work but unsure what to

Donna Harris, BSN’71, caps Gayle Harris, BSN’72. Gayle (no relation) was the second African American student at DUSON.

expect. This time around, there was no one protesting her enrollment, but subtler forms of prejudice soon appeared. On one early paper, she was describing the appearance of a clinic patient. “I remember writing ‘dark skin,’ and that being circled and me being asked, ‘Do you have problems with your race?’ And I just thought, not again.” This experience made her wary of trusting her

professors, and she was determined to look elsewhere for support.

“The thing that I think saved me,” Harris said, “was the friendships that I established with the students in Hanes House. For the most part, they were from the North and West, not so much from the South. The social aspect of it was so different from high school, and that was my solace.” These

Accomplishments & Honors

Creating Opportunities and Opening Doors — DUSON’s First African American Faculty Member white friends and study partners made her experience at the school bearable and also encouraged a less-talked-about breakthrough: in her first year, she became the first black student to pledge a sorority at Duke.

With her Duke Nursing BSN degree, Harris has gone on to a rich and varied career. “I’ve done hospital nursing and public health nursing. I’ve done office nursing and I’ve done school nursing. Now I’m in nursing research,” she said. She married a man she met at Duke and raised a family. And in an unexpected twist, she

It’s been eight years since Marva Price, DrPH, RN, FAANP, FAAN, retired from her faculty position at Duke University School of Nursing. One of the North Carolina’s first 40 family nurse practitioners (FNP), Price has been a leader in nursing for almost 50 years, currently doing locum tenums contracts in primary care and women’s health clinics across the state. Price changed DUSON’s history when she was appointed the first non-white faculty member in 1996, after having spent three years as a FNP at Duke University Medical Center. She remembers her years at DUSON as a time of great personal and professional growth. “It was a good place; our faculty accomplished much to elevate the school nationally. It was great for the school and for my career,” she said.

“When I reflect back, the years went fast, and they were full of accomplishments.”

While the first African American student was admitted to DUSON in 1967, it was almost three decades later before Price

broke that barrier for the faculty. Price remembers when then-Dean Mary Champagne, RN, PhD, invited Price to a meeting in her office.

“I was quite surprised when she told me that they had an all-white faculty, and my immediate thought was, ‘Well, this is not the place for me.’ This first happened years ago at most schools, do I want to be a first?” But Champagne convinced her, driving home the School’s commitment to diversity and a focus on raising the School’s profile, even arranging for Price to meet with then recently arrived Myrna Adams, Duke University’s first vice president of institutional equity. Price took the position and said she never had any regrets. “I don’t think I could have been in a better place.”

Price was able to continue practicing a day a week at the Durham County Health Department Women’s Health Clinic, which she loved, while she took on full-time teaching for the first time. “So my thought

D U K E N U R S I N G W I N T E R 2 0 21

returned to Duke as a researcher in 2006, bringing her journey full circle.

But beyond her personal achievements, Harris is most proud of how she paved the way for others. After her momentous first step, many more African American students were able to follow her; the year after she started, for example, saw the arrival of Gayle Bridges Harris, who would go on to a long and distinguished career leading Durham’s Department of Public Health. “It really was a significant accomplishment, and it did open the doors for a lot of others who have accomplished a lot of things,” Donna said. “I’m in that group where people stood on my shoulders and went further, and that’s really a privilege. I might smile a little bit more when people say, ‘I heard you were the first.’”

At her final graduation ceremony as faculty, Price speaks with DUSON Alumna Joan Stanley, BSN’71

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After her momentous first step, many more African American students were able to follow her.

Accomplishments & Honors

was OK, I’m here and like any place I’ve been, there are things to do, and I’ve got to help get them done.

Price was personally committed to recruiting students to grow the FNP program, and in particular, African American students.

She particularly liked to introduce new opportunities for students. While in graduate

coastal North Carolina, Price said that until graduate school, her education had been exclusively among other African Americans.

Her family guided her in her educational pursuits, encouraging her, but also with an understanding as to how biased the climate could be for African Americans pursing higher education in the South, which was

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“I already knew when I left home, I could do anything I wanted to do. That was what you heard in your African American high school: If you set your mind on something and you prepare yourself, you can do it.” school, Price was named an Albert Schweitzer Fellow which provided hands-on community service project development experiences.

Price established the Fellowship at DUSON and over the years, several graduate nursing students competed with health professional students across the state to develop and conduct community service projects which required 200 hours of their personal time.

Another passion for Price was her work with Department of Defense grants that provided opportunity to improve prostate cancer screening through research in the Durham community and for her to disseminate her cancer prevention research across the U.S. and internationally. The grants also provided for groups of students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities to come to DUSON for 10 weeks during the summer to collaborate with the Duke Division of Urology faculty and staff for didactic and bench science training in prostate cancer research.

Growing up in an African American community in rural Tyrrell County, in

still segregated in many ways. But despite the racial unrest during her undergraduate years, Price said she was raised with a great self-confidence and to always focus on opportunity.

“I already knew when I left home, I could do anything I wanted to do,” she said.

“That was what I heard in my family from my uncle and my aunt who were ‘the firsts’ by earning PhDs during my childhood, and we heard that in our African American high school: If you set your mind on something and you prepare yourself, you can do it.

There are no barriers.” Price acknowledges that of course there were barriers, but her mindset was that she could figure out a way to succeed. “You want to do that?” she asked herself. “How do you make that happen? And that’s pretty much the philosophy of my life.”

After graduating at the top of her nursing class from North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, Price attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, earning a master’s in public health. At

the same time, she was in the third class of FNPs in the state where, at that time, the only nurse practitioner program was at UNC Chapel Hill. Shortly afterwards, she earned a post-master’s in nursing at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Price worked as a FNP for many years and was a consultant for the state’s public health system. Eventually, she joined Duke’s obstetrics-gynecology and oncology department. After three years, she left to go back to UNC-CH to pursue her doctorate, during which time she received the call from Champagne.

During her first years at DUSON, major honors for Price included being inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nurses in 2002 and as a Fellow of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners in 2007. Price credits DUSON for being a place that fostered the pursuit of excellence, not just for individuals, but for the profession at large.

When she started her faculty position, DUSON was a small school, Price said, noting her appointment made her the 13th faculty member, and she was able to witness and be part of the historical rise of the School, ultimately being named the best in the nation. “There were things that we needed to do, and Dean Champagne, and later Dean Gilliss, were very clear about us moving up in the rankings,” she said. Price was director of the FNP Program for several years, and she worked on the first national committee for development of the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) pathway, and ultimately, was a part of the faculty to establish the DNP Program at DUSON. “We had a lot to achieve. Looking back at what the School has accomplished, it’s amazing!”

Coming Spring 2021

Students test their clinical skills in the School’s state-of-the-art simulation lab. (Note: This photo was taken before regulations were put in place to combat the spread of COVID-19.)

DUSON Now & Forever Leadership annual gifts provide vital support to the Duke University School of Nursing Now. Alumni and friends who make planned gifts ensure that the School of Nursing will continue to thrive Forever!

During each topic-based discussion, you’ll hear from donors about why they choose to support DUSON Now & Forever.

For more information, please contact: Anita Stallings at anita.stallings@duke.edu or 919-681-9641 Diana Staples at diana.staples@duke.edu or 919-668-6054 To make your gift online, please visit: gifts.duke.edu/nursing

February 11: Bequests and Beneficiaries, Kathy Gallagher, BSN’75 March 11: Charitable Gift Annuities and Life Income Gifts April 8: A Celebration of Giving, Marianne Tango Williams, BSN’81 and Ellen Donaldson, BSN’81

A Force To Be Reckoned With DUSON & Its Trailblazing Dean Both Celebrate 90 Years

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By Whitney J. Palmer She was loved by some people. She was feared by others. But, across the board, if you ask anyone associated with the Duke University School of Nursing over the past 70 years, Dean Ruby Wilson, EdD’69, MSN, RN, FAAN, was respected by everyone.

And, this year, the highly regarded former dean of this highly ranked nursing school shares a significant milestone with the school — they are both turning 90.

Wilson began her tenure as dean in 1971, but she launched into nursing leadership much earlier. Whether she held a position as a clinical instructor, a school administrator, or an advocate, the woman who received the inaugural Duke University School of Nursing (DUSON) Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008 is largely considered a trailblazer.

“I don’t think you could talk to anyone who wouldn’t describe Dean Wilson as a strong, strong woman,” said current DUSON PhD student Paula Koppel, BSN’82. “I think a lot of people would describe her as a force to be reckoned with.”

After Wilson received her own bachelor’s of nursing (BSN) degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1954, she began her career as a night clinical instructor at Allegheny General Hospital School of Nursing in Pennsylvania. But she soon took her place as an advanced medical-surgical nursing instructor in DUSON’S nascent BSN program from 1955 to 1957, eventually becoming dean after a few career twists and turns.

When it came to training nurses, Wilson bucked conventional ideology

for the time. For her, preparing qualified providers was about much more than ensuring her graduates were proficient in recognizing how diseases present themselves. Nurses, she believed, must be prepared for the dynamic changes in patient care.

“I remember very distinctly that she discussed how important it was for us, as nurses, to learn how to learn,” Koppel said. “For us to just learn the signs and symptoms of every disease and what interventions were appropriate would be foolish and shortsighted. In a very short period of time, we would be out-of-date.

She felt it was her responsibility to teach us how to learn — how to obtain knowledge and critically evaluate it.”

Under Wilson’s direction, the BSN

Facing page: Chris Alford, second from the right, with Ruby Wilson and other BSN’75 classmates during a School of Nursing awards ceremony.

Paula Koppel with Ruby Wilson in 1982.

related to what I was really focused on,” Koppel said. “She would say she knew the topic might be important to me or she would pose a provocative question. I really felt her mentorship, and it was really important to me.”

In fact, Wilson left such an impression on students that alumni from her tenure collaborated in 2018 to raise the remaining dollars needed to fully fund the Ruby Wilson Student Scholarship. Her former students completed the scholarship to honor her legacy as a nursing pioneer, living legend, and phenomenal educator. Today’s students will not have the opportunity to study under and learn from Wilson, but, through the scholarship, many deserving students will benefit from the foundation she laid and the lasting imprint of her leadership.

Ultimately, Alford said, despite her authoritative exterior, Wilson’s love for DUSON was apparent, and it has been a sustaining force for the school for decades.

“When I reflect back on the true Dean Wilson, she was the happiest when we had our ceremonies at the Chapel or our capping and pinning. You could see her love for nursing, her love for her students, and you could catch a glimpse of her genuine care and loving spirit,” Alford said. “I am proud to say I was a student and graduate of Duke under the leadership of Ruby Wilson. She knew it was her job to ensure that Duke had the premier school of nursing. We were then, and we still are.” n

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the end of my time in the school, and she impressed on us that we really needed to advocate for the program.”

But, as effective as Wilson was in her position, her lasting legacy can be seen in the leaders she helped produce. Her daily example taught students not only the importance of education, but also the obligation to take their knowledge to the public, as well as how to be most effective, Alford said. The dean paved the way for students here, as well, by creating community partnerships.

“She instilled in us the necessity of community service and that we must take what we learned in class and bring it into the community,” Alford said. “I learned from Ruby how to have the demeanor of a leader — someone who is strong, but not aggressive, and to let your actions be founded in fact and not emotion.”

Based on the model Wilson provided, Koppel and Alford (and countless other DUSON graduates) went on to pursue and achieve positions of leadership. Koppel, early in her career, got involved in the Massachusetts Nurses Association while working at Beth Israel Hospital, and Alford, as a nurse practitioner, bridged a critical gap between the emergency department and public health at the University of Virginia.

They both credit Wilson with instilling in them the critical thinking skills necessary for these roles.

Wilson did more than lead as an administrator, however. Although she had a reputation for being stern and invoking nervousness in DUSON’s students, she also demonstrated a positive example by taking a personal interest in who they were and what they cared about, Koppel said.

She took the time to connect with students and help them on their educational and professional journeys.

“I would get little notes from her just with things she had seen that she knew

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program experienced a paradigm shift.

In an environment where few nurses were pursuing advanced degrees, especially expensive ones, Wilson built a bachelor’s program founded on well-qualified faculty who had high standards. Not only was the curriculum ambitious — students were required to complete 32 courses to graduate — but the dean infused it all with her larger nursing worldview. The result was a deeply revered and respected program that produced sought-after nurses.

“She reinforced that we needed to reach further beyond learning to pass our boards, but to be clinicians and become leaders,” said Phylis “Chris” Harris Alford, BSN’75.

“She trained us to dispel the myth of being handmaidens and to look at ourselves as people who could stand toe-to-toe with any other Duke graduate or other health care professional. In the 1970s, Ruby Wilson was cutting edge.”

To ensure students could go beyond the traditional nurse roles, Wilson took steps to ensure they had learning positions in the medical center. Those opportunities opened the door for students to sharpen their clinical skills and perfect their translation of knowledge into exceptional patient care.

These experiences were critical to students not only passing their board exam, but to also moving forward into greater leadership responsibilities.

“When I look back on all that she had done for us,” Alford said, “it’s amazing.”

Despite the strength of the BSN program, a push to shutter the program emerged.

It was amidst this battle, however, that Wilson’s leadership skills shone through again. Not only was she vocal about preserving the program, but she also encouraged her students to be outspoken.

“One of my most vivid memories is marching with her to the Chancellor’s Office to protest the discussion about closing the BSN Program,” Koppel said. “It was toward

Dean Ruby Wilson

Remembering a Living Legend “Ruby Wilson encouraged me to pursue an MSN degree, and I’m so grateful that she did. I felt so supported within DUSON, and the faculty really shaped my career. I credit Ruby Wilson and Dorothy Powell (professor emerita) with instilling in me the desire to work with underserved populations.”

—Elizabeth Barfield, BSN ‘70

“All of the Duke nursing students knew that we needed to be ‘squared away’ with our uniforms and appearances as we walked past Dr. Wilson’s office on our way to clinical. Many times, someone was called in for a uniform ‘incident,’ and we wondered how she knew!

We also had the added burden of seeing Dr. Wilson look great ALL the time — not a hair out of place. Ruby had her hair done twice a week but more if there was an event. It turns out my mother and Dr. Wilson went to the same hair salon, so I never got away with anything. If Dr. Wilson had to speak to me for a uniform correction (that happened only once), my mother knew it that week!

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— Connie Bossons Bishop, BSN ‘75, DNP ’12, MBA, BC-NI

“Dean Ruby was this ‘force.’ She was very serious, stern, and walked with determination.

As a student, stories circulated of her strictness with students. I knew she expected much of us. I was one of those students who was terrified by Ruby. As a student, I stayed clear of her. Years later, I spoke with her at a DUSON function and introduced myself. She responded, ‘I don’t remember you.’ I told her that was my goal as a student. Mission accomplished.”

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—Kathy Viall Gallagher, BSN ‘75

“What fond memories I have of Ruby Wilson over the past 50-plus years! I first met Ruby in the 60s when she was my Recovery Room Nursing instructor.

Wow, was she ever a technically skilled, knowledgeable nurse and demanding instructor, yet kind and compassionate with patients! After graduating and working as a staff, head nurse, clinical instructor, and clinician in intensive respiratory care, I drew on lots Ruby had taught me. But, I really got to know her better as a DUSON alumni while she was Dean and I was on the Alumni Council, Endowment Committee and Loyalty Fund representing our nursing alumni. I will never forget a trip Ruby

and I took to D.C. for a DUSON alumni gathering. Since I had family in the area, I took my one-year-old daughter with whom Ruby totally engaged. In fact, she held her on her lap, entertaining her the entire flight! What an amazing leader, person, and friend!”

— Martha “Muff” Shawger Urbaniak, BSN ‘67

“When I think of Dr. Wilson, a smile comes to my face. My heart is full of gratitude and love for Dr. Wilson — the person, nurse, educator, Dean, friend, and confidante! Dr. Wilson is Duke Nursing! She expects the best for nursing at Duke. She has spent her entire career making Duke Nursing what it

I remember a comment shared by my parents from a welcome reception with Dean Wilson which came true for many.

It is reported she said words to this effect “All come to Duke with confidence in receiving all ‘A’s’ in high school. However, know that will not be the case at Duke, so be prepared for tearful calls home.” There was one payphone (yes, long before cell phones) in the lobby of Hanes House and occasionally, there were tearful calls. That said, Dean Wilson was always so supportive and encouraging to everyone! She is truly an inspiration to all!

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— Kathleen Turner, RN, MSN ’93, DNP ‘12, associate professor, Duke University School of Nursing

—Blair Collins, BSN, RN, CN II

—Carole Klove, BSN ‘80 39

is today through her dedication, knowledge, expertise, and open communication. In speaking with Dr. Wilson, one always knows where she stands. Her commitment to quality and seeking perfection is an inspiration to all. In Dr. Wilson’s eyes, there is always room for improvement.

Her honesty and best intentions are predominant in her comments, particularly for those who she expects the best, which is all! There was a time I was making an announcement at a DUSON event in the Duke Chapel, and I immediately received the Dr. Wilson assessment of my presentation. This included, ‘Kathy,’ (my friends and close colleagues know I can imitate Ruby saying my name to a ‘T’) ‘Do not turn your head when you present in the Chapel. No one can hear you when you do.’ If ever the opportunity to present in the Chapel comes again, I will certainly not turn my head away from the microphone.”

Most of my experience with Ruby was when I was fortunate enough to receive her scholarship award via Sigma Nursing.

When I received the award, Ruby made sure to be present at the ceremony, and afterwards we enjoyed lunch together. Ruby is an indomitable force, even in 2020, and I was impressed by her personality and passion for nursing. She was very much involved with the nursing school, staff and students staying current with the ongoings of the school and academia. I can see how she has made such an impact in the nursing profession after seeing her in person at the nursing school. I am so inspired and motivated by Ruby, after meeting her, I felt even more inspired to make a difference via nursing and I felt empowered to make my mark! Ruby is a true lifelong learner and world changer in action, and I felt so special that she took the time to meet with me and had an interest in my accomplishments and future career goals.

Class Notes

1950s Joan Brown Rhodes, BSN’57, MSN’60, vividly remembers

how she tracked on foot to the football field stadium from Hanes House Annex during her freshman year for swimming and was freezing walking back to her room. “It was like torture,” said Rhodes.

Her memories of Duke include “panty” raids, driving back and forth from Hanes House Annex on the West campus (the boys’ campus) to the East campus (the girls’ campus) where she had many classes in her first year of nursing school. Rhodes received one of the first Masters of Science in Nursing degrees in the nation from Duke, which helped advance her nursing career. She worked in different capacities during her 53 years in nursing, including staff nurse on several medical

and surgical units and head nurse and director of student services at the University of Colorado School of Nursing.

She raised three children with her husband of 49 years, Windy.

Rhodes said that she has a very blessed life and that attending the School of Nursing was instrumental in providing and preparing her for a profession that she is immensely proud of.

1960s Sandra Foster Goldsby, BSN’64 , said that her whole

adult life evolved as a result of going to the School of Nursing, both in terms of career and long friendships. Goldsby adds that mentioning that she is a Duke nurse opened opportunities for her at work.

She moved to Canada and worked there for over 30

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Sandra Foster senior year

Elaine Deppe

years, but she still remembers her classmates. “Time and distance have not altered our relationships. We were all so lucky to have had those four wonderful years together,” she said. Her memories from Duke include sunbathing on the roof of Hanes House Annex, meals at the Grad Center, getting in trouble with her friends Nancy B. and Peggy Mac, ironing starched caps on the side of the refrigerator, catching rides to East Campus, babysitting for extra money, the smell of tobacco on the way to class, and Duke football and basketball games.

Elaine Turner Deppe, BSN’66,

feels proud to be a DUSON alumna. Her classmates are still part of her support system 54 years after graduation. Deppe loved her psychiatry rotation at the hospital. From her time at Duke she remembers the library duty she had on Sunday after a Saturday night frat party, how she was placed on probation her sophomore year and showed

her parents and instructors that she could make the grade, studying in the School of Medicine library, watching and cheering the Duke basketball team, singing Handel’s “Messiah” in the Duke Chapel Choir and correctly identifying pulmonary edema in one of her patients.

Sandra (Sandi) Smith Averitt, BSN’67, said that her greatest

memory of Duke was the time she lived in Hanes House Annex during her freshman and senior years. “There was a sense of camaraderie and the foundation for lifelong friendships among our fellow class members,” she said. Averitt remembers many nights cramming for tests together with her classmates and supporting each other through the years. Her class had over 50 percent participation in their 50th reunion. Averitt said she has been blessed to serve on the alumni council for many years and become emerita. She continues to attend meetings with the dean on

Class Notes

1970s

Joy Reed, BSN’70, had fun

Betty Futrell Shepard, BSN’67, MSN’80, said her Duke

education has opened up so many wonderful opportunities for her and her family. Her friends, neighbors and peers always show their admiration for the fact that she is a Duke alumna and still feels so strongly about Duke. Shepard was awarded a Nursing School scholarship and was elected president of the Nurses’ Student Government Association.

She served on many college committees and also enjoyed sunbathing on the roof of Hanes House Annex. She remembers that as a student, she was called in to work a night shift due to icy road conditions which prevented nurses from coming to work.

Shepard and her brother J. William Futrell, MD’67, both graduated from Duke in 1967.

Carol Schutz Mullican, BSN’69,

is so proud of her education and the Duke Blue Devils.

She remembers her time as a freshman in Hanes House Annex where they had a phone in the hall and the wonderful fried chicken at the hospital on Sundays. Mullican was anxious about going to the VA Hospital to get her assigned patient the night before her clinical rotation. Her memories from Duke include starching her cap on the refrigerator, the detailed care plans she made, the emphasis on interpersonal communications while a freshman, her first C grade in her life in biology, the smell in the microbiology lab, the dope shop in the hospital, the beautiful springs in Duke Gardens, and drinking beer on the Eno River.

Joan Schweickart Rice, BSN’70, remembers studying

at Duke Gardens and going to concerts in the gardens. She met lifelong friends at Duke and was in several of their weddings. She remembers

Hanes House Annex with most of Duke’s nursing students is her best memory of Duke. “We all shared the love of learning about what it meant to become a nurse. We had lots of fun, but also supported and cared for one another,” said McManus.

She remembers her time at Duke as a unique and wonderful experience and especially how she and her classmates dragged themselves in the early mornings into the lecture hall, which was connected to their dorm, to listen to Pauline Gratz,

Left to Right: Jean Spurlock Watkins, Susie Cunningham Case, Joan Schweickart Rice.

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Zoom and appreciates all the programming and innovation that has occurred during the pandemic.

Elizabeth Watson McManus, BSN’76, said that living in

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Sandi Averitt is Forever Duke

living in Hanes House Annex with other nursing students.

She enjoyed hiking to the hospital in her uniform with the heavily starched apron and cap. Reed walked around the hospital to get to the West Campus and take the bus from there to the East Campus for her other classes. She was a part of a sorority, and she fondly remembers the pinning ceremony where she and her classmates got their Duke Nursing pins. “Because I came from a small rural area and was the first person from my high school to attend Duke, I have always been very proud to be a Dukie,” she says.

working the old-fashioned switchboard for the phones in Hanes House Annex. Rice never missed a Duke basketball home game and remembers how all the students could fit in the stadium. “I cherish my time as a student at Duke. It is one of the accomplishments I am most proud of in my life. I am honored to be counted among the graduates,” says Rice.

Class Notes

2010s

Melanie Mabrey, DNP’12, feels

proud to be part of Duke. She joined the staff of the North Carolina Board of Nursing as an education and advanced practice consultant.

Karla Steams Lambson, MSN’12, welcomed her second

child, Eliza Grace Lambson, on March 13. “The best way to start a pandemic,” said Lambson.

Martha Calkins, Margaret Smith Duda, Mary Napolitano, Eva Hodge Reynolds, and Nancy Koch Schmid.

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PhD, teaching about human ecology. “What a fabulous teacher,” she said. McManus is proud of calling herself a Duke nurse even though she has a master’s and post-master’s degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“Both schools have provided me an excellent education, but Duke came first. I learned the basics of professionalism at Duke,” she said. “Happy Birthday Duke SON!” Katie Oppenheim, BSN ’78, remembers her friend, Dottie Wilkinson, and the tea in her beautiful, antique-filled apartment. Oppenheim dunked her cap in a basin of betadine and posted the picture on the dean’s door. She enjoyed suntanning on the asphalt roof of Hanes House Annex, and as a Californian, she ate Southern food at Duke for the first time in her life. She volunteered at a free clinic in Durham, and she

is working to make it possible for all people to be able to attend DUSON. Eva Marie Hodge Reynolds, BSN’78, is proud of her Duke

degree. The friends she made at Duke are what make her memories so special. “Our Hanes House sisterhood was unmatched,” said Reynolds.

Nancy Koch Schmid, BSN’78,

and her friends were some of the last “Hanes Honeys.” She says they have been the best friends she had at Duke. They still keep in touch and get together to cheer on Duke at athletic events and to meet as personal friends. “I will never forget our ‘Anatomy of the Lower Extremities’ class, where a part of a shoulder was put into the visual exam of identifying body parts just to throw us off.

We all had a good laugh about that afterwards,” says Schmid.

She is very proud to be a Duke

nurse and said that she received a tremendous education and had a great time while doing it.

2000s

Diana Craven, MSN’00, remembers spending hours at the library, weekly visits with the dean about statistics, getting lost in the parking garage, and having someone drive her around until she found her car.

Kelly Cobb, MSN’04 , donated

a kidney at Duke to the father of one of her Cub Scouts on May 21, 2020. “It was one of the most profound and humbling events of my life, and I put it on par with bearing my children,” said Cobb. She encourages all to consider living kidney and/or liver donations to help save over 3,000 North Carolinians who wait for organ transplants.

Jennifer Prescott Jennifer Asbell Prescott, MSN’12, says that she had

an incredible opportunity to connect with nursing leaders across the nation in her program. Prescott feels that her time at DUSON inspired her to be an entrepreneur as she possessed the skills to lead teams and eventually she started her own company, Blue Water Homecare, in 2017.

2005 Duke University School of Nursing Distinguished Alumnus Award, as well as Distinguished Alumnus awards from her other alma maters: East Carolina University (MSN), and the University of South Carolina (PhD in Nursing Science). Dr. Walsh was instrumental in securing the funds needed to complete the Ruby L. Wilson Scholarship Fund and hopes to continue to support nursing students through the sale of her latest piece of art, “Duke Dreams.”

Natalie Klein, ABSN’16, loved her time as a student at Duke.

She fondly remembers the basketball games in Cameron, social events, study sessions with her nursing classmates, and the awe-inspiring faculty. ”DUSON holds some of the best memories for me. I am very proud of myself for accomplishing such a huge achievement,” said Klein.

women after that. It was such a treat for my family to experience our day-to-day life at school, and I was so thankful DUSON included them in our school experience,” she said.

Boehme is grateful for being a DUSON alumna. She said that she gains respect just from telling her friends where she went to school. Her professors continue to support her even after she finished school and started her career, and when

Chelsea Mixson Boehme, ABSN’16, said that one of her

favorite memories of DUSON is the school’s spirit. “It always made my day to see the mannequins dressed up for Duke games and the encouragement to be a part of the wider Duke community,” said Boehme. She fondly remembers the school’s family weekend. “I will never forget my Dad putting on the pregnancy vest. He had a whole new appreciation for pregnant

she reaches out to them for research ideas they are always quick to respond and eager to help. “I can’t imagine another school where you can find that,” she said.

Blair Collins, ABSN’19, has been promoted to clinical nurse II at Duke University Health System and works as a preceptor on her unit orientation committee.

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Sandra Mildred Walsh, BSN’60, PhD, RN, FAAN has retired after a rewarding career as a professor and nurse researcher. She was also a signature member of the Miami Watercolor Society and a member (violist) of the Alhambra Community Orchestra. Her research focus was on art-related interventions with vulnerable populations. She has been recognized for teaching excellence with multiple university-wide teaching awards and is a recipient of the

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Class Notes

Obituaries

In Memoriam The Duke University School of Nursing lost a dear friend and colleague when Libby Ladd passed away unexpectedly over the summer. Libby worked at Duke for 22 years, most recently Senior Program Coordinator in the Center for Nursing Research at DUSON. As her obituary noted, her greatest joy was being a mother and a grandmother.

As a co-worker, Libby ignited a sense of calm with the simple act of smiling when you said hello. For many, it is difficult to remain kind in challenging situations but not for Libby. Libby was the personification of grace under pressure.

Expressive and composed, we marveled at her everlasting respect for those with whom she worked. We will remember her smile, the twinkle in her bright blue eyes, and will remain forever grateful to have been guests in her life’s story.

1940s Mary Frances Gossett Lackey, BSN’45

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1950s Kathryn McCullough Montgomery, BSN’52 Mary Bovard Sensenbrenner, BSN’55, P’84, P’87, GP’17 Mary Anne Facemire McLellan, BSN’56 Shirley Davis Martin, BSN’58, MSN’60

1960s Judith Stephenson Schilling, BSN’62

Dr. Dorothy J. Brundage, PhD, RN, FAAN, interim dean

(1987 to 1991) and associate professor emerita, passed away in November 2020.

Dr. Brundage was a steadying force during some very unstable times in DUSON’s history, since at the time, the fate of the School was somewhat uncertain. A long-time and well-respected faculty member, she assumed the dean role and focused on maintaining stability and keeping DUSON operating normally keeping the master’s program students engaged and challenged while supporting the faculty members.

An expert clinician, her special areas of expertise were in both obstetrical and medical-surgical nursing. Within her specialty of renal nursing, she published several books and research papers and encouraged her students to explore and develop their scholarly work.

Dr. Brundage arrived at Duke as an instructor in 1968 and was quickly promoted to assistant professor in 1970 and later to associate professor in 1979. In 1981, she was inducted as a Fellow to the American Academy of Nursing. After the end of her role as interim dean, Dr. Brundage remained at DUSON as a faculty member and was actively engaged in implementing new programs and developing curricula for the new nurse practitioner programs.

She retired from DUSON in 1997 as associate professor emerita.

Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, she received her BSN in 1953 from Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University and her MSN in 1968 from Emory University in Atlanta. She earned her PhD in 1980 (an uncommon achievement at that time for nurses) from Walden University.

A lifelong learner, she went on to earn a Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies in 1995 and her Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Duke University in 1997.

Dr. Brundage’s commitment to DUSON and to Duke will leave a lasting and immeasurable imprint on us all.

90 Years of Excellence in Leadership Duke University School of Nursing

Marion E. Broome, PhD, RN, FAAN Dean and Ruby Wilson Professor of Nursing, School of Nursing; vice chancellor for Nursing Affairs, Duke University; associate vice president for Academic Affairs for Nursing, Duke University Health System 2014–Present

Bessie Baker, BS, RN Dean 1931–1938

Margaret I. Pinkerton, MA, BS, RN Dean and Director of Nursing Service 1939–1946

Florence K. Wilson, MA, RN Dean and Director of Nursing Service 1946–1954

Ann M. Jacobansky, EdM, RN Dean 1955–1967 Interim Dean 1970–1971

Myrtle Irene Brown, PhD, RN, FAAN Dean and Director of Patient Care 1967–1970

Ruby L. Wilson, EdD’69, RN, FAAN Dean 1971–1984

Rachel Booth, PhD, RN Dean and Assistant Vice President for Health Affairs 1984–1987

Dorothy Brundage, PhD, RN, FAAN Interim Dean 1987–1991

Mary T. Champagne, PhD, RN, FAAN Dean 1991–2004

Catherine L. Gilliss, BSN’70, PhD, RN, FAAN Dean and Vice Chancellor for Nursing Affairs 2004–2014

Duke Nursing Magazine DUMC 3322 307 Trent Drive Durham, NC 27710

58th Annual Harriet Cook Carter Lecture Tuesday, February 2, 2021 at 3:00 p.m.

Susan Hassmiller, RN, PhD, FAAN Senior Adviser for Nursing, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

“The Future of Nursing: A Look Back and a Look Ahead�

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the dedication and compassion of nurses as well as laid bare the health inequities that plague our nation. Having spent the past decade strengthening nursing education, advancing practice, and promoting leadership, Dr. Hassmiller will describe how nurses are perfectly positioned to advance health equity, the most salient issue of our time.

Register at nursing.duke.edu/hcc