Elizabeth G. O'Donnell and classmates graduating Blockley Nursing School (later Philadelphia General Hospital), June 1907
Dr. Claire Fagin, former Dean of the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and and one of the first women to lead an Ivy League university, has joined a legacy of accomplished, trailblazing women in nursing who are buried at The Woodlands.
Read MoreOn May 20th, 2019, someone very special to The Woodlands is receiving an Honorary Degree from the University of Pennsylvania!
Dr. Neville Strumpf, one of our board members, will be attending the University of Pennsylvania’s 263rd Commencement ceremony in order to receive her Honorary Degree, which is awarded to only those that represent the highest ideals of the Ivy League school, so I guess you could say this is a pretty big deal. Other people being honored on this day are animal scientist Temple Grandin and singer-songwriter Jon Bon Jovi.
Neville has contributed immensely to the nursing community. After receiving her Bachelor’s from the State University of New York and her master’s at Russell Sage University, Neville decided that she wanted to continue her education even more by receiving her PhD at New York University in 1982.
After her academic success, Neville dedicated her time to researching geriatric nursing, or nursing for elderly patients, trying to implement more ethical treatments into her field. Dozens of her publications ultimately led to more effective, ethical methods to care for geriatric patients.
Neville didn’t stop at the research, though! In the 1980s, Neville helped found several geriatric nursing programs at the University of Pennsylvania to improve the care of older adults. She made an appearance on C-SPAN (1:22:00) representing the National League of Nursing at a Senate Finance Subcommittee on Health meeting to discuss the nursing shortage in 1987. She used her experience to highlight the lack of nurses who were trained to care for the elderly at this time. Her work was crucial to the expansion of Geriatric Nursing in this country.
From 2000-2001, Neville became Interim Dean of the Penn Nursing program. During her time as the Dean, she put her staff and students first to ensure they had the right resources and funding to support research projects and help programs reach their goals. Neville’s service to the nursing field has expanded the way people think about geriatric nursing to aid patients with the best care possible. Read about her work in her book, Restraint-Free Care online.
Neville’s late life partner, Karen Buhler-Wilkerson, worked alongside her in improving the education and research at Penn Nursing. Karen worked as a professor of community health at Penn and also served on the board of The Woodlands. Karen passed away in 2010 and we are honoring her memory as we celebrate Neville’s accomplishments that she supported throughout her life. The Nursing Center remembers Karen’s notable accomplishments, and how she "...helped found Penn Nursing's Living Independently For Elders (LIFE) program, which provides ongoing daily care for 500 poor and frail residents of West Philadelphia." She is buried at The Woodlands and her legacy can be felt at The Woodlands and in the greater Philadelphia community.
Through her work, Neville has exhibited a true dedication to geriatric nursing and patients globally, and has shown that same dedication in other parts of her life. As if all the work she has done wasn’t enough, she is the president of the board at the Ralston Center, a non-profit that focuses on assisting people 55 and older with services to equip them for independent living in their homes and communities. Her work at the Ralston Center revolves around spreading her knowledge of gerontology to others as a respectful leader. Neville truly believes in running a non-profit like a family, utilizing her past experiences to help others become leadership ready. She is also on the advisory board of Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, and, of course, one of our very own board members here at the Woodlands.
Neville has shown an outstanding amount of work and service not only in her field, but in her community. Her honorary degree is extremely well-deserved and we thank Neville for all she has done for The Woodlands. Shout out and HUGE congrats to you, Neville! You rock!
Written by: Alyssa Geniza
This month, Trailblazers profiles the work of two incredible females in medicine: Alice Fisher and Jean C. Whelan, PhD, RN. Alice Fisher now resides in Lot 360 of Section N of The Woodlands. Jean Whelan, her contemporary counterpart, works only a few blocks away at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.
Alice Fisher (1839–1888).
Alice Fisher was a nurse who was born in England and moved to Philadelphia in 1884 to found the School of Nursing at the Blockley Almshouse and Hospital. As a young woman she studied at the Nightingale Training School at St. Thomas Hospital in England and then served in several British hospitals before her move to the United States. Once in Philadelphia she undertook the reform of Blockley Almshouse, which later became Philadelphia General Hospital [PGH], and is now part of the University of Pennsylvania medical campus. Blockley was the first institution built on land sold from the Hamilton estate, and Fisher established a School of Nursing there to combat the unhealthy, disorderly conditions of the hospital. In the four short years that Fisher worked at Blockley, she transformed the hospital and established a new generation of nurses to care for Philadelphia's citizens. Fisher's legacy continues through the School of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1991 Penn's Center for the Study of the History of Nursing installed a memorial to Fisher on her grave.
We asked Jean to tell us more about her work and how Fisher's pioneering work in the field of nursing has influenced her career.
Jean C. Whelan, PhD, RN
What is your current position?
I am currently the Assistant Director of the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing and an Adjunct Associate Professor of Nursing at the University Of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.
How did you get to where you are today?
I have been a nurse for 44 years. Most of clinical experience was as a staff nurse, Assistant Head Nurse and later as a clinical supervisory nurse at a large municipal hospital in New York City. I also worked as a public health nurse and as a visiting nurse for a time. I moved to Philadelphia in 1976 where I began working in nursing education at several schools of nursing in the area. This provided me with an opportunity to blend my clinical experience with education in preparing future nurses, an activity I loved. Throughout this period, I also continued my own education, earning a masters’ degree and later a PhD in nursing history. Today I work in a position at the Bates Center which combines my research in and knowledge of nursing history with administrative skills. As part of my job, I run programs sponsored by the Bates Center which bring nursing history to both scholarly and public audiences.
How has the work of Alice Fisher influenced you in your profession?
In one sense I feel a kinship with Fisher and with her work in a tax-supported municipal institution. When I was a student, my clinical experiences were at Bellevue Hospital in New York, an institution very similar to PGH. After graduation I spent several years working in another municipal hospital. I like to think that the time I spent delivering care to a population of mainly medical indigent patients and the way it shaped my approach to nursing has similarities to Fisher’s commitment to health care.
Further, my main area of research focuses on the historical underpinnings of nurses work, in which I look at how the conventions of nurses’ work were established, what types of work activities early nurses did and how we have supplied nurses to the sick public over time. Alice Fisher was an early pioneer in establishing the nursing profession in the US. When I think of Fisher’s impact on the profession I am very impressed with how she came from England, created a school of nursing with very limited resources and influenced the trajectory of nursing education in a remarkable short period of time. One of the significant lessons that can be extracted from looking at Fisher’s life and work is that you can make a tremendous impact on society if you are smart, focused and persistent. She was also quite charismatic and very savoy in figuring out who could be of great help to her as she set up the PGH School and nursing service. I would be very happy if I could figure out how to channel her charisma and savviness!
What is your favorite part of Fisher’s work or legacy?
Fisher came to this country to work in a tax supported institution, PGH, which provided services to the poorest of society. In the 19th century the patients of PGH, who were often referred to as “inmates” did not garner tremendous sympathy and care from those better off. Yet, Fisher revolutionized the care provided to those patients and at the same time effectively created a school and nursing service of high professional standards. That she was able to combine care of the poorest members in society with advancing the education of nurses is commendable.
If you could ask her one question today, what would it be?
How did you ever accomplish so much in such a short period of time and earn a reputation for being such a wonderful, pleasant, caring person?
You can rediscover the biographies of our permanent residents everyday. Visit The Woodlands anytime of the year--the gates are open from dawn 'til dusk!
