Month: March 2018

Elizabeth Berrey (1945 – )

/ Peggy L Chinn / 1 Comment

Inspiration for Activism!  

  • Active in nursing organizations throughout Baccalaureate program (Baylor University) and master’s program (University of Maryland), including serving as president of Texas Nursing Students Association.
  • Featured speaker at nursing conferences and conventions on the importance of nurses as agents for change and advocates for better healthcare.
  • First nurse appointed to the MetroHealth Hospital Board of Trustees (1985-1990).
  • First private practice in nursing in Ohio (1980-1986).
  • Appointed to the Ohio Board of Nursing (1987-1992) advocating for nursing autonomy and control of our own practice.
  • Only nurse to serve on the Governor’s Commission on Ohio Health Care Costs.
  • Advocate for LGBTQIA health, and reducing healthcare disparities based on ethnicity, gender, and sexuality.
  • New Mexico Nursing Education Consortium Leadership Team & founding member.
  • Interviewer for the Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project, preserving stories in the Smith College Archives of lesbians over 70 from all walks of life.
  • Coordinator of the New Mexico OLOC chapter (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change); sponsor forums for women candidates from all political affiliations.
  • Voter Registrar in New Mexico.
  • The Resistance since Nov. 2016.
  • Actively working on the Michelle Luhan Grisham campaign for Governor and the Deb Haaland campaign for US Congress.

Read text of Elizabeth’s speeches!

National Nurses Week 2007

1994 Center for Families & Children

Robin Lim (1956 – )

/ Adeline Falk-Rafael / Leave a comment

Inspiration for Activism! 

  • American citizen with strong ties to Philippines.
  • Also known as Mother or Ibu Robin.
  • Maternal health activist.
  • Became a midwife after several personal/family tragedies.
  • Initially volunteered services in Bali to help local low-income women birth babies.
  • In 2003, founded Yayasan Bumi Sehat clinics (Healthy Mother Earth Foundation) – clinics have helped deliver >5000 babies.
  • Strong parental rights advocate.
  • Awarded 2011 CNN Hero of the Year Award.
  • Author of a number of books on maternal/infant health.

For more information, see here and here

Rhetaugh Graves Dumas (1926 – 2007)

/ Peggy L Chinn / 2 Comments

Inspiration for Activism

  • Esteemed nursing “leader with vision, insight, and wise counsel who had a major impact in the advancement of nursing, health care, and academic programs“
  • inspired to become a nurse because of her mother, who wanted to be a nurse but could not because of her race
  • Strong advocate for Black women and Black nurses, urging baccalaureate education for all
  • First nurse to conduct clinical experiments that evaluated nursing practices
  • First African-American woman to be named as a Dean of Nursing, University of Michigan (1981). Subsequently appointed as Vice-Provost of the University, serving until her retirement.
  • First woman and first nurse to serve as deputy director of the National Institute of Mental Health 1979-1981
  • As President of the American Academy of Nursing (1987-89), led the establishment of Expert Panels to develop strong policy statements based on nursing expertise

More information here and here

Rhetaugh Dumas with Peggy Chinn, 2005

Nurses for Social Responsibility (1985-1995)

/ Adeline Falk-Rafael / Leave a comment

Inspiration for Activism

  • A group of nurses, mostly from Toronto, ON who organized to become a distinct and unified nursing voice to speak out on social issues that

    Nurses for Social Responsibility

    influenced health

  • Lobbied professional nursing organizations to take action on a range of issues, such as multilateral nuclear disarmament and child poverty
  • Formed coalitions with like-minded non-nursing activist organizations advocating for women’s health, gender equality, peace
  • Demonstrated support for controversial issues, e.g. abortion rights, needle-exchange programs
  • Engaged in civil disobedience to shut down, temporarily at least, an “arms fair” protest the selling of arms to brutal dictatorships
  • Took positions opposed to violence against women, economic globalization, racism
  • Exposed nursing workplace issues, such as nursing cutbacks, preferential treatment of physicians over nurses, and racism
  • Published a newsletter initially, then later a magazine sold in news outlets across the country – “Towards Justice in Health”

Free download through April, 2018 – article providing a critical review of  “Towards Justice in Health” magazine – Falk-Rafael, A. R., & Bradley, P. A. (2014). “Towards justice in health”: an exemplar of speaking truth to power. ANS. Advances in Nursing Science, 37(3), 224–234. https://doi.org/10.1097/ANS.0000000000000034

Marion Cronin, 1920 –

/ Peggy L Chinn / 2 Comments

Inspiration for Activism

  • The heart of the documentary “Playing on Our Sentiments” the story of the Hale Nurses Union organized in 1954 in Massachusetts.

    Marion Cronin

  • Graduated from Lawrence Memorial Hospital School of Nursing in 1941
  • Began her career as a nurse at the Contagious Hospital, next door to the Hale
  • Active in the Massachusetts Nurses Association by 1950
  • Worked for a law that gave nurses the right to collective bargaining, and once that law passed, worked with other nurses at the Hale to form an MNA bargaining unit then elected to be their leader (chairperson).
  • At 98, continues to support the struggles of nurses everywhere for good contracts.

More information