Barbara L. Brush & Antonia M. Villarruel
Barbara Bates Center, University of Pennsylvania
Time: 12:00pm
Location: Room 2019, Floor 2U, Claire Fagin Hall
Abstract: Analyzing personal and professional records, interviews with colleagues and acquaintances, and personal reflections and correspondences, this seminar highlights the contributions of Dr. Ildaura Murillo-Rohde - a prominent Hispanic nurse leader and founder of the National Association of Hispanic Nurses (NAHN) – to nursing education, practice, and advocacy. This analysis is particularly timely given the IOM report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, and its emphasis on the critical role of nurse leaders as "thoughtful strategists" in the nation's efforts to improve health care. But while leadership in nursing is broadly advocated and needed, models of leadership for minority nurses have been generally absent. Those that do exist focus primarily on African American leaders; analyses of Hispanic leaders are nonexistent. Examining the pathway of one of nursing's most prominent Hispanic leaders in the twentieth century thus provides the foundation for remedying this gap. Over her 90 years, Murillo-Rohde was a nurse educator and author, therapist, and activist. A sole Hispanic nurse academic researching Hispanic health issues and related health policies in the 1970s, Murillo-Rohde organized the NAHN (initially called the Spanish Speaking/Spanish Surnamed Nurses' Caucus) to provide a forum for Hispanic nurses to organize and work together toward common interests, serving as its first president from 1977 to 1980. Remaining an active participant in nursing and NAHN over her lifetime, Murillo-Rohde influenced many around her as well as future generations of leaders in the nursing community. Still, despite her widespread national and international influence in psychiatric nursing, cultural diversity, and nursing care to vulnerable populations, little is known about Dr. Murillo-Rohde's legacy to nursing and its implications for practice, education, and leadership today.