Loretta Ford, “Mother” nurses, dies at 104

Loretta Ford, who was a co -founder of the first academic program for nurses in 1965, and then spent decades, transforming the field of nursing into the area of ​​earnest clinical practice, education and research, died on January 22 in his home in Wildwood, Fla. She was 104 years ancient.

Her daughter, Valerie Monrad, confirmed death.

There are currently over 350,000 nurse practitioners in America; This is one of the fastest growing fields, and in the last year American news and the World report it arranged it The best job in the countryReflecting the potential of remuneration, job satisfaction and career possibilities.

This success is largely the result of one person, Dr. Ford, who in 1965 was a co -founder of the first program for nurses at the University of Colorado, and then mapped the outlines of what entails the field.

At that time, nurses were critical numbers in the field of medicine, providing not only administrative support, but also the necessary services, where and when doctors were inaccessible. But the training and career frames for nurses were almost completely absent.

“During the training of nurses, teaching and administration were focused,” said Dr. Ford in a speech at the University of Duke in 1970. “We want to make a nurse in a clinicist.”

She went further in 1972, when she was employed as the first dean of School of Nursing at the University of Rochester. There she implemented a model of nursing “Union”, in which education, practice and research are fully integrated.

“This gives a professional opportunity to study in research and ask the researchers of a nurse who conduct this job during the education of future labor,” said Stephen A. Ferrara, president of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, in an interview.

The works of Dr. Ford in the 70s often faced the resistance from doctors who mocked the idea of ​​nurses to exploit influence in the field of medicine and perhaps threatening her domination.

“In fact, we got lists of hate,” said Eileen Sullivan-Marks in an interview, who studied with dr. Ford in Rochester I is currently Dean Emerita School of Nursing at Modern York University.

But Dr. Ford and others climbed, establishing license protocols at the state level, standardizing curricula and adaptation of insurance programs to enable nurses to play a significant and often independent role in the healthcare system.

She emphasized that the nurses were not there to replace doctors, but to complement them-to do work on the first line in hospitals, but also in the community, focusing on health and prevention at the bottom-up level.

“It was obvious to me,” she told Fit Women’s magazine in 2022 – that we needed advanced skills and an extended knowledge base to make decisions. Because it happens in the hospital. Who does he think about decisions about 3 in the morning? “

Loretta Cecelia Pfingstel was born on December 28, 1920 in Bronx and grew up in Passaic, her father Joseph was a lithograph, and her mother, Nellie (Williams) Pfingstel, supervised the house.

As a child, Loretta hoped that she became a teacher, but the beginning of the great crisis hit the finances of her family and was forced to find a job at the age of 16. She became a nurse, and in 1941 she won a nursing diploma from Middlesex General Hospital in Modern Jersey.

Her fiancé was killed in the fight in 1942, inspiring her to join the American Army Air Force, intending to become a nurse. But her destitute eyesight disqualified her since flying, and at the end of the war she had a headquarters in the hospital in Denver.

In 1949, she received a bachelor’s degree in the field of nursing at the University of Colorado, and the Master of Public Health in 1951.

At the beginning of her career, she specialized in pediatric public health, while teaching in the nursing program at the University of Colorado; In 1955 she was an assistant to the professor, and in 1961 she obtained a doctorate in education from school.

She married William J. Ford in 1947. He died in 2014. Their daughter is her only surviving.

Dr. Ford’s work took her to the rural parts of Colorado, where the doctors were few, there were many destitute families, and the need for basic preventive care was acute. She found herself in many roles entitled “Nurse”-was part of a public health officer, partial advisor, partly a versatile clinicist.

At the same time, the administrations of Kennedy and Johnson brought a up-to-date sense of diligence in matters of rural public health and supporting innovation in all medical fields.

Working with Henry Silver, a pediatrician in Colorado, Dr. Ford created a program for nurses, although he was initially in the form of continuous education, without a degree. But the nucleus of her vision was already: that nurses should be sufficiently trained to make independent decisions, possess their own practices and participate in health care within the team.

“Complete independence for every health practitioner is a myth,” she said in Duke. “It can be a destitute practice.”

Before she retired with Rochester in 1986, there were thousands of licensed nurses, and many doctors received them as colleagues, not supporting players.

Dr. Ford continued writing and lectures, and in 2011 it was introduced to the American Gallery of Sław for Women.

“I get a lot of appreciation for 140,000 nurses and I don’t deserve it,” she said in her acceptance speech. “They fought in a good fight. They took heat, got up and did it beautifully. “