will be honored at convocation
The Center for Excellence in Chronic Illness Care at the School of Nursing will honor the founders of the American hospice movement at its annual convocation on Tuesday, Feb. 15, at 4 p.m.
The keynote speaker will be Cindy Hylton Rushton, an assistant professor of nursing at The Johns Hopkins University and a clinical nurse specialist in ethics at The Johns Hopkins Children's Center. In her talk, "Being With Patients on Their Final Journey," Rushton will explore the difference between simply tending to the needs of patients and offering true care during the dying process.
Following the address, the School of Nursing's Excellence in Caring in Chronic Illness Award will be awarded to Florence Wald, a former dean and alumnus of the nursing school who is now clinical professor of nursing there, and to her husband, Henry Wald.
Florence Wald, who graduated from the School of Nursing in 1941, joined the faculty there in 1957. Two years later, she was appointed the school's dean, a position she held for nine years. Then, she and her husband left their careers to focus instead on establishing hospice in the United States.
Yale's former dean was dismayed at what she saw as painful and futile treatments that dying people in American hospitals had to endure and at the lack of information they received about their own conditions. She traveled to England to work as a nurse at St. Christopher's Hospice with founder Cicely Saunders and to study the business and administrative aspects of a hospice. Henry Wald gave up his engineering firm to get a master's degree in health facility planning. His graduate work included a feasibility study for an American hospice.
In 1974, their groundwork led to the first hospice program in the United States, which provided home care in New Haven. Eventually, an inpatient facility was opened in Branford to provide symptom and pain management and family support.
Florence Wald is currently active in establishing hospice care in prisons.
"It's no exaggeration to say that the Walds changed the way we experience death," says Ruth McCorkle, director of the Center for Excellence in Chronic Care. "They were pioneers in the fight for the dignity of terminal patients."
McCorkle, a noted cancer researcher, founded the Center for Excellence in Chronic Care to advance research on supportive care for patients and families facing cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and HIV/AIDS.
To make a reservation to attend the convocation, call (203) 737-5501.
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