Welcome to this episode of Nursing EDge Unscripted Saga where we journey through the history of nursing education using stories that connect the past to the present and then our future as we reimagine our teaching and learning. During the first year of Saga, we celebrated extraordinary women who made significant contributions to reimagine the nursing profession in nursing education. They recognized a need, challenged traditional customs, and influenced transformative change.
Their stories are extraordinary and we hope that you found them inspiring. And so, in the same spirit, we now share with you Dr. Loretta Ford's story: a trailblazer and innovator who recognized that rural communities had limited access to health services and identified that with advanced education nurses could fill that need. She challenged the status quo and developed the nurse practitioner role and in the process transformed advanced practice nursing in the United States.
Loretta Ford was born December 28, 1920 in New York City. When she was young she wanted to be a teacher but her family's financial situation led her to choose a less costly educational path. After working as a nursing assistant she saw the value of nursing and entered the nursing program at Middlesex General Hospital in New Jersey. She
received her diploma in nursing in 1941. Following graduation, she entered the Army Air Force during World War II, serving at base camps in the U.S. Through the GI bill, she completed a bachelor of science in nursing from the University of Colorado in 1949 and a master of public health nursing in supervision in 1951. Ten years later, she received her doctorate in education also from the University of Colorado.
When Loretta was working as a public health nurse in rural Colorado during the late 1940s and 50s, a shortage of doctors often left children and families without adequate care. She recognized that nurses could provide more comprehensive care if their scope of practice was extended, especially in communities with limited physicians.
She conceptualized a solution to fill the gap by proposing a "super nurse" with advanced training who could perform many of the routine medical and diagnostic tasks typically provided by a doctor. In 1965, together with a physician colleague Dr. Henry K. Silver, a pediatrician who also saw a growing need for independent clinical practitioners, Dr. Ford started the country's first pediatric nurse practitioner program at the
University of Colorado Medical Center. The program combined clinical care and research to teach nurses how to factor in the social, psychological, environmental, and economic situations of patients when developing care plans. In a move toward what they termed "role expansion," doctors silver and ford sought to increase the primary care workforce and eventually integrate the content into nursing master's
programs. They persisted in their goal despite a professional landscape that was not always welcoming to the advanced expertise of nurses and when some members of the nursing profession balked at a practice too aligned with medicine. By the 70s, nurse practitioner programs had become a national success with approximately 15,000 nurse practitioners across the U.S. by 1979.
During this time of exceptional growth, Dr. Ford was recruited to serve as the founding dean of the University of Rochester School of Nursing. At the university, Dr. Ford developed and implemented the unification model of nursing. Through this model, clinical practice, education, and research were combined to provide nurses with
a more holistic education. This tripartite nursing role to influence nursing practice and conduct scholarship and education slash teaching is accepted today as a comprehensive
portrayal of advanced nursing practice. Dr. Ford, dean emeritus at the University of Rochester, authored more than a hundred publications and is the recipient of numerous awards including the 1990 Gustav O. Lienhard Award from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies and the Living Legend Award from the American Academy of Nursing in 1999 and the U.S Surgeon General's Medallion for Contributions to the Nation's Health in 2020, the highest honor granted to a
civilian by the public health service and the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. That same year she celebrated her 100th birthday. Dr. Loretta Ford transformed the profession of nursing and made primary health care more accessible to millions of individuals across the U.S. Today, there are more than 325,000 nurse practitioners licensed across the country graduating from over 400 academic institutions. In 2007 she was quoted as saying:
This is Dr. Loretta Ford's legacy. She challenged traditional nursing roles at a time when nurse practitioner roles met with resistance from both physicians and nurses and despite the challenges co-created a new role for nurses as well as advanced nursing practice and nursing education. And so the saga continues and may our saga continue as we bring to a close this episode of Nursing EDge Unscripted Saga. Thank you for joining us