Luther Christman Essay

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Nursing Leader: Luther Christman
Michael Shannon

Nursing Leader: Luther Christman Luther Christman was a role model for the nursing community. He fought for equal rights between male and female nurses, after he had been discriminated against. At Vanderbilt, he became the first male dean of nursing. Later he left Vanderbilt and took a vice-president position at Rush College where he developed the “Rush Model of Nursing.” He helped form the National Male Nurses Association. Later, Luther was induced into the American Nurses Association’s Hall of Fame. The American Nurses Association named the award for helping men in nursing the Luther Christman Award. Luther Christman recently died on June 7th, 2011 of pneumonia. Luther Christman was born in 1915. Luther went into nursing out of financial hardship, during the Great Depression, he was not able to afford college. When the United States got involved in World War II (WWII), Luther Christman tried to enlist in the Army as a nurse. “The refusal was based on a 1901 law that had established the Army Nurse Corps. The law specifically stated that army nurses were women.” (Pittman, 2006, p. 13) After this rejection, Luther Christman decided to advance his degree. “Christman went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in nursing science and a master’s in clinical psychology from Temple University. In 1965, he completed a doctorate in sociology and anthropology from Michigan State University.”(Sullivan, 2002, p. 2) With his doctorate, Luther was able to enter the educational realm. Luther took the dean of nursing position at Vanderbilt, making him the first male dean of nursing. “In 1972, Christman became the first dean of the Rush University College of Nursing and vice president for nursing affairs at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center.” (Wheaton, June 9, 2011, para. 2) It was at
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