Gabby Paniagua Stolz AAHN 2019
SHINING STAR: DNP student and Jonas Scholar Gabby Paniagua-Stolz presented on the history of Chilean nurse Sofia Pincheira, and the Rockefellers, 1940-53.

Dozens of nursing historians gathered for the 36th annual American Association for the History of Nursing conference Sept 19-22,  2019, in Dallas, TX, including a healthy roster of UVA School of Nursing faculty and students who were a large and integral part of the important and lively discussions and topics bandied about.

Professor Barbara Mann Wall, director of UVA Nursing's Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry, offered a powerful keynote address with a modern reinterpretation of her earlier analysis of a race riot in Tulsa, OK, in 1921, aiming to tell a "more inclusive narrative," she explained, "to help us think about how black self-empowerment and activism can be an important part of history ... and how the past is still part of the present."

In addition to Wall, clinical faculty member and PhD in nursing graduate Beth Hundt (PhD `18) presented her paper on Dorothea Dix: "'These were the women who went to the war’: Dorothea Dix and Her Army Nurses following the U.S. Civil War,” along with professor emerita and former AAHN president Mary Gibson's presentation on the history of children with disabilities: “The Shifting Meaning of the Crippled Child: The 1930s and the Social Security Act.”

Alumnae Rebecca Coffin, Charemon Brooks, and Tori Tucker (whose 2017 interview with UVA's first African-American nursing student Mavis Claytor drew standing-room-only crowds and made headlines), currently a PhD student, along with assistant professor Sarah Craig led a pre-conference workshop titled "'The Road Less Traveled': Strategies for Uncovering Nursing History." DNP student and Jonas Scholar Gabriela Paniagua-Stolz presented her poster “Sofia Pincheira, Chilean Nursing, and the Rockefellers: 1940-1953."

Craig and alumna Bethany Cieslowski presented their paper on the history of nursing simulation, “Where Role Play Meets Reality: The History of Simulation and Debriefing in Nurse Training."

Student Kerry Ross presented, “Midwives Divided: The Relationship Between Lay Midwives and Nurse Midwives in the U.S. from 1900-1950s,” while fellow PhD student Ren Capucao presented his work, “American Dreaming: A History of Filipino Nurses in Seattle, 1900-1950.” Ren, a PhD student and Virginia Humanities recipient, also received the award for the best abstract by a student.

Presiding over it all was Arlene Keeling, AAHN president and professor emerita at UVA, and spotted among the attendees was AAN Living Legend Barbara Brodie, Bjoring Center Founder, and the Bjoring's Center's beloved benefactor and namesake, nurse Eleanor Crowder Bjoring herself.

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