r. Ada Fort, dean emerita of the School of Nursing, died April 28, 1998, of heart failure. She was 83. During her 25-year tenure as dean, Fort oversaw many changes in Emory's nursing program and left indelible marks in nursing practice, education, and administration at the state and national levels. She spoke often about nursing's parallel importance to medicine, a then-novel concept that has gained favor in today's managed care environment, where nurse practitioners are playing an essential role in maintaining patient health. "Ada taught me years ago about preventive/defensive medicine versus merely treating or curing," Fort's friend and colleague Jim Liang wrote in a letter to the school after her death. Liang, a hospital administrator who helped develop mainland China's first world-class hospital, in Guangdong, says the emphasis on prevention of disease made sense to him morally, but that there were financial benefits as well. "Before we incorporated Dr. Fort's ideas, the hospital had many empty beds," he says, "because only the very sickest would come there to seek help. Now we treat babies and mothers and businessmen and many others, and keep them well while keeping our hospital staff busy." Helping to further elevate nursing's stature, Fort oversaw creation of the Southeast's first master of nursing program at Emory (which in turn laid the groundwork for Emory's recently approved nursing doctoral program). Emory's first African-American students enrolled as master of nursing candidates under Fort in 1963. "I was always impressed with her creative, innovative ideas and her drive to take good and make better, to take better and make the best," says Virginia Proctor, the nursing school's director of student affairs under Fort. "Her drive was to move Emory into a place of prominence." This drive toward excellence brought Fort many honors. She was named Atlanta's "Woman of the Year in Professions" and, just before her death, was honored as a "Woman Pioneer in Health Care" by the Georgia Commission on Women. She served for many years as one of five deans leading the American Association of Colleges of Nursing and held many other offices in professional and educational associations. Fort was born in 1914 in Dallas County, Ala., and earned a bachelor of science degree from George Peabody College for Teachers in Nashville. She received both her master's and doctoral degrees from Teacher's College of Columbia University and came to Emory in 1946 as an instructor. She was named associate dean in 1947 and dean in 1950. The current nursing school building was constructed during her tenure, and the decision made to name it in honor of Nell Hodgson Woodruff. Fort also oversaw the development of the school's first research program and established the International Nursing Services Association in 1972, which later became Global Health Action. Proctor clearly remembers the faculty meeting at which Fort announced her intention to create Global Health Action, now located near campus on Clifton Road. "She said, 'We have the best health care of any place in the world, and this places upon us the responsibility of elevating health care in the rest of the world,' " Proctor recalls. Since 1972 Global Health Action has trained more than 5,000 health care professionals from more than 70 developing countries who, after a basic course of study, prepare action plans for treating specific health problems at home. The Emory Community Nursing Service was also launched during her tenure. According to Interim Dean Margaret Parsons, this service was designed to allow faculty to engage in practice in the community while meeting needs for health promotion and disease prevention outside the traditional boundaries of the medical system. After retirement Fort continued her active involvement in disease prevention, co-founding with nurse and friend Dr. Kathy Scott a wellness center at Williamsburg Apartments near Emory. (The Williamsburg facility - which is operated and staffed by the School of Nursing - serves today as a clinical education site for the school.) "Ada never quit," Scott told the Atlanta Journal/Constitution. "She was forever the teacher." - Stacey Jones

Nursing pioneer Ada Fort in 1952, her third year as dean of the School of Nursing. Today, nurses in China promote preventive health care, thanks in part to Ada Fort's far-reaching influence as a global nursing leader.