Dean
Marla Salmon
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A
Global Passion to Care
This has truly been
a remarkable year for the School of Nursing. We have all begun to feel
at home in our wonderful new building. And we have expanded our global
efforts to improve health care delivery through the new Lillian Carter
Center for International Nursing.
Nursing has many faces around the world. I cant help but think of
nurses in war zones who work months and even years with little or no pay.
They are the fragile threads that hold damaged communities and health
systems together. Many skilled nurses work with immigrant populations
in the United States, making sure their families receive care. I also
admire the nurses and community health workers around the world who put
themselves at risk every day to care for patients with AIDS and other
terrible diseases. These caregivers have no access to the protections
that we take for grantedgloves, disinfectants, sterilized instruments,
controlled work environmentsand their ranks are being decimated
by the same illnesses that afflict their patients. Then there are the
nurses who cross rigid political and social lines to care for the unfortunatethose
whom society rejects and who are denied the chance for a better life.
These nurses provide hope where there is so little.
No one embodies these qualities more than Lillian Carter, who touched
many lives as a community nurse in Georgia and as a Peace Corps volunteer
in India. It is my hope that the center named in her honor will enable
students, faculty, and nurses everywhere to assure that people in need
have access to health care. This fall, we are bringing hundreds of nurse
leaders together for our first global partnerships conference, part of
which will be held at The Carter Center. As they leave for home, they
will carry with them better skills and methods for building partnerships
that enhance their ability to provide health care and improve lives.
When Miss Lillian joined the Peace Corps in the late 1960s, she found
the health and social conditions in India quite challenging, but the people
there captured her heart. I didnt dream that in this remote
corner of the world, so far away from the people and material things that
I had always considered so necessary, I would discover what life is really
all about, Miss Lillian wrote to her family on her 70th birthday.
Sharing yourself with others, and accepting their love for you,
is the most precious gift of all.
Marla Salmon, ScD,
RN, FAAN
Dean, Nell Hodgson
Woodruff School of Nursing
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