Medical Pioneer. She introduced the concept of hospice care to the United States. Because of her influence, there are about 3,000 facilities in the country today, providing end-of-life care for around 900,000 patients per year. Raised in New York City, New York, she was frequently hospitalized as a child due to chronic respiratory problems, an experience that led her into the nursing profession. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts in 1938, and received a master's degree in nursing from Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut in 1941. During World War II she served in the United States Army Signal Corps. Later, she was a visiting nurse in New York, a research assistant at Columbia, and an instructor at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Appointed dean of the Yale School of Nursing in 1958, in 1963 Wald attended a lecture by Dame Cicely Saunders, who had founded the first hospice in England, and three years later she resigned her position at Yale to work on an American facility based on Dr. Saunders' model. She trained volunteers and opened her first hospice in Branford, Connecticut, in 1971. She taught nurses at Yale how to care for terminally ill patients, laying the foundation for similar instruction elsewhere (including prisons). Wald was a member of the National Women's Hall of Fame, had been designated a "Living Legend" by the American Academy of Nursing, and held honorary doctorates from Yale, Mount Holyoke, and the University of Bridgeport.
Medical Pioneer. She introduced the concept of hospice care to the United States. Because of her influence, there are about 3,000 facilities in the country today, providing end-of-life care for around 900,000 patients per year. Raised in New York City, New York, she was frequently hospitalized as a child due to chronic respiratory problems, an experience that led her into the nursing profession. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts in 1938, and received a master's degree in nursing from Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut in 1941. During World War II she served in the United States Army Signal Corps. Later, she was a visiting nurse in New York, a research assistant at Columbia, and an instructor at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Appointed dean of the Yale School of Nursing in 1958, in 1963 Wald attended a lecture by Dame Cicely Saunders, who had founded the first hospice in England, and three years later she resigned her position at Yale to work on an American facility based on Dr. Saunders' model. She trained volunteers and opened her first hospice in Branford, Connecticut, in 1971. She taught nurses at Yale how to care for terminally ill patients, laying the foundation for similar instruction elsewhere (including prisons). Wald was a member of the National Women's Hall of Fame, had been designated a "Living Legend" by the American Academy of Nursing, and held honorary doctorates from Yale, Mount Holyoke, and the University of Bridgeport.
Bio by: Bob Hufford
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