Remembering Anne M. Pinkard

On Saturday, March 3, Anne (“Nan”) M. Pinkard, long-time friend and benefactor of the School of Nursing, died at the age of 83. Nan was a trustee of the university for nearly 20 years and had held the office of president of the Johns Hopkins Women’s Board.

At the family reception and the funeral, and through media coverage of her life and accomplishments, Dean Martha N. Hill shared her memories with The Baltimore Sun:

“Mrs. Pinkard was an extraordinary woman who had a marvelous moral compass. She knew what mattered, and she wanted others to know what she thought mattered. She thought it was important that Hopkins had a nursing school that was a credible division of the university and with its own home. She pressed the university’s board of trustees and several presidents unrelentingly…”

William R. Brody, president of Johns Hopkins University, also shared his recollections of Nan in a university-wide e-mail and noted:

“As president of the France-Merrick Foundation, she made an indelible mark on our Baltimore community, supporting important initiatives in community development, health and social services, civic and cultural life, education, and historic preservation.

“It was no surprise that the trustees felt so strongly about Nan that they voted in 1997 to name the School of Nursing’s new headquarters building in her honor. It was, likewise, no surprise at all that this kind, selfless, unassuming leader pronounced herself in awe at the prospect of being associated with everyone who would study and work in that building.”

Student Emily Gove Blogs from Haiti

From February 23 to March 4, 2007, eight Hopkins nursing students traveled to Jeremie, Haiti to conduct community assessments and practice public health nursing skills in the field.  The trip fulfilled the clinical requirement for their course in Public Health Nursing.  Emily Gove '07 shared her experience through an online blog:

"We took a land rover drive over fairly decent roads out to a village where we did a health fair for the local teenage girls. We performed another skit on anemia and then screened each of them for blood pressure, anemia, hgt [height] and weight. Yesterdays health fair taught us all some tricks and we were much more efficient today. We saw 128 girls yesterday and probably about the same today..."

"I went solo today to the Center of Hope where I worked with a great Haitian nurse doing HIV consultations and antepartum exams. I learned a lot and got some practice at finding heart beats and measuring fundal heights. Speaking french would have been helpful so I could have understood more of what the nurse was saying to me and the patient, but heck we did alright...In the afternoon I shadowed the doctor at the HHF clinic. Saw all sorts of things, lots of high blood pressure and scabbies. He was quick and often knew right away what the patient had, but also asked me what I thought. An eye opening experience to add to the many others..."