Reflections/Jonathan Gramling
A Nurse for the Ages
On July 19th at the DoubleTree Hotel, I had the honor of attending Dr. Barbara Nichols retirement as the executive director of the Wisconsin Center for Nursing, a position she has held since 2017. A Who’s Who of Wisconsin nursing was there, singing her well-deserved praises. Barbara’s family also joined in on the celebration.
Barbara, now 87-years-old — July 19th was also her birthday — apparently wasn’t done working when I wrote a story about her back in 2012 when she was only 74 and had stepped down as the executive director of the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS) for which she traveled the world evaluating nursing programs for U.S. credentialing.
When she was young, Barbara was torn between an acting/dancing career or nursing. We are all the better for her decision to enter the nursing field.
When one looks at Barbara’s career, from nurse at St. Mary’s Hospital to teacher at UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee to secretary of the WI Dept. of Regulation & Licensing to executive director of the California Nurses Association to interim executive director of the Wisconsin Nurses Association to president of the Wisconsin Nurses Association to the president of the American Nurses Association to the WI Area Health Education Center to executive director of CGFNS and finally to the Wisconsin Center for Nursing, one can’t help but stand in awe of Barbara’s tenacity and commitment to the field of nursing and most importantly to the health and wellness of everyone who lives in her “Village.”
Along the way, Barbara became a First — the first African American to hold the position — in many of her positions including at Regulation and Licensing, the Wisconsin Nurse Association and the American Nurse Association.
Left: Dr. Barbara Nichols on cover story in The Hues in 2012; Above: Friends, family and colleagues at Nichol’s retirement party at the DoubleTree Hotel
And Barbara is the recipient of five honorary doctorates, of which she is very proud.
“The reason I am called Dr. Nichols is because I have five honorary doctorate degrees,” Barbara said. “And when you get an honorary degree, you get a certificate that gives you all rights and prerogatives assigned thereto. And the way an honorary doctorate has been explained to me is it is like the military. In the military, there are only two ways that you can become an officer. You either go through and graduate from one of the academies or you show such valor during the heat of battle that you are deemed an officer. So when you get an honorary doctorate, your experience in your field is so exceptional that it is analogous to having earned it academically.”
Barbara is such a kind soul who has a smile for everyone she meets, even if she is feeling pain. I would call her demeanor one of benevolent self-confidence. Barbara doesn’t need to wear her accomplishments on her sleeve of make sure everyone is impressed. Barbara knows what she has done and doesn’t need everyone to remind her when they meet. Instead Barbara operates withing the present, engaged in whatever is at hand in the moment.
And Barbara didn’t hold the various positions she held for a sense of status. She held those positions to get things done, to make nursing a better profession for everyone.
“It has been a women’s movement,” Barbara said back in 2012 when I interviewed her. “Embedded in the history of nursing are issues of sexism, racism, empowerment, equal pay, the role of women at work and at home and care. I think many nurses are involved in the women’s movement and are, in fact, feminists. There is a lot of back and forth between feminist issues and nursing issues, particularly in the area of pay.”
Barbara didn’t back down from a fight for what is right.
“I was very involved in expanding the right for nurses to participate in collective bargaining and articulating the social and economic welfare of nurses and their right, if they so chose, to talk about conditions of work and their wages,” Barbara said. “Historically, up until that time, the American Nurses Association president had kind of stayed away from that because being involved in labor is viewed as not professional. It was. The second thing is a major study occurred on credentialing and that is nurse talk for looking at the mastery of knowledge required in certain areas of practice and the credential that goes with that and differentiating specialty nursing and what it means. There are now close to 78 specialty nurses organizations. At that time, I interacted with them and was instrumental in helping them create the American Board of Nursing Specialties, which then creates certification exams that identify the mastery of knowledge that nurses have who are functioning in specialty areas and standardizes it nationally.”
Dr. Barbara Nichols has left an indelible mark on the quality of care not only in Wisconsin, but also across the country. We thank her for what she has done and appreciate who she is: a wonderful, benevolent human being who has also left her mark on our lives forever.