This book presents the stories of 11 nurse leaders, all of whom have changed the profession of nursing through their personal commitment to the profession, to their patients, and to health care worldwide. The 11 leaders are: Richard Carmona who transcended the poverty of his childhood to become a nurse, a surgeon, and ultimately the surgeon general of the United States. M. Elizabeth Carnegie who didn't set out to right many of the wrongs of racial injustice in nursing and healthcare, but when she found herself faced with accepting the status quo or making a stand, she chose to stand and be counted Leah Curtin, known to many as the "mother of nursing ethics," first made her name as a young fossil-hunter who discovered several previously undocumented brachiopods, but her best work came later as she stepped up to ask the hard questions and put ethics center stage in nursing and healthcare. Imogene King is an internationally recognized nurse theorist whose landmark works have been read by generations of nurses and have literally changed nursing education and practice in several countries. Ruth Watson Lubic made families the focal point of her career, helping to establish legendary birthing centers in the United States, and went on to become the first nurse awarded the MacArthur Fellowship "genius" grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Margaret McClure decided to ask what made nurses stay in certain hospitals, instead of the more traditional approach of asking what made them leave. This question ultimately led to what is now universally known as the Magnet Recognition Program. Marla Salmon was a hippie who was compelled by upbringing and compassion to try to change the plight of the underserved and marginalized peoples of the world. She has done this in many notable ways, including serving as chief nurse of the US and as the United States’ first nurse delegate to the World Health Organization. Judith Shamian survived the ravages of three wars during her formative years and learned that the only way to achieve her goals was to stay strong and hold onto her values. This approach led her to the top echelon of the Canadian healthcare system. Grayce Sills saw firsthand the grim nature of psychiatric treatments of the 1940s and 1950s. She has been leading and working across interdisciplinary boundaries ever since to help ensure that psychiatric patients are treated humanely and given every opportunity to succeed. Kirsten Stallknecht went from the position of charge nurse to the head of the Danish Nurses Organization literally overnight. She held this position for 28 years; in the process, she negotiated and bargained with the Danish government and brought about sweeping changes in how nurses were treated and compensated. Florence Wald found her professional passion once she was introduced to the holistic philosophy of hospice care. From that point forward, she became an advocate of death with dignity. Today, she is known at the mother of US hospice care, having engineered the vision that led to the first hospice in the United States. Read Less