Doris Schwartz, RN Papers

Doris R. Schwartz, RN was born in Brooklyn, New York on May 30, 1915. She graduated from New York's Central Methodist Hospital Training School in 1942. During World War II, she served in the Army Nurse Corps on the hospital ship Marigold. After the war, she worked in rehabilitation at the Percy Jones General Hospital in Michigan. In 1947, after her discharge from the army as a captain, she continued her studies at New York University.

In 1951, she began her career at Cornell University-New York Hospital School of Nursing. She taught public health nursing and ambulatory patient care at the nursing school. Schwartz's research career commenced with a study of elderly chronically ill patients in ambulatory care in 1961. Her book, The Elderly, Ambulatory Patient: Nursing and Psycosocial Needs (1964) reflected these studies.

She also wrote scholarly articles, letters to colleagues, and kept journals. There are approximately 65 publications, running the gamut from the New York Times Magazine to Nursing Research and Reader's Digest. In 1970, she created and led the first of two nurse practitioner programs at the nursing school. After retiring from Cornell in 1980, she served as the Senior Fellow at University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing from 1980 to 1990.

Schwartz received many accolades for her work including the New York VNS's Lillian Wald Spirit of Nursing Award, the APHA's Distinguished Career Award, the establishment of the Doris Schwartz Term Chair in Gerontological Nursing at University of Pennsylvania, and recognition as a "Living Legend" by American Academy of Nursing. She passed away on August 22, 1999.