Loretta Ford, “mother” of the Practitioner Field nurse, dies at 104
Loretta Ford, who co-founded the first academic program for nurses in 1965, spent decades to transform the nursing field into an area of serious clinical practices, education and research, died on January 22 in his home in Wildwood, Fla. He was 104 years old.His daughter, Valerie Monrad, confirmed death.Today there are more than 350,000 nurses in America; It is one of the most rapid growth fields and last year the US news and the world ranked the best work in the country, a reflection of wage potential, professional satisfaction and career opportunities.This success is largely the result of a single person, Dr. Ford, who in 1965 co-founded the first degree program for nurses, at the University of Colorado, and subsequently mapped the contours of what The field entailed.At the time, nurse...