6 minute read
Leadership & Research
Ora L. Strickland
PhD, DSc (Hon), RN, FAAN
Dean & Professor — Nicole Wertheim College of Nursing & Health Sciences
Dr. Strickland has been a significant force for change and progress in nursing research, practice, and education for the past 50 years.
In the late 1970s, she spearheaded a movement that encouraged nurse researchers to focus on measuring and documenting outcomes of nursing interventions when she conceptualized, initiated, and directed the Measurement of Clinical and Educational Nursing Outcomes Project. Through this project funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Dr. Strickland mentored 195 nurse researchers from across the nation in developing and testing more than 200 nursing clinical and educational outcome measures and instruments. She also developed the Nursing Citation Index, which was subsequently integrated into the Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), the leading nursing and allied health literature computer search engine.
Dr. Strickland’s extensive research contributions include having been the first person to document the existence of Couvade Syndrome in expectant fathers in the U.S. and their relationship with social determinants of health, paternal emotional state, and pregnancy planning. This research was featured in more than 80 major newspapers and 1,200 radio stations internationally.
As a consultant and co-principal investigator, Dr. Strickland assisted the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the design of the $346 million Women’s Health Initiative — a landmark study involving over 500 multidisciplinary
Developing new knowledge that is applicable and provides solutions for day-to-day health problems, as well as elevating the quality of people’s lives through better health, is a very powerful responsibility. As a clinician, researcher, and educator, I welcome every opportunity to guide the next generation of health professionals to reach their full potential and expand their capacity to effect meaningful, positive, and lasting change on the lives they will impact as excellent practitioners delivering quality healthcare services and as leaders who will shape the future of healthcare.
investigators that greatly expanded the knowledge base and approaches for women’s healthcare. She oversaw research and measurement methods to ensure they were culturally and age appropriate; set research policies; and monitored research procedures of the 40-site national study, which conducted post-menopausal research on 168,000 women over the course of nearly a decade.
Dr. Strickland is one of the founders of today’s National Institute of Nursing Research; was the first nurse to serve on the Advisory Committee to the Director of the NIH, and the first nurse member of the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus Health Brain Trust; and she assisted in the writing of the first nurse practitioner practice act for her home state of North Carolina.
Dr. Strickland is frequently called upon as an internationally known expert in nursing research, measurement, evaluation, and maternal and child health and parenting. She has served as a distinguished visiting professor or lecturer at more than 35 leading universities and traveled to more than 45 countries to advise on research, leadership approaches, and health policy. In 1987, she traveled to the then-Soviet Union with a team of U.S. experts to advise Premier Mikhail Gorbachev’s senior cabinet ministers on their approach to international openness and cooperation in healthcare; she assisted five African countries in the development of their nursing practice acts; and she served as the nursing consultant to Botswana where she advised on approaches to nursing education, practice, and licensure.
Dr. Strickland is the founding editor and was senior editor for 20 years of the Journal of Nursing Measurement — the first measurement journal in the nursing profession. She also served on the editorial boards or review panels of several professional journals including Advances in Nursing Science, Nursing Outlook, Journal of Professional Nursing and the American Journal of Public Health.
She is a prolific author who has won ten American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Awards; contributed more than 100 measurement and research articles to professional journals; and has written or contributed to 30 books to date. Dr. Strickland co-authored Measurement in Nursing and Health Research, which was the first measurement textbook in nursing. Her “Nurse’s Station” column, which appeared weekly in The Baltimore Sun, won two health journalism awards.
Dr. Strickland was recognized early in her career for her outstanding contributions to nursing through her election to the American Academy of Nursing at age 29. Her contributions to nursing research were lauded when she was inducted into the Sigma Theta Tau International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame in 2016. And among her many professional distinctions, Dr. Strickland is proud of having been selected as a Kellogg National Fellow; an American Nurses Association Minority Doctoral Fellow; a Ford Foundation Doctoral Fellow; “Trailblazer Award” recipient and Institute of Excellence inductee by the National Black Nurses Association; and recipient of the Mary Elizabeth Carnegie Award from the Southern Council on Collegiate Nursing.
As a member of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing Board of Directors, Dr. Strickland will draw on her lifetime experiences, working alongside academic peers to establish and maintain quality standards for nursing education for more than 850 public and private nursing programs across the country.
Ensuring equitable healthcare has been the driving force for me as a professional nurse, pediatric nurse practitioner, and nurse scientist. This passion emerged from my earliest experiences in clinical practice at the bedside and later as a pediatric nurse practitioner working with children and their families who resided in underserved areas and experienced health disparities. It is my strong belief that the inequities in healthcare access and the resulting poor outcomes for children can be avoided by transforming education, practice, and research.
Dr. Thomas’ illustrious 40-year nursing career reached another milestone in July 2022 when she was inducted into the Sigma Theta Tau International Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame. She joins an elite group of only 270 nurse researchers worldwide who have achieved international recognition for research that has improved the profession of nursing and the people it serves.
Dr. Thomas is the College’s Dr. Herbert and Nicole Wertheim Endowed Chair in Prevention and Family Health. An award-winning nurse scientist with a background in epidemiology, she is an esteemed thought leader whose work has touched thousands of families, including survivors of sexual violence. Her research and community-engaged scholarship is built on 20+ years as a bedside nurse in hospital settings and a pediatric nurse practitioner in primary care clinics. Her work has a sustained impact on children, adolescents, and families by focusing on health promotion; HPV vaccination and cancer prevention; reduction of health disparities; access to care for sexual assault survivors in rural areas; and training nurse practitioners to serve in primary care clinics in rural and underserved communities.
Dr. Thomas has served as a principal investigator conducting more than 13 funded studies through grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Sigma Theta Tau International, National Institutes of Health (NIH), and $7 million in awards from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, among others.
Over her academic career, she has published numerous manuscripts focused on research, evidence-based practice, and health policy while disseminating her research findings at nearly 120 international, national, and regional conferences.
Dr. Thomas’ national service includes roles as a scientific abstract reviewer for the Council on the Advancement of Nursing Science and for the NIH; a grant reviewer by invitation for the National Cancer Institute; and as an expert content reviewer for research proposals in several prominent nursing journals.
Dr. Thomas served for eight years as the only nurse on the National HPV Vaccine Round Table Steering Committee established by the President’s Cancer Panel and supported by the American Cancer Society and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She currently serves as a member of the American Academy of Nursing’s Expert Panel on Children, Adolescent and Families providing input on health policy and nursing care standards.
Dr. Thomas is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and a Fellow of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners.
Tami L. Thomas
PhD, RN, APRN-CPNP, FAANP, FAAN
Associate Dean of Research & Faculty Development Director of the PhD in Nursing Program & Professor
