Welcome from the Dean
Julie DeLoia, Ph.D.
Interim NHS Dean Julie DeLoia, Ph.D. (right), and Mary Wakefield, Ph.D., RN, FAAN, administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration, pose together after the school's McAuley Lecture.
Welcome to Georgetown University School of Nursing & Health Studies.
Students and faculty within our school focus on an issue that touches all of our lives: health.
As a society, we cannot open the newspaper, watch the evening news, or scan the Internet without seeing stories about surprising scientific discoveries, promising new treatments for old diseases, public health emergencies, and health policy debates.
We are in an age of rapid change when it comes to health and science. This year's "leading-edge" thinking may turn into next year's "outmoded" idea.
With all this change comes a great deal of opportunity and challenge. A series of questions illustrates this point:
- How can we make sure that the latest beneficial treatments reach all populations, including the world's poor and most vulnerable?
- How do we protect the public's health during natural and man-made disasters?
- How do we ensure that medicines, meant to help us, don't actually cause harm?
- How do we provide the best possible quality of care in financially constrained environments?
- How do we maintain a front-line workforce that is patient-centered?
This list could continue.
Our school - because of its location within the nation's oldest Catholic, Jesuit university - is perfectly positioned to help address these questions.
At the graduate and undergraduate levels, faculty members challenge our students to think critically and act reflectively.
We ensure that our students graduate with a firm understanding of evidence-based science and practice, all the while viewing their work through a values-based lens. That is the true benefit of being a part of a global university that prides itself on academic rigor and a longstanding, mission-centered identity.
I invite you to learn more about our school by visiting the Web sites of our four academic departments - Health Systems Administration, Human Science, International Health, and Nursing.
I am certainly glad you found NHS on the Web, and I hope you will visit us soon in person.
