Jaime Lapeyre - AAHN 2013

Dissertation Receives International Award from Prominent Nursing History Association

3 October 2013

(l to r: Dr. Jaime Lapeyre, Chair of the Awards Committee for the AAHN, Joan Lynaugh and Mary Adelaide Nutting Award recipient Dr. Geertje Boschma)

The American Association for the History of Nursing (AAHN) recently held its 30th Annual Conference this past September.  Dr. Jaime Lapeyre, Bloomberg Nursing graduate, was on hand to receive her award as well as present one of her papers to leading nurse historians from around the world.  The conference, titled The Art and Rhythm of Nursing through the Years brought together nursing historians to connect and discuss research that is moving nursing education forward by examining the past.  Dr. Lapeyre represented both Bloomberg Nursing and Toronto as the first person from U of T to win the AAHN’s Teresa E. Christy Award for Exemplary Historical Research and Writing.

“The AAHN is at the forefront of nursing history and that they have chosen to highlight my research with their group of scholars is an honour,” says Dr. Lapeyre.  “This recognition also helps to bring attention to the work of nurse historians in Toronto and how we are committed to growing this field of research in Canada.”

Dr. Lapeyre’s award-winning dissertation “The Idea of Better Nursing”: The American Battle for Control over Standards of Nursing Education in Europe, 1918-1925 came about from her interest in two international training programs for public health nurses, which started after World War I.  A public health nurse with Durham region and City of Toronto before starting the doctoral program, Dr. Lapeyre focused her thesis on the competing discourse American nurses had over what training should look like for public health nurses during that period.   Supervised by then-Dean Sioban Nelson, Lapeyre successfully defended her thesis and at the time her external examiner, a nursing historian from the United States, recommended that Lapeyre submit her work for the AAHN award.

Presenting at the conference, Dr. Lapeyre spoke to a large audience on “Opening Doors of Knowledge”; John Dewey and the Reform of Nursing Education 1920-1925.  This paper addresses an idea that Lapeyre is exploring and considering further research on, and examines the link between theory and nursing, and the university-based school of nursing in the U.S. and in Canada.  Well received by attendees, there was much discussion on current nursing education afterwards.

Recently joining the Bloomberg Nursing faculty as a lecturer, Dr. Lapeyre will focus on raising an appreciation of historical developments in the nursing profession into the undergraduate curriculum.