About the Author

Barbra Mann Wall, PhD, RN, is a nurse historian known for her studies on women and health care institutions and for her focus on Catholic hospitals and oral histories of retired nurses. Her recent work addresses the history of disaster nursing in the Southwest and the way people interpret disasters of the past. She is associate professor and associate director at the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History Nursing, University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, with previous faculty positions at Purdue and Duke Universities. She is widely published, with 19 refereed journal articles and 2 books, one of which, Unlikely Entrepreneurs: Catholic Sisters and the Hospital Marketplace, won the 2006 Lavinia Dock Award for Best Book, American Association for the History of Nursing (AAHN). Her newest book, American Catholic Hospitals: A Century of Changing Missions and Markets, is in press with Rutgers University Press. Dr. Wall is a member of Sigma Theta Tau, the American Association for the History of Nursing and Medicine, the Council for the Advancement of Nursing Science, and more. She presents at major international and national nursing and women's research meetings and is the recipient of numerous research and program grants, from five to six figures.

Reviews

"American Catholic Hospitals is fair, balanced, insightful, and intriguing. The story Wall tells--a story about a significant segment of the US health care system--is meticulously documented. Readers will find her study to be illuminating, even inspirational."
-- "Journal of the American Medical Association" (8/10/2011 12:00:00 AM)

"American Catholic Hospitals is meticulously researched and well written. Although it is certainly appropriate for both undergraduate and graduate students, general readers also will find it to be an excellent overview of the history of the changes that Catholic health-care institutions have undergone in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries."
-- "Catholic Historical Review" (6/1/2014 12:00:00 AM)

"American Catholic Hospitals offers a tremendous amount of new material and refreshing perspectives on current health care system challenges in the United States."--Sioban Nelson "Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, University of Toronto" (7/29/2010 12:00:00 AM)

"In American Catholic Hospitals, Barbra Mann Wall traces the ways Catholic hospitals have accommodated changes both within the church and in society over the last century. Her book is well researched and a fascinating read."-- "Health Progress" (11/1/2011 12:00:00 AM)

"Wall presents a compelling and well-documented narrative of the dynamic transformation of Catholic hospitals in twentieth-century America. Drawing on records from Catholic congregations throughout the United States, she reveals an admirable perseverance of religious caregivers, demonstrated by their willingness to adapt to socioeconomic forces often inimical to charitable care."
-- "American Catholic Studies" (12/1/2011 12:00:00 AM)

"Wall provides solid scholarship and engaging insight into the historic and contemporary contributions of American Catholic hospitals and their ability to adapt and serve amid the changing landscapes of church and state, culture wars, and healthcare reforms of the 20th century."
--Carol K. Coburn "Spirited Lives: How Nuns Shaped Catholic Culture and American Life, 1836-1920" (1/1/2099 12:00:00 AM)

"Wall traces the nursing and management roles of nuns and brothers in church-related US health care institutions. This well-documented volume will be a useful addition for collections supporting academic programs in public health, hospital administration, bioethics, and divinity, and for comprehensive collections in the history of medicine. Recommended."
-- "Choice" (9/1/2011 12:00:00 AM)