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Two careers, two paths in nursing education

Together, Joyce Murray (left) and Jane Mashburn have contributed more than 45 years of service to the School of Nursing in their respective fields of global health education and nurse-midwifery.

The School of Nursing recently celebrated the careers of Jane Mashburn 78MN CNM FACNM and Joyce Murray EdD RN FAAN as they became faculty emeriti.

Mashburn, one of eight students in the first class of Emory’s nurse-midwifery program, guided the training of future nurse-midwives as clinical associate professor and coordinator of the nurse-midwifery and family nurse-midwifery programs. To date, more than 350 practitioners have graduated from these programs—the only such programs in Georgia. She also directed Emory’s MSN program and gained notoriety by transforming it into a nationally recognized graduate program. Under her leadership, the nurse-midwifery program was ranked 13th and the pediatric nurse practitioner program was ranked 11th by U.S. News & World Report.

Before joining the faculty in 1984, Mashburn practiced nurse-midwifery at Grady Memorial Hospital and the Birthing Center of Atlanta and was a private practice nurse at Emory Clinic. She is a fellow of the American College of Nurse-Midwives and a recipient of the Jean Thomas Award for Creativity in Teaching, presented by Emory’s Alpha Epsilon Chapter of Sigma Theta Tau International.

Joyce Murray has more than 30 years of experience in nursing practice, education, and leadership in public health. She co-founded and led the Department of Nursing at Georgia Southern University. At Emory, she served as professor and associate dean for academic affairs, guided the National League for Nursing as president, and was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.

Murray is best known for her work in international nursing education and practice. She was chair of accreditation for BSN and MSN programs at the National University of Singapore and the University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. Over the past two decades, she secured more than $20 million in nursing training grants from federal agencies and private organizations. In 2001, Murray was appointed director of the Carter Center’s Ethiopia Public Health Training Initiative (EPHTI), a project to enhance and grow education for health professionals to help bring primary care services to millions of people in underserved areas. As director of EPHTI, Murray—along with colleagues from the Carter Center and the School of Nursing—conducted curriculum workshops on more than 200 topics to sharpen the teaching skills of public health faculty from seven universities. More than 2,500 experts have been trained through Ethiopian universities and, in turn, more than 26,000 health care professionals have learned skills to serve Ethiopia’s rural population. Her work led to co-authoring the 2010 book Educating Health Professionals in Low-Resource Countries: A Global Approach with Elizabeth Downes 04MN/MPH RN FAANP and others.

EPHTI is now administered by Ethiopia’s Ministry of Health and Education, as the Carter Center intended when the program was established in the 1990s.—Pam Auchmutey