On Wednesday, November 13, at 6 p.m., the future of health care and health care education will be discussed at Fairfield University by Afaf I. Meleis, Ph.D., FAAN, the Margaret Bond Simon Dean of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania and a lauded expert on these subjects.

Free and open to the public, Dr. Meleis's talk - "Toward Transformation of Health Care: Disruptions and Innovations" - will be held at the Quick Center for the Arts. The event is presented by Fairfield University's School of Nursing. To reserve a complimentary ticket, call the Quick Center Box Office at (203) 254-4010.

Lynn Babington, Ph.D., dean of Fairfield's School of Nursing, said that both health care professionals and the public will be intrigued by the information shared by Dr. Meleis, who is also co-chair of the Institute of Medicine Global Forum on Innovation in Health Professional Education. "The rapidly evolving health care system impacts all of us," said Dr. Babington. "We also look forward Dr. Meleis addressing today's challenges of designing interdisciplinary and interprofessional health education."

Extensively published, Dr. Meleis is a sought-after keynote speaker for national and international conferences on women's health and development, disparities in health care, and international health.

"To meet the pressing health care needs of global populations, we need to disrupt the prevailing patterns of care and swing the pendulum of health care from a focus on cure to prevention, from hospital care to community care, from acute care to chronic care, from communicable diseases to non-communicable diseases, from siloed health professional education to interprofessional education, and from local to global," said Dr. Meleis. "These disruptions in care require creative strategies and innovations developed from a human justice framework grounded in the core principles of equity and justice."

Dr. Meleis is professor of nursing and sociology at PENN, where she is also director of the School's WHO Collaborating Center for Nursing and Midwifery Leadership. Her scholarship is focused on global health, immigrant and international health, women's health, and on the theoretical development of the nursing discipline.

Dr. Meleis is also president and Council General Emerita of the International Council on Women's Health Issues (ICOWHI) and currently serves as the Global Ambassador for the Girl Child Initiative of the International Council of Nurses (ICN). Her appointments are numerous and prestigious: They include being a fellow of the Royal College of Nursing in the United Kingdom, the American Academy of Nursing, and the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Her many awards include the Medal of Excellence presented by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in 1990.

Prior to coming to PENN, she was a professor on the faculty of nursing at the University of California Los Angeles and the University of California San Francisco.

For more information about Fairfield University's School of Nursing, and for directions to campus, visit www.fairfield.edu.

Posted On: 10-22-2013 11:10 AM

Volume: 46 Number: 88