Luther Christman: Professional reformer.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to provide an analysis of the career of Luther Christman in the historical context and evaluate the impact of his career on the nursing profession. Christman, an intelligent and original thinker, made a career as a reformer of nursing practice, nursing education, and nursing administration. Specifically this study identified the reforms he advocated in each setting, the methods he used to implement his reforms, the magnitude of change that actually occurred, the extent to which being a male in a predominantly female profession influenced his activities, his impact on nursing professional organizations, and the source of his reputation as a controversial figure. Data were collected from the Luther Christman Collection at Boston University and other archives, Christman's writings, and interviews with Christman, his family, colleagues, associates, and students. Christman's professional life was traced from his nursing education through his retirement from Rush University. He began urging baccalaureate education for nurses in the 1930s and was a leader in the development of clinical graduate programs in nursing. In the nursing development of clinical graduate programs in nursing. In the nursing administration, he worked to eliminate non clinical activities from nurses' work. He implemented decentralized administrative structures in the early 1950s and a self-governing professional staff model in the 1980s. In clinical practice, he developed a number of clinical innovations in mental health nursing and worked to advance the development of clinical ability of other nurses. Clinical competence was a central theme for Christman; it was the foundation upon which he built his ideas for educational and administrative reforms. In the end, while many of the innovations he advocated were adopted, none were implemented to the extent he desired. Nonetheless, if he had not been around to provoke the profession, much of the progress made over the past six decades may not have occurred.