Marla Salmon, dean of the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing and director of the Lillian Carter Center for International Nursing, will deliver the fifth Mary Lynn Morgan Annual Lecture on Women in the Health Professions on Wednesday, Oct. 8, at 7:30 p.m. in the Carlos Museum Reception Hall.

Salmon’s lecture, “The Crisis in Caring: Nursing and the Failing Demographic Equation,” will explore the shortage of nurses and its impact on care—a topic of enormous importance to the health of all Americans,
Salmon said.

“The reality is that [nurses] already are in short supply and the picture looks even bleaker for the next 15 to 20 years. There simply will not be enough nurses when our society needs their care more than ever,” Salmon said. “In short, this is a societal problem that lies well beyond the control of nurses and touches each of us.”

Salmon is a former director of the Division of Nursing for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Prior to coming to Emory in 1999, she was professor and graduate dean of the nursing school at the University of Pennsylvania, and held administrative and faculty positions at both the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Minnesota.

Salmon’s teaching and research areas include health policy and administration, international health and public health nursing, health work force and health services research. She has been extensively involved in the area of international health and was a Fulbright scholar in Germany and Kuwait, where she researched national health system development.

She also has been involved in a number of national leadership roles, including membership on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the National Advisory Council on Nurse Education and Practice and the White House Task Force on Health Care Reform. Salmon, who received her PhD from Johns Hopkins University, has been the recipient of many awards, including the President’s Meritorious Executive Award and both the U.S. Public Health Service’s Chief Nurse Award and Special Recognition awards.

The Mary Lynn Morgan Lecture was established in 1998 through a special gift from the Eckerd Corp. Ali Crown, director of the Women’s Center, said she saw the funds as an opportunity to honor Morgan for her many contributions to the Emory community.

“The lectureship both honors a woman who has a rich history at Emory—Mary Lynn Morgan—and features other women at Emory doing remarkable work in the health professions,” Crown said.

Morgan (who will attend her namesake lecture) graduated in 1943 from the Atlanta-Southern Dental College, which in 1944 became the Emory School of Dentistry. For most of her career, Morgan’s practice—which she ran until 1976—was dedicated exclusively to pediatric dentistry. In 1974, she was elected to the Emory Board of Trustees, becoming the second woman to serve in that role, and she was named a trustee emerita in 1991.

“She is a living reminder of the significant contributions that women leaders have made at Emory and in the larger community. This is such a great opportunity for people to be reminded of Mary Lynn’s great work and to meet her in person,” Salmon said.

The Morgan Lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, call 404-727-2001 or jlwill4@emory.edu.