Top 100 Leaders

Rosamond Gabrielson

Distinguished Faculty

Recognized for advocacy of the bedside nurses’ role and the role nurses had with physicians. She studied nurses’ actions with regard to physician medication verbal orders and found that nurses often followed physician orders without question. She urged nurses to challenge these relationships and strive for collaborative practice. After validating the role the nurse played in a patient care, she changed the model of nursing from nursing practice to primary nursing with an emphasis on the nurse being an important member of the health care team. Prior to her Vanderbilt tenure, she served as President of the American Nurses Association from 1972 to 1976.