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Colleen
Conway-Welch

Colleen Conway-Welch, Ph.D., R.N., C.N.M., is dean of the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing and was appointed by House Speaker Newt Gingrich in July 1998 to the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare.

Conway-Welch became the dean of the Vanderbilt School of Nursing in 1984. As the Dean of the School of Nursing, Conway-Welch has greatly expanded the role of nurses in the health care arena and created the "bridge" program, which gives people with at least three years of college a mechanism to "bridge" to the Master of Nursing program via one year of BSN equivalency studies.

Before joining Vanderbilt, Conway-Welch received a bachelor's degree in nursing from Georgetown University, a master's degree in nursing from Catholic University, and a doctoral degree in nursing from New York University. She has received research grants ranging from the "Study of Selected Physiological and Psychological Variables and Their Effects on Menopause" to "Alternative Approaches to Support Graduate Management Education for Nurses."

Conway-Welch is a certified nurse-midwife and, early in her career, served as a charge nurse at Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu and Presbyterian Medical Center in San Francisco. Her experience as a nurse and her interest in the business of health care has allowed her to be a valued member of the Board of Directors for Quorum Health Resources, Inc., National Fund for Medical Education, American Physicians Network, Funding First (a Lasker Foundation Initiative), Godchaux Brothers Foundation, and First Union Bank of Tennessee.

Conway-Welch is a member of the Institute of Medicine - the advisory board of the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, Tennessee Nurses Association, American College of Nurse Midwives, American Public Health Association, and the Society for Advancement of Women's Health Research. She is currently president of the Friends of the NIH - National Institute of Nursing Research, a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing, and a Charter Fellow in the American College of Nurse Midwives. She has also served on numerous national councils including President Ronald Reagan's commission on the HIV epidemic.

Conway-Welch has been published extensively and is most widely known for her work on non-traditional avenues of education for advanced practice nurses and health policy workforce issues.

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