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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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