New Leader for Hopkins Nursing

by Jon Eichberger

As the new chair of the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing’s Department of Community-Public Health, Christine Savage, PhD, RN, CARN, enjoys working with a motivated and talented team of nurse educators.

Savage joined the School of Nursing on January 1, 2012, replacing Phyllis Sharps, PhD, RN.

“The [School of Nursing] faculty finds her to be passionate and enthusiastic about public health nursing, with an exciting and clear vision for the Department and for advancing the School’s role in community nursing,” says dean Martha N. Hill, PhD, RN. “I wholeheartedly agree with them.”

Savage has worked with vulnerable populations for a majority of her career, beginning as a community maternal child health nurse in the 1970s and 1980s. Based on these experiences, she became interested in the role alcohol and drugs played in increasing vulnerability in certain populations. She later became involved in the field of addictions nursing and was president of the International Nurses Society on Addictions from 2003-2006. She has conducted funded research related to alcohol use during pregnancy and management of health for the solitary homeless adult, and she was on the National Quality Forum’s steering committee related to best practices for substance abuse prevention and treatment. Currently she is editor of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) BSN curriculum on alcohol and health and is working with NIAAA in promoting the inclusion of alcohol and health content in nursing curricula.

Prior to Hopkins, Savage was a professor in the College of Nursing and in the College of Medicine, Department of Public Health Science, at the University of Cincinnati and was the director of the master’s program in public health nursing. She was also the associate director of the University Hospital Institute of Nursing Research.

Sharps Leads Community and Global Programs

Phyllis Sharps, PhD, RN, successfully led the Department of Community-Public Health for four years. She is now the School of Nursing’s associate dean for community and global programs. In an email sent to Department of Community-Public Health faculty and staff, she reflected upon her time as the Department’s chair:

Together, over the four years we have accomplished a lot. We have formed a department with a unique identity and culture. We have created a mission, objectives, and a vision. We have at least accomplished one of our goals—to be the #1 School of Nursing for Public Health Nursing. We have implemented several signature events and activities unique to this Department and we can be very proud of that. I have thoroughly enjoyed serving as your department chair over these past four years, sharing with you your accomplishments, achievements, your challenges and sometimes your sadness and losses. . .I am looking forward to working with and supporting our new chair, Dr. Christine Savage, as well as being fully committed to my new role as associate dean for community and global programs.

Thank you all for the privilege of providing leadership and guidance.

—Phyllis Sharps, PhD, RN