Where inequality threatens, you will find them. When injustice looms, they’ll be there. Wherever people are in need of health care, you will find…A Hopkins Nurse!
Meet five global nursing heroes who are improving health care education, research, and patient care around the globe.
THE AMBASSADOR
PAM JEFFRIES
Profession: Professor and Associate Dean, Academic Affairs
Countries: Ireland, Switzerland, Chile, Lebanon, England, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, Italy, Canada, Finland, Singapore, Norway, Qatar, and Denmark
Tackling: Health care education using experiential activities, including clinical simulations and interprofessional collaboration
Why? Worldwide, health care educators are embracing simulation technology to teach critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
Latest Accomplishment: Created The Jeffries NLN Simulation Framework to develop, implement, and guide student evaluation using simulations. Chosen as President-Elect of the international, interprofessional group, The Society for Simulation in Healthcare (SSH).
Quote: “Worldwide, no matter where you are, healthcare educators want the best for their students. A little sharing of best practices can help revolutionize the way nursing education is conducted globally.
Profile: Jeffries is the author of Simulation in Nursing Education: From Conceptualization to Evaluation (second edition, 2012) and Developing Successful Healthcare Education Simulation Centers: Using a Consortium Model (2012).
THE DIFFERENCE-MAKER
Profession: PhD student
Country: United States of America
Tackling: Cardiovascular health disparities among African immigrants in the U.S.
Why? Research shows that blacks are more likely to have heart disease, but published studies don’t differentiate between recent African immigrants and African-Americans who have been born and raised in the U.S.
Latest Accomplishment: Collected data, including blood pressure, body mass index, lipid profile, and other health indices from nearly 50 West African immigrants in the Washington, DC metro area
Quote: “We know now that the black population in the U.S. looks very different than it did 20 or 30 years ago.”
Profile: Commodore-Mensah, an African immigrant from Ghana, originally came to the U.S. to study business.
A Johnson & Johnson ad inspired her to become a nurse.
THE TB TERMINATOR
Profession: Assistant Professor
Countries: South Africa, Myanmar (Burma)
Tackling: Tuberculosis (TB)
Why? TB is the leading cause of death in South Africa. In Myanmar, TB is a leading cause of death among patients with HIV.
Latest Accomplishment: Using data he collected in Myanmar, Farley is developing training programs to help Myanmar’s health care workers improve TB surveillance, detection, and reporting.
Quote: “TB is a curable infection, yet it remains a leading cause of death among persons living with HIV. We must consider system-level approaches to diagnose, treat, and cure this infection, and nurse-led models of care are an excellent cost-effective strategy.”
Profile: Farley also holds an adjunct faculty appointment at Stellenbosch University in Cape Town, South Africa.
THE IMMIGRANT’S ADVOCATE 
MIYONG KIM
Profession: Director, Center for Cardiovascular Health in Vulnerable Populations
Countries: South Korea, Northern rural China, urban China
Tackling: Chronic health problems among Koreans living in the U.S., South Korea, and Northern China
Why? Koreans in the U.S. and China suffer high rates of cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and diabetes. In Northern China, local village doctors often lack adequate training and practice guidelines.
Latest accomplishment: Trained more than 500 rural village doctors in Northern China to treat chronic diseases and other public health problems.
Quote: “The Korean Americans and Korean Chinese share similar issues in managing their chronic illness. I understand and empathize with their struggles.”
Profile: As a first-generation immigrant from Korea, Kim focuses on research that links community building strat-egies and health out-comes to help deliver high-quality, equitable care to diverse patient populations.
THE M-HEALTH MAVEN
BETTY JORDAN
Profession: Associate Professor and Director, Baccalaureate Program
Countries: Russia, Bangladesh, South Africa
Tackling: Prenatal education
Why? Worldwide, many women lack access to basic health information that can help them have safer pregnancies, births, and babies.
Latest Accomplishment: Developing content and consulting on program evaluation for Text4baby, a mobile phone-based prenatal education initiative that recently expanded to Russia. In Bangladesh, she works to improve care for rural women and newborns.
Quote: “What attracted me to mobile technologies was the challenge of getting quality education to many women in low-resource settings.”
Profile: Jordan also helps moms and babies by working with the Birth Companions Program and co-directs the Global mHealth Initiative at Johns Hopkins.
THE OCEAN OF CALM
Profession: Associate Professor
Country: Haiti
Tackling: Pediatric primary care, public health nursing education, and gender-based violence
Why: Haiti is at the bottom of the World Bank’s rankings of health indicators due to poor sanitation, nutritional deficiencies, and inadequate health services.
Latest accomplishment: Analyzed data on gender-based violence against girls and women in Port-au-Prince to quantify and develop interventions for the problem.
Quote: “Life was very hard before the earthquake. Afterwards, it took a dive. Now things are back to this difficult day-to-day existence.”
Profile: Sloand is a medical mission volunteer, public health nurse, nurse practitioner educator, researcher, and all-around tireless worker.
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