Doris Schwartz: a living legend. Interview by Priscilla Ebersole

Doris Schwartz has been outstanding in many ways: the only nurse and only woman to receive an invitation to participate in the World Health Organization Committee on Aging and Geriatric Care held in Geneva in 1965; the codirector of the first Primex program to prepare geriatric nurse practitioners in 1976; the first nurse to receive a Fogerty Fellowship; and the first to be invited to work with Sir Ferguson Anderson and to participate in planning the care of the aged in Scotland. From this experience a fine textbook in gerontology and geriatric nursing emerged, possibly the first to combine the medical and nursing viewpoints in the care of the aged. In the early 1980s Ms. Schwartz expressed her indignation in a letter to Geriatric Nursing regarding the lack of clinical research investigating the implications and inhumane effects of tying up our elderly. Two young faculty researchers, Neville Strumpf and Lois Evans, took up the challenge and began a decade of extensive research into the use of restraints. Ms. Schwartz always seems to have been at the hub of clinical practice issues that affect quality of life. The following excerpts from an interview with Doris Schwartz will introduce our readers to her personal perspective.