Professor Muriel Larson
Professor Muriel Larson visited Greece for the first time in 1995 while embarking on her Master's degree in nursing. She decided that Greece would be a perfect place to expand her interest in transcultural care, implementing Dr. Madeleine Leininger's Theory of Culture Care.Larson's interest in world history and in the history of health care was a natural fit with study in Greece. Her Master’s thesis presented a model for teaching transcultural care to undergraduate nursing students with the use of photography. Professor Larson uses her own photography to depict the dimensions of Leininger's Sunrise Enabler, and her work has been presented throughout the USA and in Saskatchewan, Canada.
Professor Larson returned to Greece in January of 1998 and 1999, continuing to study dimensions of the Greek culture. Her footsteps followed closely Leininger's belief that by 2010 all nurses would need to be culturally competent to be able to provide congruent culture care in the emerging "global community". Interestingly, Leininger had predicted the coming of the global community in the 1950's, a prediction that has most certainly come to past.
In addition to her Master's in nursing, Professor Larson holds a Master's in ethics, both degrees earned at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota where she taught in the nursing department for 6 years. While at Augustana, Professor Larson developed two courses. The first one, “Transcultural Caring for the Health Professions”, is offered on campus and exposes students to cultures other than their own. The second course, “The Greek Connection: Embracing Transcultural Caring in Ancient and Modern Greece”, has been offered every January since 2004 overseas. By the year 2010, a total of 200 undergraduate students will have visited Greece and the course has been acclaimed as a model for transcultural course development. Through this course, rich partnerships have developed in Crete as well as in mainland Greece and the experience has been published in the ICUs Nursing Web Journal.
Muriel Larson has also taught nursing at the University of South Dakota for 30 years, adult health, obstetrics and perioperative care and is currently an Assistant Professor at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She is a Professor Emerita at Augustana College, Sioux Falls and has 4 grown children and 8 grandchildren.
References:
Leininger, M.M. Overview of the Theory of Culture Care with the Ethnonursing Research Method. The Journal of Transcultural Nursing, 1997; 8(2):32-52.
Larson M. The Greek Connection: A Dream and a Decade. Editorial, ICUS NURS WEB J │ issue 24│September- December 2005 (www.nursing.gr)
Larson M. The Greek Connection: Discovering Cultural and Social Structure Dimensions of the Greek Culture using Leininger’s Sunrise Model. ICUS NURS WEB J │issue 15│JULY-SEPTEMBER 2003 (www.nursing.gr)