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Regional Oral History Office University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California Clair Lisker A VOICE FOR NURSING EDUCATION, KAISER PERMANENTE, 1948 TO 1991 Interviews conducted by Judith Dunning in 2002 Copyright © 2004 by The Regents of the University of California Since 1954 the Regional Oral History Office has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of Northern California, the West, and the nation. Oral History is a method of collecting historical information through tape-recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. The tape recording is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected manuscript is indexed, bound with photographs and illustrative materials, and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ********************************* All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between The Regents of the University of California and Clair Lisker, dated January 16, 2002. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. No part of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of the Director of The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, Mail Code 6000, University of California, Berkeley, 94720-6000, and should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Clair Lisker, “A Voice for Nursing Education, Kaiser Permanente, 1948 to 1991,” conducted by Judith Dunning in 2002, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2004. Copy No. _______ Clair Lisker (then Clair O’Sullivan), 1951 TABLE OF CONTENTS—Clair Lisker, RN PREFACE i INTRODUCTION vii INTERVIEW HISTORY by Steve Gilford ix BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION xi Interview 1: January 16, 2002 1 EARLY YEARS IN IRELAND Family background; Irish childhood; education in convent school; nursing training in London during World War II; leaving Ireland for the United States, 1947. Interview 2: January 31, 2002 27 LATE 1940S TO EARLY 1950S Relocation to San Francisco; student at Kaiser Permanente Nursing School, 1948 to 1951; class work at Vallejo Community College; clinical practice; student nurses staffing hospitals; dormitory at old Piedmont Hotel; Dorothea Daniels, Director of Nursing and Kaiser’s first female administrator; outbreak of hepatitis among students; patient health issues; injured mineworkers sent to Kaiser facilities in Oakland and Vallejo for physical therapy; patient health education; accusations of socialized medicine. Interview 3: February 13, 2002 53 EARLY TO MID-1950S Origin of the School of Nursing; six-week rotations in central supply, dietary department, outpatient, home health visits; 1951 graduation; staff nurse on medical surgery unit; hands-on approach to patient care; Kaiser’s emphasis on illness prevention; changes in patient population; McCarthy era; professional organizations for nurses; continuing education at Holy Names College and San Francisco State University; marriage in 1953. Interview 4: February 28, 2002 79 MID TO LATE 1950S Change from Permanente School of Nursing to Kaiser Foundation School of Nursing; Marguerite MacLean, new director; focus on students’ educational needs; impact of the Tahoe conference; problem of transferring credits; Kaiser, first nursing school in state to grant A.A. and R.N. diploma; Clair Lisker joins nursing school faculty; Josephine Coppedge replaces Marguerite MacLean; rules of manners, hair styles and dress for Kaiser nurses; curriculum changes; student population; medical issues of the 1950s. Interview 5: March 14, 2002 109 1960S ERA Impact of the civil rights movement on nursing education; outreach to middle schools and high schools; mentoring and internship programs; changes in student population; Clifford Keene, Vice President and General Manager of Kaiser; social goals in the community; Medicare; opening of coronary care units and critical care units; impact of Ronald Reagan’s mental health policies; Berkeley in the sixties; Vietnam War protests. Interview 6: April 17, 2002 133 LATE 1960S AND 1970S Beginning of the Nurse Practitioner Program; role of Dr. Steve Taller; Lavern Oyarzo, one of the first nurse practitioners; impact of NPs in outpatient clinics; efforts to establish a four-year degree granting program; closure of nursing school, 1976; Clair Lisker accepts position as assistant director of nursing Kaiser Oakland; labor relations; staff shortages; problems using temporary registry nurses; advances in technology for diagnostic testing; use of computers. Interview 7: May 1, 2002 159 1980S ERA School of nursing alumni association; continuing nurse shortage; reduction of nursing registry travelers; older patient population in Oakland; younger members move to suburbs; collegial relationship between nurses and doctors; problems with emergency department; turnover of nursing staff; development of mental health programs. Interview 8: May 17, 2002 179 FINAL YEARS AS NURSING ADMINISTRATOR, LATE 1980S TO EARLY 1990S Inservice education for nurses; mentoring program for new graduates; keeping staff and filling vacancies; providing quality care for patients; computer uses in hospital; retirement as nurse administrator; rehire as consultant in nursing education; long distance learning; dream of four-year nursing program at Kaiser Permanente. INDEX 199 TAPE GUIDE Interview 1: January 16, 2002 Tape 1, Side A 1 Tape 1, Side B 12 Tape 2, Side A 21 Tape 2, Side B not recorded Interview 2: January 31, 2002 Tape 3, Side A 27 Tape 3, Side B not recorded Tape 4, Side A 35 Tape 4, Side B 44 Interview 3: February 13, 2002 Tape 5, Side A 53 Tape 5, Side B 61 Tape 6, Side A 68 Tape 6, Side B 75 Interview 4: February 28, 2002 Tape 7, Side A 79 Tape 7, Side B 87 Tape 8, Side A 96 Tape 8, Side B 104 Interview 5: March 14, 2002 Tape 9, Side A 109 Tape 9, Side B 115 Tape 10, Side A 122 Tape 10, Side B 129 Interview 6: April 17, 2002 Tape 11, Side A 133 Tape 11, Side B 141 Tape 12, Side A 148 Tape 12, Side B 155 Interview 7: May 1, 2002 Tape 13, Side A 159 Tape 13, Side B 166 Tape 14, Side A 173 Tape 14, Side B not recorded Interview 8: May 17, 2002 Tape 15, Side A 179 Tape 15, Side B 186 Tape 16, Side A 193 Tape 16, Side B not recorded i PREFACE Background of the Oral History Project The Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program recently observed its fortieth anniversary. Today, it is the largest, one of the oldest, and certainly the most influential group practice prepayment health plan in the nation. But in 1938, when Henry J. and Edgar F. Kaiser first collaborated with Dr. Sidney Garfield to provide medical care for the construction workers on the Grand Coulee Dam project in eastern Washington, they could scarcely have envisioned that it would attain the size and have the impact on medical care in the United States that it has today. In an effort to document and preserve the story of Kaiser Permanente's evolution through the recollections of some of its surviving pioneers, men and women who remember vividly the plan's origins and formative years, the Board of Directors of Kaiser Foundation Hospitals sponsored this oral history project. In combination with already available records, the interviews serve to enrich Kaiser Permanente's history for its physicians, employees, and members, and to offer a major resource for research into the history of health care financing and delivery, and some of the forces behind the rapid and sweeping changes now underway in the health care field. A Synopsis of Kaiser Permanente History There have been several milestones in the history of Kaiser Permanente. One could begin in 1933, when young Dr. Sidney Garfield entered fee-for-service practice in the southern California desert and prepared to care for workers building the Metropolitan Water District aqueduct from the Colorado River to Los Angeles. Circumstances soon caused him to develop a prepaid approach to providing quality care in a small, well-designed hospital near the construction site. The Kaisers learned of Dr. Garfield's experience in health care financing and delivery through A. B. Ordway, Henry Kaiser's first employee. When they undertook the Grand Coulee project, the Kaisers persuaded Dr. Garfield to come in 1938 to eastern Washington State, where they were managing a consortium constructing the Grand Coulee Dam. Dr. Garfield and a handful of young doctors, whom he persuaded to join him, established a prepaid health plan at the damsite, one which later included the wives and children of workers as well as the workers themselves. During World War II, Dr. Garfield and his associates--some of whom had followed him from the Coulee Dam project--continued the health plan, again at the request of the Kaisers, who were now building Liberty Ships in Richmond, California, and on an island in the Columbia River between Vancouver, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. The Kaisers would also produce steel in Fontana, California. Eventually, in hospitals and field stations in the Richmond/Oakland communities, in the Portland, Oregon/ Vancouver, Washington areas, and in Fontana, the prepaid health care program served some 200,000 shipyard and steel plant employees and their dependents.