Interview with Mary Deane Lagerway

AJN senior editor James Stubenrauch interviews Mary Deane Lagerwey, PhD, RN, author of “The Third Reich, Nursing, & AJN,” which appears the August issue. Lagerwey conducted an historical analysis of AJN’s coverage of events in Europe during the Nazi era and in the postwar years, comparing it with that of other popular and professional publications. She found that AJN failed to report on the complicity of German nurses in the Holocaust and that, in the interest of promoting international cooperation and an image of nursing unity, AJN shirked its duty to hold German nurses accountable. In the interview, she discusses the relevance of such historical analysis to the current debate on the role of nursing during wartime.