Anastacia Giron-Tupas
Dean of Philippine Nursing & Visionary Nurse Leader
Anastacia Giron-Tupas was born in Laoag, Ilocos Norte on August 24, 1890 and is one of the most distinguished and revered Filipino nurse leaders in history. She was a visionary who, after graduating from the Philippine General Hospital School of Nursing’s second cohort in 1912, went on to change the scope and scale of nursing through her life of academic and professional excellence. Giron-Tupas believed strongly that nursing was a powerful tool for improving the general welfare of the Filipino people. This belief catalyzed a self-funded pilgrimage to the United States, to advance her education. Between 1914 and 1917, she obtained a certificate in Public Health Nursing from the University of Pennsylvania, additional training at the New England Hospital for Women and Children in Boston and traveled across the country to advance her understanding of healthcare under the guidance of Jane Delano, founder of the American Red Cross.
Giron-Tupas is known as the Dean of Philippine Nursing. She was the first Filipino nurse to hold the position of Chief Nurse Superintendent of the Philippine General Hospital School of Nursing and held that position from 1917 until 1923. In 1919, she began serving as secretary treasurer of the Board of Examiners for Nursing. Giron-Tupas also headed the committee that prepared the bill systematizing Philippine nursing education. In 1922, Giron-Tupas presided over a meeting with 150 nurses, which incorporated the establishment of an organization for professional nurses and the Filipino Nurses Association, was founded. She was the organization’s first president. In 1929, she was appointed director of the University of Pennsylvania School of Public Health Nursing. Through her efforts, it became the premier nursing school nationwide and developed the first curriculum for a Bachelor of Science in Nursing program. In 1959, through the initiative of the Civic Assembly of Women of the Philippines, she received the Presidential Medal of Merit. In her honor, the Outstanding Achievement Award of the Philippine Nursing Association was changed to the “Anastacia Giron-Tupas Award”, the organization’s highest honor. Giron-Tupas died on September 28, 1972 and a marker was offered, in her honor, in front of the Laoag capital in 1985.
Further Reading
View Giron-Tupas’ brief documentary here or learn more about the role of nursing education in the Philippines here.
Learn about the Philippine Nurse Association of America here.
Honor the Philippine healthcare workers who have died in the pandemic here.
To support Asian Americans for Equality, click here
Sources
We sourced the above information from the Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, the Philipine Journal of Nursing, and CulturED Philippines.
Learn More
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Know Your History
- Nursing CLIO to engage with historians and scholars committed to deep work around historical accuracy in healthcare and nursing.
- American Association for the History of Nursing to attend monthly webinars on topics of nursing history, view the calendar here.
Examine Bias
- NurseManifest to attend live zoom sessions with fellow nurses on nursing’s overdue reckoning on racism or to sign their pledge.
- Breaking Bias in Healthcare, an online course created by scientist Anu Gupta, to learn how bias is related to our brain’s neurobiology and can be mitigated with mindfulness.
- Revolutionary Love Learning Hub provides free tools for learners and educators to use love as fuel towards ourselves, our opponents, and to others so that we can embody a world where we see no strangers.
Support & Advocate
- National Coalition for Ethnic Minority Nurse Association to stay engaged with topics relevant to nurses of color.
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