Vernice Ferguson
Nursing legend, leader, and advocate for all nurses
Vernice Ferguson was born in North Carolina in 1928. She received her BSN from New York University and a MSN from Columbia University Teachers College. She began her career at Montefiore Hopsital on a NIH-funded research unit and later became the head nurse at the National Institutes of Health Clinic Center. She went on to serve as a chief nursing officer for the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, overseeing 60,000 nurses from across the country for over a decade. She was one of the first Black nurses to earn a graduate nursing degree and serve in an executive leadership position.
In addition to her career achievements, she also deserves recognition for her years of contributions as a nurse educator at no less than five top universities across the country. She served as President of the American Academy of Nursing, as well as President of Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society. She was a pioneer and true public advocate for the nursing profession. She pushed for increased pay, education, and autonomy for nurses. Ferguson is quoted “What is good enough for the doctor is good enough for me and the nursing staff .. . Whatever the boys have, I am going to get the same thing for the girls.”
Sources
We sourced information for the above biography from North Carolina Nursing History and The New York Times.
Learn More
To learn more about inclusion in nursing and be part of the national discussion to address racism in nursing, check out and share the following resources:
Know Your History
- American Association for the History of Nursing to attend monthly webinars on topics of nursing history, view the calendar here.
- Nursing CLIO to engage with historians and scholars committed to deep work around historical accuracy in healthcare and nursing.
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.
Support & Advocate
- National Coalition for Ethnic Minority Nurse Association to stay engaged with topics relevant to nurses of color.
Support this Project
Help us paint the internet with nursing’s diverse origin stories. Follow this Medium publication, NursesYouShouldKnow on Instagram, LinkedIn, or Facebook, or @KnowNurses on Twitter to share and re-post our articles far and wide.
If you wish to be involved in the project or to receive a monthly calendar in advance of which nurses will be featured to share with a communications team or sync with pre-scheduled social media calendar, please sign up here.
