Lucile Petry Leone


Lucile Petry Leone was an American nurse who was the founding director of the Cadet Nurse Corps in 1943. Because the Nurse Corps met its recruiting quotas, it was not necessary for the US to draft nurses in World War II. She was the first woman and the first nurse to be appointed as Assistant Surgeon General of the United States Public Health Service.

Biography

Lucile Petry completed a double major in chemistry and English at the University of Delaware in 1924. She received a nursing degree from Johns Hopkins School of Nursing in 1927, and a master's degree from Columbia Teachers College in 1929."
She became a clinical nurse instructor at Yale University, and then spent 11 years at the University of Minnesota, where she became an associate professor and Assistant Dean.
From 1941 until 1966 Leone worked at the United States Public Health Service.
In 1943, Petry became the founding director of the Cadet Nurse Corps.

From July 1943 to October 1945, about 132,000 women were admitted to colleges across the country under the act. In exchange for federal funding, participating colleges were required to establish a 24- to 30-month accelerated education program for nurse candidates. And the women who enrolled had to pledge to "engage in essential nursing, military or civilian, for the duration of the war.
In return for that pledge, the government paid all tuition fees and a monthly stipend that ranged from $15 to $30, depending on the seniority of the nurse candidate, and supplied distinctive uniforms by fashion designer Molly Parnis.

The program was a success, training 124,000 nurse cadets in basic schools, making it unnecessary to draft nurses for war service. Petry became the first nurse and the first woman to be promoted to Assistant Surgeon General of the U.S. Public Health Service.
She married Nicholas C. Leone in 1952. They divorced in 1967. When she retired from government service in 1966, Lucile P. Leone was the Assistant Surgeon General and Chief Nurse Officer. Leone went on to serve as Assistant Dean and a teacher of nursing at Texas Woman's University until 1971.
During the 1960s, she served as President of the National League for Nursing.

Awards

Leone received the Florence Nightingale Medal of the International Red Cross, the Distinguished Service Award of the United States Public Health Service, and the Lasker Award. She was named by the University of Maryland School of Nursing "as one of seven who significantly impacted the nursing profession." She was elected a member of the Institute of Medicine in 1970.
The Lucile Petry Leone Award was established by 2,500 members of the Public Health Service to honor Leone upon her retirement, and to encourage nursing leadership. It is presented biennially by the National League for Nursing "to an outstanding nurse educator."

Works