User:Karen Devereaux Melillo/sandbox/MayFutrell

Short bio Early life Notable happenings

Dr. May Holmes DiPietro Futrell was born in Northern Kingdom region of VT, in 1935. She had one sister, Gloria Holmes, who died in xxxx.

College Years

Dr. Futrell had trained in a diploma program for nursing preparation, in St. Albans Hospital, Burlington, VT. Upon receiving her RN licensure, she worked as a staff nurse in the operating room setting. One of her proudest experiences was to have served as the operating room nurse with Dr. Bakeley for cardiothoracic surgery. She received a scholarship to attend Columbia University to earn her Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing. She continued on at Columbia Teachers College to earn her Master's degree in Curriculum and Teaching in Nursing. After completing her Master's degree in 1961, she accepted her first teaching position in nursing at Boston University, where she earned tenure in 1970.

Personal

Dr. Futrell married DiPietro and sadly, "in 1970 found herself widowed after a brief, happy marriage and with a family to raise" (Blewett, 1995, To Enrich and to Serve: The Centennial History of the University of Massachusetts Lowell, p. 144).

She left her tenure and Associate Professorship at Boston University to come to the University of Lowell, as it was known at the time, This was the very early years of the Nursing Program which admitted its first nursing students in 1968.

In xxxx, Dr. Futrell met and married Oel (? spelling) Futrell. They were married for XX years, after which the marriage ended in xxxx.

Professional and Academic Career

Campus Profile - May Futrell [no author specifically credited with this piece]

"Growing up in a Vermont farming town, May Futrell formed a close bond with her grandparents. All four lived nearby, happy and healthy. Their presence and their love for her, she says today, were among the greatest influences in her life: “One grandfather especially was a big influence on me. I think that as a young person, if you have a good experience with your grandparents, as I did, you emerge with a positive view of aging.”

So it came as a shock to her several years later as a young nursing student on hospital duty when she witnessed the neglect of elderly patients. This struck her deeply and ultimately defined her career. Her enthusiasm for caring for the elderly has been, and always will be, a goal she has worked toward for close to forty years.

“Everyone loves children—maternity nursing has always been a popular specialty. But that’s not where the greatest need lies. We’re not getting more children, we’re getting more older people. And we need more educated nurses to care for them.”

By the 1960s, Futrell earned her master’s degree in nursing from Columbia and was teaching nursing while also taking courses at Boston University. She began her career at UMass Lowell as a member of the nursing faculty in the fall of 1970. During her thirty-year tenure, she served as chair of the School of Nursing for 23 years before retiring in 2005.

Due to the direct efforts of Futrell, the University received government funding in 1975 to implement a program to educate gerontological nurse practitioners (GNPs) at the master’s-degree level. It was the first graduate program in the U.S. to educate primary-care GNPs.

May Futrell has made a difference in too many lives to count: family, friends, students, faculty, the elderly, the recipients of her scholarships, the readers of her works. Her work continues through the May Futrell Scholarship endowment fund that helps graduate students pursue their degrees full time.

Even when she’s home, she’s seldom still for long. Whether it’s volunteer work at the Firehouse Theatre in Newburyport, where she lives, or any of the lists of services she continues to perform for UMass Lowell—editing her publications, interviewing faculty applicants, serving on the department’s advisory board—she is rarely, and very reluctantly, idle.

“I like to stay useful, I like to stay active, even though it can be harder these days. I've been very lucky. Ever since I woke up from a tonsillectomy operation at the age of sixteen, and saw the nurse standing over me, and said to myself, ‘That’s it!’ That’s what I want to be! — I've known what I was meant to do in the world. And I've done it. And I’ll just keep doing whatever I can, as long as I can. Because there’s no use at all in just sitting around.” (Retrieved March 24, 2022, from https://www.uml.edu/profiles/may-futrell.aspx).

Another key source:

Melillo, K.D. (2008). Spotlight - May Futrell, PhD, FAAN, FGSA: Gerontological nursing and gerontology leader and mentor''. Journal of Gerontological Nursing, 34''(5), 7-9.

Dear May Futrell, PhD, RN, FAAN, FGSA

May Futrell received a nursing diploma from Mary Fletcher Hospital, Burlington, Vermont in 1956; B.S.,  M.A degrees from Columbia University in 1960, 1961; and a PhD from Brandeis University in 1976. She is qualified in two disciplines: Nursing and Social Gerontology. Completing 35 years at UML as a faculty member, May was chair of the Nursing Department for 19 years before retiring in 2005. In addition to her teaching experience at Lowell, she was a faculty member for nine years at Boston University School of Nursing.

In 1975 Dr. Futrell developed the first graduate program in the country that prepared gerontological nurse practitioners. She completed a Ph.D. at Brandeis University in Social Policy that year and her doctoral dissertation led to awards of over $1 million in training grants and scholarships to the University of Massachusetts Lowell for graduate nurse practitioner education.

Dr. Futrell has also been honored by the disciplines of nursing and gerontology. Elected a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing  in 1980, she has been chair and member of the Expert Committee on Aging. In 1995, she was awarded the State Award for Excellence by the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners in recognition for significant contributions to the status of health care delivery and the practice of nurse practitioners. In 1997, May was elected a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America.

Dr. Futrell is nationally and internationally known for her research, writing and leadership in gerontological nursing. She spent a semester at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland as a visiting Scholar and post doctoral fellow in Fall 1987. While at the University of Edinburgh she conducted research on the oldest old in Scotland. This research continues to receive acknowledgement regarding its application to the understanding of aging as a cultural phenomenon. May has co-authored numerous book chapters and two books. She has enriched and been instrumental in improving both the quality of health care provided to older adults and the educational preparation of nurse practitioners and is hailed as a pioneer in the field.

Nomination for Living Legend in Nursing Award, ANA-Massachusetts (by Karen Devereaux Melillo)

Pioneering the MS-prepared Gerontological Nurse Practitioner Specialty Role

In 1976, Dr. Futrell earned her PhD from Brandeis University. Her dissertation research examined the attitudes of professionals (physicians, nurses, and social workers) towards health care of older adults. It was a direct result of this doctoral research that May was determined to come up with a plan to educate gerontological nurse practitioners. Her perseverance paid off. The U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Division of Nursing, funded the University of Massachusetts Lowell (UML) for the first GNP role preparation at the master’s degree level (Futrell & Melillo, 2005) in 1975. In 1998, U.S. News and World Report named UMass Lowell’s gerontological nursing program as among the top 15 in the U.S.

Leadership, Consultation and Mentorship

Dr. Futrell has held numerous international, national, and university leadership positions and received countless awards, including :  Visiting Scholar and Post-Doctoral Fellow at University of Edinburgh Scotland (1987), Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing (since 1980), and Chair (1995-1998) and panel member (1991-2007) of the Expert Panel on Aging. Dr. Futrell is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America (since 1997), and she is the recipient of the 2007 Mildred Seltzer Distinguished Service Recognition Award from the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education. She has been an Editorial Review board member of the Journal of Gerontological Nursing since 1980. She has been appointed to the Alumni Board of the Heller Graduate School, Brandeis University (2007-2010), received the State Award for Excellence from the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners (1995), designated the University Scholar, UML (1988); received UML Francis Cabot Lowell Faculty Award for Distinguished Service (2004), Past President, Eta Omega Chapter, Sigma Theta Tau International (1990-1992), and Professor Emerita (2005 to present). At UML, Dr. Futrell served as Chair for the Department of Nursing (for 23 years prior to her retirement in 2005), Graduate Coordinator, and Director of Professional Nurse Traineeships.

Dr. Futrell has been a consultant in curriculum and program development for countless nursing programs. Among the prestigious colleges and universities that Dr. Futrell has influenced through her consultation are:  University of Massachusetts Worcester, Florida Atlantic University, State University of New York (SUNY),University of North Carolina, Greensboro, University of Massachusetts Boston, Vanderbilt University, University of Texas - Galveston, College of New Rochelle, Hunter College, and Mount Saint Mary’s College.

Research, Scholarship and Teaching

Dr. Futrell’s research has combined quantitative and qualitative methods and has received external and internal funding from a variety of sources. She has secured nearly 3 million dollars for the graduate education of nurse practitioners at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Her post-doctoral research was a cross-national phenomenological study of the lived experience of the oldest old – New York and Scotland. She has been Principal Investigator on numerous research studies, including an evidence-based protocol on wandering, consultant for a NIH/NIA Phase II Small Business Technology Transfer Program for a low-cost patient locator system for geriatric wandering, and Principal Investigator on the development of a tool to assess attitudes and perceptions of Hispanics toward older Hispanic women who are chemically dependent. She has been Co-PI on various studies, including the epidemiology of alcohol and fat in human breast cancer; field testing of a self-assessment instrument to measure physical fitness and exercise activity levels of older adults, and a study to measure caregiving responsibilities for elderly individuals rendered by university employees. She was the Principal Investigator for a curriculum plan for the doctoral program in nursing at the College of Health Professions at the University of Lowell, established in 1996, and she was Principal Investigator on a proposal to establish the Nursing Archives at University of Massachusetts Lowell. She was also co-investigator on a study of the effects of retirement on psychological and physical health. Each of these studies has enhanced the knowledge base underlying gerontological nursing and positively contributed to improving the lives of older persons.

With well over 100 peer-reviewed articles and the publication of the first GNP textbook, Primary Health Care of the Older Adult (Futrell, Brovender, Mullett & Brower, 1980), Dr. Futrell has contributed enormous talents to the field of gerontological nursing and gerontology. Her interest in global health and international nursing has been reflected in her co-leading of a Russian American Nursing Tour – Moscow, Novgorod, St. Petersburg, in 1997 and again in 1999. In 1984, she co-led a Spanish American Medical-Surgical Nursing Study Tour to Spain and, in 1983, she co-led a Soviet American Geriatric Nursing Study Tour of U.S.S.R.

Her teaching excellence has benefited hundreds of GNP graduates at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. May Futrell’s ability to mentor the gerontological leaders of the future was emphasized in Ebersole and Touhy’s Geriatric Nursing:  Growth of a Specialty (2007). Of the fourteen geriatric nurse leaders of today identified by Ebersole and Touhy, five were former GNP students of Dr. Futrell’s – Kathleen Fletcher, Susan Crocker Houde, Diane Feeney Mahoney, Marianne Laporte Matzo, and Karen Devereaux Melillo.

Future for Gerontological Nursing and Gerontological Nurse Practitioners

Dr. Futrell has long professed that gerontology, geriatrics, and international health are the future and that nurse practitioners are important to this future (Futrell, 2008, personal communication). She advocates that gerontology be incorporated into the educational preparation of nurses at the baccalaureate, master’s and doctoral level. She fully supports what Mezey and Fulmer (2002) identified as the need for all practicing nurses to be ‘gerontologicalized’ and that graduate programs be encouraged to include geriatric content and best practices in all specialties. “A second credential, in addition to their existing specialization, may be needed to prepare individuals to care for older clients” (Futrell & Melillo, 2005, p. 20). An AACN task force initiative is currently underway to determine whether the Gerontological Nurse Practitioner role is a population focused versus specialization role. Dr. Futrell would argue that advanced practice nurse preparation should be focusing on the ‘person’ rather than the ‘place’, and that all specialties that care for elderly clients need to be educationally prepared to meet the health care needs of this population today and in the future.

Dr. Futrell has paved the way for advanced practice nurse preparation in gerontological nursing. She has influenced hundreds of graduates in the Master’s degree nursing program at UML, and has been instrumental in bringing gerontology to undergraduate education at UMass Lowell with the inception of a general education core course, Introduction to Gerontology, since the mid-1970’s. She has been an inspirational leader and pioneer in field of gerontology and gerontological nursing. She actively utilizes her social policy and gerontology background in her numerous professional and community service contributions. As such, I feel that Dr. Futrell is a highly deserving recipient of the ANA-Massachusetts Living Legend Award. Her contributions to the educational preparation of Gerontological Nurse Practitioners and the research she has conducted in gerontological nursing have improved the quality of care provided to older adults.