User:Megalibrarygirl/Rebecca Bergman

Rebecca Bergman (1919 - 2015) was an Israeli nurse who established the first academic nursing program in Israel. She was also the first nurse to win the Israel Prize.

Biography
Bergman was born in Canada and emigrated to Palestine in 1941, where she took nursing classes at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem.

She was a head nurse in the American Zone in Germany after World War II. During her time working with the Joint Distribution Committee, she escorted 83 Jewish orphans to their relatives in Canada. She also helped locate Jewish children who were hidden in monasteries in Germany in order to escape the Holocaust.

In 1963, she completed her doctoral studies at Columbia University. She was the first Israeli nurse to earn a doctorate.

In 1968, she established and was the director of the first academic nursing program in Israel. This program was held at Tel Aviv University and originally aided by the World Health Organization (WHO). Bergman's program was a three year curriculum that led to a bachelor's degree in nursing and the program had the full support of the Israeli Nurses Association. Her contributions to the curriculum also emphasized the "humanistic side of nursing," teaching psychology, sociology, anthropology and respect for patients as individuals.

Bergman died in 2015.