Meet Hall of Fame Inductee Dr. Alice Herman

The College of Nursing is now accepting nominations for the third class of Hall of Fame inductees. Click here to nominate a distinguished nursing leader by March 31! 

After completing her basic nurse training, Alice Herman, PhD, RN, CNM, trained to be a midwife and spent the next years in the Frontier Nursing Service (FNS) in eastern Kentucky working with founder Mary Breckinridge. She often traveled by horseback to delivering mothers, contrary to her normal method of transportation when she worked in Alaska - a 23-dog sled team. 

Dr. Herman delivered more than 1,000 babies – some in dreadful circumstances – and lost only one child, but no mothers. Often, there was nothing but newspaper to wrap the newborn in. Once, she took the saddle blanket from her horse and fashioned a makeshift nightgown for a baby who had no other clothing. "You are a nurse. When there is not a way, you make one," she says.

After receiving her MSN here at UK in 1972, Dr. Herman traveled to London for her doctorate. She is a self-proclaimed wanderer, believing the world has many wonders and that staying in one place would not maximize the benefit she could bring. She'd love to back to the FNS in the early years. "The work was hard, the hours were long, the pay was pathetic, but what I gained in job satisfaction and working with Mary Breckinridge was worth it all."