Geraldine Gorman is an Assistant Professor in the College of Nursing at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She holds an MA in English Literature and a PhD in Nursing, both from Loyola University, Chicago. Prior to entering the nursing profession in 1991, she taught writing as a teaching assistant at Loyola University. She also worked in direct social services, living in community at the Little Brothers of the Poor and participating in all aspects of their service to low-income elderly. In this capacity she also facilitated poetry workshops in nursing homes, resulting in two small anthologies of collected work. She was a founding member of a small grass roots organization in Tempe, AZ that served the needs of the many relocated elderly and she organized the local university community to provide, among other services, respite care for the spouses of Alzheimer victims. Before beginning nursing school, Gerry served as the volunteer coordinator and editorial assistant to H.O.M.E, a nonprofit housing organization for Chicago’s low-income elderly.
Her areas of clinical nursing practice included oncology, community health and, most recently, hospice and palliative care. Before coming to UIC in 2002, she taught at Western Michigan University. In her role as faculty in College of Nursing at UIC, Gerry teaches the introductory undergraduate nursing course as well as community health and assessment courses on both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Her particular area of interest is the inclusion and infusion of the humanities into nursing curriculum and she organized and facilitates non-credit writing groups for students interested in understanding the health care experience through personal reflection. She has been awarded several writing residencies at Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, IL where she has been able to pursue her own interest in creative nonfiction. Areas of volunteer service include meal delivery to elderly and homeless; work in drop-in shelters for women; respite care; volunteer nursing in free clinics; sitting meditation with inmates at Michigan City Federal Prison. She is married and has two daughters and a son.