It is with great sadness that the transition of Bev Hall has been announced by Janet Allan, Dean Emeritus, University of Maryland School of Nursing.
Dr. Allan’s message to Dr. Peggy Chinn on July 25, 2025, was:
Bev had been on home hospice/palliative care for about a year and a half dealing with 5/years of Long Covid. The efforts of the hospice nurses greatly helped to mitigate many of her symptoms which were mainly shortness of breath, tachycardia and extreme fatigue. She spent only 3 days in an inpatient Hospice facility . . . and had a very peaceful death. I am both very sad and also relieved because she is no longer suffering. We have been together for over 45 years and it’s hard to imagine a life without her. She did not want a memorial so I am going to spread her ashes at our weekend home in Lost River, WV. Over the years, this has been a happy place for us both. I know she valued her friendship with everyone of you [referring to many nursology.net readers].”
Continuing on July 26, 2025, Dr. Allan wrote:
Bev was a prolific and talented writer as evidenced by her numerous publications. She loved to write whether for a professional journal, letter to the Washington Post or posting to friends on Facebook. She didn’t stop after she retired in 2000. She wrote 2 books . The first was Surviving and Thriving After a Life Threatening Diagnosis [Hall, 2004, 2008]. This book was based upon her personal experience with breast cancer, others’ experience with cancer and her work with persons with AIDS. The book helped many deal with their diagnosis ( including family members and friends).The second book, The Art of Becoming a Nurse Healer [Hall, 2005), won an ANA book award and used her personal and professional experiences with illness to provide nurses with a way to develop caring and healing relationships with their patients. I greatly miss my partner for over 45 years.
On August 22, 2025, Dr. Allan added that Bev was particularly proud of her publications on hope [e.g., Hall, 1990, 1994] and spirituality [e.g., Hall, 1997, 1998] that were derived from her work with people dealing with HIV/AIDS.
In response to Dr. Allan’s message, on July 26,2025, Dr. Chinn wrote:
Bev Hall and Peggy Chinn, Circa 1995
Bev challenged our discipline and was strongly opposed to its medicalization, . . . She had to drop out of her early ambition to be a dean when she was became ill in 1982, and her breast cancer diagnosis predicted a 5 year survival rate.She lived anoher 45 years! Her “Thriving and Surviving” book [Hall, 2004, 2008] describes this experience, and her experience caring for people living with HIV for many years after this. Bev and Janet were among the group of nurses who founded “Cassandra: Radical Feminist Nurses Network”, and she contributed to many of the early issues of the Cassandra Newsletters.
I (Jacqui Fawcett) first met Bev at the 1978 Nursing Theory Think Tank that Margaret Newman had organized (see https://nursology.net/2018/11/13/nursology-think-tanks-anyone/ and https://nursology.net/2018/12/03/update-on-early-nursing-theory-think-tanks-facilitated-by-margaret-newman/). We continued to interact at the Nursing Theory Think Tanks until the meetings ended in 1988. I was particularly interested in what Bev once told us during a Think Tank meeting; she said that it had taken her 10 years to “think like a nurse again,” after earning a 1974 PhD in sociology (Dissertation title: Occupational values and family perspectives: A study of premedical and prenursing women). I included content from Bev’s 1981 paper, The change paradigm: Growth vs persistence, in the first and second editions of my book, Analysis and evaluation of conceptual model of nursing (Fawcett, 1984, 1989), as her ideas about important world views for nursology conceptual models was particularly enlightening. I was even more enlightened when I read Bev’s seminal paper about the meaning of medicalization. In that paper, Bev underscored the need for a critical understanding of patients’ perspectives of how medicalization overtakes treatment of cancer in American society. She identified and described three types of medicalization: “(a) giving useless treatments to keep the patient under medical care; (b) demeaning and undermining efforts at self-determination and self-care; and (c) keeping the patient’s life suspended by continual reminders that death is just around the comer, and that all time and energy left must be devoted to ferreting out and killing the disease” (Hall, 2003, p. 305).
Think Tank participants circa 1987 Seated, L to R, Peggy Chinn, Beverly Hall, Jacqueline Fawcett, Elizabeth See Standing, L to R, Afaf Meleis, Kay Avant, Lorraine Walker, Ellen Egan, Ardis Swanson”
A profile on the website for the University of Texas at Austin, where Bev joined the faculty in 1994, provided this information:
Dr. Beverly Hall received her BSN from Texas Christian University [1957], her MA in Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing from New York University [1961], and her PhD from University of Colorado in Boulder [1974]. Dr. Hall [was] Professor Emeritus at The University of Texas at Austin School of Nursing [beginning in 2001]. Her research interests [were] on maintaining mental, spiritual, and physical health of patients who have life threatening illnesses. She continue[d] to present classes and workshops on these topics. Her book, The Art of Becoming a Nurse Healer was awarded first place in the 2006 American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Awards. She was inducted as a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing in 1986. (https://nursing.utexas.edu/faculty/beverly-hall)
Bev’s other faculty appointments were at the University of California School of Nursing San Francisco, California (1980-1984), University of Washington, School of Nursing (1975-1980), University of Colorado School of Nursing, Denver (1957-1975), Bronx Community College, New York, (1973-1974), and University of Massachusetts School of Nursing, Amherst (1961-1964). Bev also held clinical positions at the Manhattan VA Hospital, New York (1958-1959) and the Fort Worth, Texas, Department of Health (1957-1958).
Bev received many honors during her career, such as Consultant, Expert for HIVAIDS International Council of Nurses, Election as a Fellow to the American Academy of Nursing (1986) and the American College of Mental Health Administration (1988), and to Sigma Theta Tau (1986) and Pi Lamda Theta (1961).
References
Fawcett, J., (1984). Analysis and evaluation of conceptual models of nursing. F. A. Davis.
Fawcett, J., (1989). Analysis and evaluation of conceptual models of nursing (2nd ed.). F. A. Davis.
Hall, B. A. (1997). Spirituality in terminal illness: An alternative view of theory. Journal of Holistic Nursing, 15(1), 82–96. https://doi.org/10.1177/089801019701500108
Hall, B.A. (2003). An essay on the authentic meaning of medicalization. The patient’s perspective. Advances in Nursing Science, 25(1), 55-61. https://doi.org/10.1097/00012272-200301000-00008. See also Hall, B.A. (2006). Author’s response to “Hall’s Authentic Meaning of Medicalization: An Extended Discourse.” Advances in Nursing Science, 29(4), 305-307. https://doi.org/10.1097/00012272-200610000-00004
Allan, J. D., & Hall, B. A. (1988). Challenging the focus on technology: a critique of the medical model in a changing health care system. ANS. Advances in Nursing Science, 10(3), 22–34. https://doi.org/10.1097/00012272-198804000-00004
2 thoughts on “Beverly Adele Hall, RN, PhD, FAAN – In Memoriam”
Oh my we lose another bright light in nursing. I never worked with Dr Hall but I kept tripping over her early in my career. As I was graduating from Skidmore College Nursing Program (1965) she interviewed me for my first job as a staff nurse on the psychiatric unit at Metropolitan Hospital, NYC. I went to Colorado instead to work as a staff nurse on U of Colo Medical Center’s psychiatric unit. After I graduated from CU Department of Nursing as a CNS, my first job was as a research nurse. I went to many WICHEN nursing research conferences and saw her presentations there. Always very impressive and informative.I always wonder,if I had chosen a different path, she would have been my boss. She was very persuasive in that first job interview and I seriously considered taking job becuase of her. Such an interesting article about her today. Our paths kept crossing and I wish I had been able to know her better and benefit from her wisdom.
Oh my we lose another bright light in nursing. I never worked with Dr Hall but I kept tripping over her early in my career. As I was graduating from Skidmore College Nursing Program (1965) she interviewed me for my first job as a staff nurse on the psychiatric unit at Metropolitan Hospital, NYC. I went to Colorado instead to work as a staff nurse on U of Colo Medical Center’s psychiatric unit. After I graduated from CU Department of Nursing as a CNS, my first job was as a research nurse. I went to many WICHEN nursing research conferences and saw her presentations there. Always very impressive and informative.I always wonder,if I had chosen a different path, she would have been my boss. She was very persuasive in that first job interview and I seriously considered taking job becuase of her. Such an interesting article about her today. Our paths kept crossing and I wish I had been able to know her better and benefit from her wisdom.
You all were a great inspiration to me when I was a young nurse. Thank you.