Barco’s Nightingales Foundation is guided by an Advisory Board and Nurse Advisory Board comprised of a diverse and accomplished group of professional nurses who exemplify the courageous and dedicated heart of nursing.  We are honored and blessed to have their input, and proud to introduce you to their work through our blog.

MarySue Heilemann
Dr. Heilemann works for the appropriate and true portrayals of nurses in all areas of the media. Her advocacy exemplifies the courageous and dedicated work of nursing that Barco’s Nightingales promotes.
Dr. Heilemann worked as a public health nurse, a high-risk labor and delivery nurse, and a community-based program coordinator for low-income women’s health before pursuing her advanced degrees.  She completed her master’s, doctorate and post-doctorate in nursing at the University of California, San Francisco, and is currently an Associate Professor at the UCLA School of Nursing.
In addition to teaching undergraduate and graduate students at UCLA, Dr. Heilemann focuses on the development of innovative methods for treating depression among low-income Latinas living in the U.S. Her research looks at therapy that considers gender and cultural issues, trauma, and post-traumatic stress disorder. The development of a treatment protocol based on her research led Dr. Heilemann to examine use of the media to promote and further medical research.
In doing so, Dr. Heilemann started to consult with entertainment media on the roles and character development of nurses. This led to two symposia, which she moderated at UCLA that brought together scholars, filmmakers, nurses, media experts, actors, producers and writers in an effort to understand and strategize on ways to influence media portrayals of nurses in the future. In 2015, Dr. Heilemann presented the National Institute of Nursing Research funded lecture, entitled, From the Silver Screen to the Web:  Portrayals of Nursing in Media, at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.
When asked why she chose nursing originally, Dr. Heilemann responded, “I thought about so many different majors, from political science to physiology. Ultimately, I chose to be a nurse because I realized nursing gave me: the opportunity to be an advocate for my fellow human beings especially when they were vulnerable; the opportunity to honor human dignity in a very real, everyday way and to work with people, one-on-one with a goal of enhancing their well being, and a way to act on my motive to preserve and protect human rights. I saw it as a chance ultimately to be part of the ‘solution’ overall.”
We are honored to have Dr. Heilemann as a member of the Barco’s Nightingales Advisory Board and look forward to continuing to collaborate with her on many issues pertaining to nurses and the nursing profession.
~Michael and Frida Donner