Who are Josephine Paterson and Loretta Zderad?
Dr. Josephine Paterson is originally from the east coast and Dr. Loretta Zderad is from the mid-west. They both were graduates of diploma schools and subsequently earned their bachelor’s degree in Nursing Education. Dr. Paterson did her graduate work at Johns Hopkins and Dr. Zderad did hers at Catholic University. In the mid-fifties they were both employed at The Catholic University and were assigned the task of working together to create a new program that would encompass the community health component and the psychiatric component of the graduate program. Subsequently they developed a collaboration and dialogue and friendship that have lasted for almost 40 years. Josephine Paterson recalls that while she was a faculty member (1959-1964) she experienced an inward restlessness related to her perception that, “Teaching in nursing was an offering of multitudinous theories developed in and for other disciplines using nursing examples (Paterson & Zderad, p. 96).” She experienced the approa
