Future of Nursing Put Under Microscope

Robin Cogan recently heard from a man she treated as a nurse some 15 years ago in the Camden City School District. The former student, whom she had not seen since he was a young boy, told Cogan that she was his hero.

As a fourth-grader, the man sat in Cogan’s office during a particularly troublesome time in his life. Her kind words saved him from taking his own life.

“I cannot imagine what would have happened if there had not been a school nurse there that day,” said Cogan, the legislative chair for the New Jersey State School Nurses Association.

Cogan shared the story on Wednesday as part of a nursing town hall meeting in Philadelphia hosted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. The organization has tasked a committee of health care professionals with producing a report outlining the best path toward creating a culture of health in the United States, reducing health disparities and improving health and well-being by 2030.