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CHAPTER 8 Marilyn Anne Ray 99

and in occupational health nursing with family- From 1973 to 1977, Ray returned to Canada to
centered care. be with her family. She joined the nursing faculty at
In the mid 1960s, Ray became a citizen of the McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and taught
United States and shortly afterward was commissioned in the family nurse practitioner program. This was an
as an officer in the United States Air Force Reserve, exciting time, because the McMaster University Health
Nurse Corps (and Air National Guard). She graduated Sciences Center was initiating evidence-based teach-
as a flight nurse from the School of Aerospace Medi- ing, education, and practice. Ray completed a Master of
cine at Brooks Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas, and Arts in Cultural Anthropology at McMaster University
served as an aero-medical evacuation nurse. She cared and studied human relationships, decision making and
for combat casualties and other patients on board vari- conflict, and the hospital as an organizational culture.
ous types of aircraft during the Viet Nam war. Ray She then received a letter from Dr. Leininger asking her
served longer than 30 years in different positions in the to apply for the first transcultural nursing doctoral
U.S. Air Force—flight nurse, clinician, administrator, program at the University of Utah. At the university,
educator, and researcher—and held the rank of colonel. Ray’s doctoral dissertation (1981a) was a study on car-
Her interest in space nursing stimulated her to attend ing in the complex hospital organizational culture.
the program for educators at Marshall Space Flight From this research, the Theory of Bureaucratic Caring,
Center in Huntsville, Alabama. She remains a charter the focus of this chapter, was developed.
member of the Space Nursing Society. In 1990, Ray was During her doctoral studies, Ray married James
the first nurse to go to the Soviet Union with the Aero- L. Droesbeke, her inspiration and friend, and the love
space Medical Association, when the former USSR of her life. He was a constant source of support and
opened its space operations to American space engi- help to her over the course of her career until his
neers and physicians. Ray was called to active duty untimely death from cancer in 2001. After completing
during the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and was assigned her doctorate in 1981, Ray rejoined the University of
to Eglin Air Force Base, Valparaiso, Florida, where she Colorado School of Nursing. At the University of
orchestrated discharge planning and conducted Colorado, Ray worked with Dr. Jean Watson, who
research in the emergency department. developed the theory and practice of human caring in
Ray is the recipient of a number of medals, including nursing. With Watson and other scholars, Ray
Air Force commendation medals for nursing education founded the International Association for Human
and research developments received during her Air Caring, which awarded her its Lifetime Achievement
Force career. Most notably, in 2000 she received the Award in 2008. In the 1980s, At the University of
Federal Nursing Services Essay Award from the Asso- Colorado, Ray continued her study of phenomenol-
ciation of Military Surgeons of the United States for ogy and qualitative research approaches and directed
research on the impact of TRICARE/Managed Care on dissertation work.
Total Force Readiness. This award recognized her In 1989, Ray accepted an appointment by Dean
accomplishments in a research program on economics Anne Boykin as the Christine E. Lynn Eminent
and the nurse-patient relationship that received nearly Scholar at Florida Atlantic University, College of
$1 million from the TriService Military Nursing Nursing, a position held until 1994. Florida Atlantic
Research Council. In 2008, she received the TriService University developed the Center for Caring, which
Nursing Research Program Coin for excellence in nurs- has been housing caring archives since the inception
ing research. of the International Association for Human Caring in
Ray’s first nursing faculty positions were at the 1977. Ray held the position of Yingling Visiting
University of California San Francisco and the University Scholar Chair at Virginia Commonwealth University
of San Francisco with Glaser and Strauss, authors of the School of Nursing from 1994 to 1995, and she was a
grounded theory method. She was intrigued by the visiting professor at the University of Colorado from
study of nursing as a culture and had opportunities to 1989 to 1999. Ray has been visiting professor at uni-
teach students from various American and Asian cul- versities in Australia, New Zealand, and Thailand,
tures. In 1971, she traveled to Mexico with colleagues advancing the teaching and research of human caring
to study anthropology and health. (Ray 1994b, 2000, 2010a, 2010b; Ray & Turkel, 2000,