Lamar University has honored Dianna Rivers, associate professor of nursing, as the Distinguished Faculty Lecturer for 2008.
“Universal Healthcare: Why We Don’t Have It, Why Other Countries Do Have It, and Will We Ever Have It?” will be the topic of her lecture, sponsored by ExxonMobil and to be presented Oct. 27 in the University Theatre.
Rivers, a resident of Beaumont, is the 22nd recipient of the honor – one of the highest accorded a Lamar faculty member. A committee of faculty, staff, students and community representatives makes the selection.
“Healthcare has been a hot-button topic throughout the presidential campaign in this election year of 2008, and for good reason,” Rivers said. “In the 21st century, the United States remains the only major industrialized country without universal healthcare. Nearly 50 million people in the U.S. have no health insurance at all, many millions more are substantially under-insured, and horror stories prevail about insured persons who have lost coverage or been denied reimbursements through no fault of their own.”
Rivers said she plans to shed light on the pros and cons of various systems and the different strategies for implementing improvements in the U.S. healthcare system. “I will discuss how we got to the point where we are today and where we may find ourselves in coming years as idealism collides with political realities,” she said.
A Lamar faculty member since 1996, Rivers has also had a 25-year career as a nurse and nursing administrator around the country, including in Beaumont. From those perspectives, she said, “I have been in a position to see for myself from the inside how our healthcare system works, how it does what it does well, and how it falters at what it does not do well.”
Throughout the past decade, Rivers has extensively researched the healthcare system of the U.S. and other nations around the world. In Europe, she has visited numerous medical sites, both historical and current, and conducted interviews with hospital administrators, doctors, nurses, patients and members of the public on the subject of healthcare.
“My research, interviews and surveys that I have conducted have led to conclusions that can have a potentially important impact on how we view our situation as we attempt to solve our healthcare crisis,” Rivers said. “In my lecture, I will explain – in layman’s terms – the options facing us at this time, the advantages and disadvantages of the major approaches that exist around the world and the potentiality for success in improving our system.
“Every American has a vital personal interest in understanding the facts about this issue,” she said. “In my presentation, I will attempt to cut through the propaganda and misconceptions widely promoted by all sides of this issue and present the objective facts so that the general public, the academic community and the medical profession in our region can formulate their own opinions based on impartial evidence.”
To illustrate her points, Rivers said she plans to employ an entertaining multimedia approach that she has found successful in venues ranging from the Golden Triangle to the University of Paris, France. She will include an assortment of film clips from movies with medical subjects, television series, commercials, documentaries on healthcare and news reports.
“It is very exciting for me to have this honor of being selected from a large group of excellent applicants,” Rivers said. “I am proud to bring to the lecture an issue of immense relevance to our society.”
Rivers earned a doctorate of public health in community health from the University of Texas-Houston Health Sciences Center School of Public Health in 2001. She also has a master’s degree in public health/nursing from the University of Minnesota-Minneapolis and a bachelor of science in nursing from Mount Marty College in Yankton, S.D. Rivers also completed a two year program of advanced studies in patient care administration from the University of Minnesota.
Rivers began her nursing career as a member of the Army Nurse Corps, serving as a nurse manager at Tripler General Hospital in Honolulu during the Vietnam War era, attaining the rank of captain. She also has served as charge and staff nurse at Madigan General Hospital in Tacoma, Wash., and at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Sioux Falls, S.D.; as director of nurses at North Country Medical Center in Bemidji, Minn., where she also was education director; as director of nurses at St Mary’s Medical Center in Duluth, Minn.; and as vice president of nursing and patient care at Baptist Hospital in Beaumont.
She and her husband, Kenneth, professor of French at Lamar, have recently presented papers on “Universal Healthcare: European Models,” “The French City of Beaune: Medical and Wine Capital of France” and “Normandy: Land of War and Peace, Soldiers and Nurses.” Other presentations have included “National Universal Healthcare: Determining What American Healthcare Providers and Leaders Would Value,” “Hospital Scenes, Nursing and Healthcare in ‘The Sopranos,’” “The Image of War Nurses in Film and TV: World War II, Korea and Vietnam,” “Access to Healthcare in U.S. and Economic Cost” and “Problems and Solutions in European Socialized Medicine: Are They Applicable to U.S.?” She is the author of numerous newspaper and journal articles.
Dianna and Kenneth Rivers also have co-conducted seven study-abroad trips to 10 European countries, providing participants the opportunity to learn about European healthcare while earning nursing credit. Dianna Rivers also provided a directed-study honors course for a student who traveled to Sri Lanka after the tsunami, later presenting a paper at an international women’s conference in the United Arab Emirates.
Among many honors, Dianna Rivers earned the College of Arts and Sciences’ Excellence in Teaching Award, a Lamar Research Enhancement Grant and the Texas Nursing Association “Dedicated to Caring” Award. Memberships include the American Organization of Nursing Service Executives, American College of Healthcare Executives, American Nurses Association and Texas Nurses Association, Sigma Theta Tau International Nursing Honor Society, of which she served as vice president of Lamar’s Kappa Kappa Chapter.
J. Lee Thompson, associate professor of history, was the 2007 Distinguished Faculty Lecturer. Other honored lecturers have been Donna Birdwell, anthropology; Christine Bridges-Esser, Spanish; Keith Carter and Jerry Newman, art; Richard Harrel, biology; Jean Andrews, deaf studies/deaf education; Sam Parigi, economics; R.S. “Sam” Gwynn and Jim Sanderson, English; Kenneth Rivers, French; Jim Jordan, William Pampe and Jim Westgate, geology; John Carroll, Ronald Fritze, John Storey and Naaman Woodland, history; Joe Pizzo, physics; Terri Davis, political science; and James Esser, psychology.
