Dianna Lipp Rivers is a veteran healthcare professional whose distinguished career as a registered nurse, nursing administrator and nurse educator has taken her across the country
and around the world.
Rivers, an associate professor in the JoAnne Gay Dishman Department of Nursing at Lamar University, will share her expertise and insights with campus and community Oct. 27 as Lamar’s 2008 Distinguished Faculty Lecturer.
Her presentation will focus on a topic that has become a passion for Rivers: “Universal Healthcare: Why We Don’t Have It, Why Other Countries Do Have It, and Will We Ever Have it?”
The lecture will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the University Theatre, sponsored by ExxonMobil. A reception in Rivers’ honor is planned after the lecture in the Dishman Art Museum. Both events are open to the public without charge.
Rivers is the 22nd recipient of the award, one of Lamar’s most prestigious honors. Researching healthcare systems in the United States and other nations, she has visited medical sites, both historical and current, and interviewed administrators, doctors, nurses, patients and members of the public.
“I have been in a position to see 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,” she said. “In the 21st century, the United States remains the only major industrialized democracy without universal healthcare. Nearly 50 million Americans have no health insurance at all, and many millions more are substantially under-insured. Every American has a vital interest in understanding the facts about this issue.”
The issue is important to Rivers because, she said, “It is relevant to all of us. Our health is the most important thing we have. Even though you and I might have great health insurance, people in our families might not – or might have lost it. You see what happens when you aren’t able to have good preventive care – maybe you haven’t had a physical in years. One day, you get very sick, and you could have prevented it.”
Rivers brings a lifetime of experience to the classroom as well as the lecture hall. She was a captain in the Army Nurse Corps during the Vietnam War. Her scholarly research has earned international acclaim. She gained mention in The New Yorker magazine after presenting a paper at a conference, “The Sopranos: A Wake,” at Fordham University in New York.
Among many honors, Rivers earned the College of Arts and Sciences’ Excellence in Teaching Award, a Lamar Research Enhancement Grant and the Texas Nursing Association’s “Dedicated to Caring” Award.
“I love to teach nursing so much because of the students’ interest,” she said. “Nursing is a profession that makes a difference. A nurse can help many people, but a professor of nursing can help in the formation of hundreds of nurses who, in turn, will help many thousands of people.”
A Lamar faculty member since 1996, Rivers earned a doctor of public health in community health from the University of Texas-Houston Health Sciences Center School of Public Health in 2001. Her master’s degree in public health/nursing is from the University of Minnesota-Minneapolis, and her bachelor of science in nursing is from Mount Marty College in Yankton, S.D.
By the time she was 5, Rivers knew she wanted to be a teacher. As a teen, she decided to become a nurse. She grew up in the small rural community of Strasburg, N.D., also the hometown of
bandleader Lawrence Welk. She, like her brother and two sisters, worked at Lipp’s Café – a community gathering spot owned by their parents.
She found inspiration in her mother, whose wisdom townspeople often sought. “She wasn’t a doctor or nurse. She was just regarded as a wise woman who knew about first aid. People would come and ask her for advice – some of it health related.”
Rivers earned a scholarship in nursing to Mount Marty, determined to pursue a career in healthcare. That determination was tested when, during the Vietnam War, she joined the Army Nurse Corps and was assigned to Madigan General Army Hospital in Tacoma, Wash., and Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu. Each had 1,500 beds – and the responsibility not only to save lives of those injured in Vietnam, but also to care for their families. Rivers, who attained the rank of captain, worked as charge nurse at both hospitals and as nurse manager at Tripler.
“It was intense,” Rivers says. “The war was going on, and there was a lot of heartbreak, but there was also a lot of joy in helping people get better. Nursing is a wonderful profession.”
Returning from military duty, she worked as a charge nurse in North Dakota and as a nurse administrator in Minnesota. In 1989, Rivers accepted a position as vice president of nursing and patient care at Baptist Hospital in Beaumont.
A French teacher named Kenneth Rivers came to Lamar from California the same summer. The two met a few months later and married in 1991. They live in Beaumont.
Their diverse academic expertise and common interests led to presentations around the world. Ken Rivers is a cinematic scholar, who, as Lamar’s 2005 Distinguished Faculty Lecturer, spoke on “The Meaning of the Movies: 100 Years of Cinema in the U.S. and Around the World.”
“I love movies. It’s one of my hobbies – along with travel,” Dianna said. “Healthcare is pervasive in a lot of movies, reflecting life. We’ve done research and presentations on such topics as medical aspects of movies.”
The couple has attended the Cannes Film Festival, where Ken is a credentialed visitor. Each semester, Dianna joins Ken in hosting a film festival at Lamar, focusing on different genres. They have co-conducted study-abroad trips to 10 European countries, providing students the opportunity to learn about healthcare while earning nursing credits. Visiting friends in China recently, she added to her research during tours of hospitals in Shanghai and Hong Kong.
Dianna is a diehard “Sopranos” fan, finding in the series “all kinds of healthcare issues.” Earlier this year, she and Ken were invited to present papers at Fordham. Sharing the stage with such speakers as a retired FBI agent, a judge and actor Dominic Chianese, Uncle Junior on the series, Dianna focused on healthcare issues. “The audience seemed to love it,” she said.
The New Yorker wrote: “The most compelling presentations were not by the theorists but by other kinds of experts. Dianna Rivers, a professor of nursing from Texas, discussed the financial difficulties that Tony’s men, not employed by the kind of organization that offers Blue Cross, faced as a result of their frequent hospitalizations.”
Rivers has cared for patients as a nurse, supervisor and administrator. “As an administrator, you have a broader view of what’s going on in the hospital. That’s what I love about it. Even though you’re not a bedside nurse, you are part of the big picture.”
Seamlessly, Rivers made the transition from hospital hallways to the halls of higher learning – though she maintains her associations with healthcare settings during clinicals and hands-on opportunities for students, such as the Nightingale Experience.
“My Lamar career has enabled me to do both teaching and nursing,” she said. “We have the best nursing students in the country, and it’s wonderful to work with them.”
Additional information on the lecture is available at (409) 880-8203.
