One of God's Collaborators...
By Marlene L. Johnson

Barbara J. Hatcher is one of “God’s Angels.” This is how Archbishop Desmond Tutu once described those in health care with a commitment to social justice. Hatcher was honored for her outstanding achievements in the nursing profession recently by being inducted into the American Academy of Nursing at the Annual Awards Ceremony and Induction Banquet in Scottsdale, Arizona.

“While my calling is not a religious one, it is one of health for all,” said Hatcher, Secretary General of the World Federation of Public Health Associations in Washington, D.C., Hatcher was formally inducted on Nov. 8, 2008 with 90 other nurse leaders as 2008 new fellows and is being profiled as “leader to watch in the December 2008 issue of “Nurse Leader.” She was nominated by two current Academy Fellows and selected by the Academy’s 15-member Fellow Selection Committee.

The Academy’s mission is to serve the public and nursing profession by advancing health policy and practice through the generation, synthesis and dissemination of nursing. It does so by anticipating national and international trends in health care and addressing resulting issues of health care policy. The invitation to Fellowship also affords one an opportunity to work with other leaders in health care. Hatcher’s induction into the Academy adds to a number of recent honors she has received, including the Trailblazer Award from the National Black Nurses’ Association in August 2008.

“Most of what I have achieved I have not planned in any systematic way,” Hatcher said from Cuba where she was visiting the Latin American Medical School. “Opportunities have become available and God has provided the strength and courage I need to step into uncharted waters, said Hatcher, a member of Shiloh Baptist Church in D.C. and former leader of its Grace Circle. “Where God has placed me is beyond any expectation I would ever have had,” she said in describing her spiritual journey.

Hatcher, who has traveled across the globe in pursuing her nursing career, said she has often agonized because she is not more of a “church lady.” But she said she has come to understand “God has placed me where he wants me to be--a role model for young women across the globe who want to achieve and an advocate for equity in health care for all--whether in the US , Cuba, Africa.”

In her position at the World Federation of Public Health Associations she also is responsible for global public health and education at the American Public Health Association in Washington, DC
“All of you in the healing enterprise are God’s collaborators in making this a better world – more compassionate, gentler, more caring, and more sharing. In the tradition of Abraham there is a notion that God deliberately made the world imperfect so that God could enlist us all in the business of making the world perfect.” Hatcher said these words from a speech Tutu gave in Geneva before the World Health Organization brought her to tears. (See full text of Tutu’s speech here: (http://www.who.int/mediacentre/events/2008/wha61/desmond%20mipilo%20tutu%20speech/en/).

Tutu continued, “You are the guardians of the dream of ‘health for all.’ You have the opportunity and responsibility to lead the world into a healthy place. You are the enactors of justice: justice in the distribution of a country's wealth for health; justice to meet the Millennium Development Goals; justice to save the lives of your people and enable them to prosper and build healthy nations!

“God is watching. The people are waiting. You are commissioned to go to wipe the tears away from all faces and bring forth lives filled with strength, and purpose which will make for peace. God bless you. God bless WHO. And thank you,” the Archbishop said.

Hatcher said, “At that moment I knew and understood that I am where God would have me be! So my "church work" knows no boundaries.”

Hatcher earned a Ph.D. in Nursing Administration and Health Policy from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. She received a Masters of Public Health at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing at the University of Connecticut at Storrs. . Her research was summarized in a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation briefing, “Charting Nursing’s Future,” in April 2008. (http://rwf.org/pr/product.jsp?id=31291).