Sister Calista Roy

Sr. Callista Roy is a highly respected nurse theorist, writer, lecturer, researcher and teacher who currently holds the position of Professor and Nurse Theorist at the Boston College School of Nursing in Chestnut Hill, MA. She teaches courses on epistemology of nursing and strategies for creating knowledge at the master's and doctoral levels, as well as directing doctoral dissertation research. Her current scholarly interests include research involving families in the cognitive recovery of patients with mild head injury and nurse coaching as an intervention for patients after ambulatory surgery. In addition, she is also interested in conceptualizing and measuring coping, developing the philosophical basis of adaptation nursing including the distinction between veritivity and relativity, and in group projects on emerging nursing knowledge and practice outcomes.

It has been said that Dr. Roy's name is one of the most recognized worldwide in nursing today, and that she is one of our greatest living thinkers. However, Dr. Roy maintains that her best work "is yet to come" and likely will be accomplished by one of her students. As a theorist, she often emphasizes her primary commitment to define and develop nursing knowledge and regards her work with the Roy Adaptation Model as a rich source of knowledge for clinical nursing. First conceptualized in the 1960s when she was a master's student, Dr. Roy's work on the Roy Adaptation Model for Nursing Practice is ongoing. With the beginning of the 21st Century, Dr. Roy has provided an expanded, values-based concept of adaptation, founded on insights related to the place of the person in the universe. She hopes her redefinition of adaptation, with its cosmic philosophical and scientific assumptions, will become the basis for developing knowledge that will make nursing a major social force in this new century.

Dr. Roy credits her major influences in her personal and professional growth to her family, her religious commitment, and her teachers and mentors. Born at Los Angeles Country General Hospital on October 14, 1939 as the second child and first daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Fabien Roy, she received the middle name Callista, after Saint Callistus, Pope and martyr, from the Roman Catholic Calendar of the day on which she was born. A deep spirit of faith, hope, love and commitment to God and service to others was central in this family of seven boys and seven girls. Her mother was a licensed vocational nurse and instilled the values of always seeking to know more about people and their care and of selfless giving as a nurse. Dr. Roy notes that she also had excellent teachers in parochial schools, high school, and college. At age 14 she began working at a large general hospital, first as a pantry girl, then as a maid, and finally as a nurse's aid. After a soul-searching process of discernment, she decided to enter the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Carondelet, of which she has been a member for more than 40 years. Her college education began in a liberal arts program, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts with a major in nursing at Mount St. Mary's College, in Los Angeles.

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Source : http://www2.bc.edu/~royca/htm/biography.htm