Ah, Waikiki. It is the stuff dreams are made of. Pacific surf pounding down on sandy shores, magestic volcanic mountains - blanketed in tropical greens - jutting up toward the heavens. But Joe Niemczura, MSN, RN, was dreaming of another destination when we first chatted by phone - he gazing out to nearby Diamond Head, sipping some Kona java ...

''Some people thought this would be a dinky little school,'' laughs Ruth Barnard, PhD, RN, former University of Michigan professor who, upon ''retirement,'' accepted the challenge of helping to establish a BSN-granting nursing school on the island of Haiti. Working through the non-profit Haiti Nursing Foundation, that's exactly what she and ...

Ruth Barnard, PhD, RN, was about as far away from Haiti as a person could get in her cold, blustery hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Newly retired from her professorship at the University of Michigan School of Nursing in 2000, she was ripe for a new challenge. But she didn't choose it -- it chose her. Barnard explains, ''The senior pastor at ...