Virginia Maxwell George, professor emerita at the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing in Nashville, Tennessee, died on July 26 in Nashville. She was 94 years old.
Professor George joined the faculty at the School of Nursing in 1964 as an instructor of maternal and child nursing. She was promoted to assistant professor in 1970 and to associate professor in 1972. In 1975 she founded the school’s nurse practitioner graduate program and served as director for 15 years. Professor George retired in 2000.
Professor George was a native of Birmingham, Alabama, the daughter or an iron miner. She attended Samford University in Birmingham for two years and then transferred to Vanderbilt University. She earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing at Vanderbilt in 1947. She went on to earn a master’s degree in clinical pediatrics at the University of Alabama School of Nursing and a second master’s degree at Peabody College at Vanderbilt. Professor George also received a family nurse practitioner certificate at the University of Rochester in New York.
In 2005, Professor George established a scholarship in her name to benefit a nurse practitioner student at Vanderbilt.