Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 35:729, 2014 Copyright © 2014 Informa Healthcare USA, Inc. ISSN: 0161-2840 print / 1096-4673 online DOI: 10.3109/01612840.2014.949510
FROM THE EDITOR
In Memoriam Phyllis N. Stern, Editor Emerita Sandra P. Thomas, PhD, RN, FAAN, Editor
At the age of 88, Editor Emerita Phyllis N. Stern passed away. I knew her well, through our many years of working together in the International Council on Women’s Health Issues. Undoubtedly, she was better known for her years as editor of Health Care for Women International (1983–2001), but she also served as editor of Issues in Mental Health Nursing from 1983 to 1986. Dr Stern was asked by Hemisphere Publishing to take over as interim editor of IMHN in 1983 when the first editor, Barbara Sidelieu, experienced health problems. Dr Stern had published an article about her research on stepfather families in the very first issue of IMHN in 1978. She was rapidly becoming known for her expertise in Glaserian grounded theory research and her skills as a writer and editor. Although she had a full-time faculty position at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and editorial duties at HCWI, Phyllis agreed to step in to sort out a backlog of IMHN manuscripts. She kept this journal afloat thereafter, until Mary Swanson Crockett assumed the position of editor in 1986. Not only do we owe her a debt for her service during the 1980s, we are grateful for her years of continued service as an associate editor and reviewer of articles submitted to IMHN. When I received a report of grounded theory research, I could always count on her for an insightful, comprehensive and candid review. I owe a personal debt to Phyllis Stern because I learned much from her about being a journal editor (most of us learn on the job, you know, and from mentoring by other editors). I am not talking about learning the nuts and bolts of editorial tasks, but about absorbing from Phyllis the sheer love of the job, with its inherent privilege of connecting with authors and readers. She loved being an editor, as exemplified in this quote: It’s a highly personal task, this editing. The authors become real to me, as I praise them or chew them out – sometimes silently, sometimes on paper. (Stern, 1994, p. vi)
nation with the whole global village was infectious, as I learned when we travelled the world together for many meetings of the International Council of Women’s Health Issues. She nurtured scholars from many diverse countries and cultures, expressing interest in their work and inviting them to submit journal articles. She was patient with authors whose first language was not English because she knew that we have so much to learn from our international contributors. I have tried to emulate her mentoring of authors from the non-Western world. I will never be able to replicate Phyllis’s style of editorial writing, which was truly unique. Her editorials in HCWI ran the gamut from feminist advocacy to ethnographic pieces about travels in other cultures, to angry essays decrying ageism and silliness in academe (see Thomas, 2006, for an analysis of Stern’s editorials, which I wrote for her 80th birthday festschrift). Editorial titles, such as ‘Adam, Take Back Your Rib’ commanded reader attention. As I noted in that 2006 article, she was ‘a master of the pithy epigram, the apt metaphor, and the humorous zinger’ (p. 487). What made her editorials so unusual, however, was her willingness to share deeply personal experiences with readers. I know of no other editor who so freely disclosed financial problems, plastic surgery, cultural gaffes and struggles in caregiving for a blind husband. Although some readers may have thought her disclosures unseemly, I suspect most appreciated her remarkable candor. Phyllis was Phyllis. Her voice was inimitable. I will miss her. Declaration of Interest: The author reports no conflicts of interest. The author alone is responsible for the content and writing of the paper.
REFERENCES
Dr Stern was justifiably proud of her role in expanding the international outreach of HCWI well beyond North America, and I have sought to replicate this with IMHN. Phyllis’s fasci-
Stern, P. N. (1994). Ten years of HCWI. Health Care for Women International, 15(5), v–vi. Thomas, S. P. (2006). Talking it over with the gals: an analysis of editorials by Phyllis Stern. Health Care for Women International, 27, 481–489.
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Copyright of Issues in Mental Health Nursing is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
FROM THE EDITOR
In Memoriam Phyllis N. Stern, Editor Emerita Sandra P. Thomas, PhD, RN, FAAN, Editor
At the age of 88, Editor Emerita Phyllis N. Stern passed away. I knew her well, through our many years of working together in the International Council on Women’s Health Issues. Undoubtedly, she was better known for her years as editor of Health Care for Women International (1983–2001), but she also served as editor of Issues in Mental Health Nursing from 1983 to 1986. Dr Stern was asked by Hemisphere Publishing to take over as interim editor of IMHN in 1983 when the first editor, Barbara Sidelieu, experienced health problems. Dr Stern had published an article about her research on stepfather families in the very first issue of IMHN in 1978. She was rapidly becoming known for her expertise in Glaserian grounded theory research and her skills as a writer and editor. Although she had a full-time faculty position at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and editorial duties at HCWI, Phyllis agreed to step in to sort out a backlog of IMHN manuscripts. She kept this journal afloat thereafter, until Mary Swanson Crockett assumed the position of editor in 1986. Not only do we owe her a debt for her service during the 1980s, we are grateful for her years of continued service as an associate editor and reviewer of articles submitted to IMHN. When I received a report of grounded theory research, I could always count on her for an insightful, comprehensive and candid review. I owe a personal debt to Phyllis Stern because I learned much from her about being a journal editor (most of us learn on the job, you know, and from mentoring by other editors). I am not talking about learning the nuts and bolts of editorial tasks, but about absorbing from Phyllis the sheer love of the job, with its inherent privilege of connecting with authors and readers. She loved being an editor, as exemplified in this quote: It’s a highly personal task, this editing. The authors become real to me, as I praise them or chew them out – sometimes silently, sometimes on paper. (Stern, 1994, p. vi)
nation with the whole global village was infectious, as I learned when we travelled the world together for many meetings of the International Council of Women’s Health Issues. She nurtured scholars from many diverse countries and cultures, expressing interest in their work and inviting them to submit journal articles. She was patient with authors whose first language was not English because she knew that we have so much to learn from our international contributors. I have tried to emulate her mentoring of authors from the non-Western world. I will never be able to replicate Phyllis’s style of editorial writing, which was truly unique. Her editorials in HCWI ran the gamut from feminist advocacy to ethnographic pieces about travels in other cultures, to angry essays decrying ageism and silliness in academe (see Thomas, 2006, for an analysis of Stern’s editorials, which I wrote for her 80th birthday festschrift). Editorial titles, such as ‘Adam, Take Back Your Rib’ commanded reader attention. As I noted in that 2006 article, she was ‘a master of the pithy epigram, the apt metaphor, and the humorous zinger’ (p. 487). What made her editorials so unusual, however, was her willingness to share deeply personal experiences with readers. I know of no other editor who so freely disclosed financial problems, plastic surgery, cultural gaffes and struggles in caregiving for a blind husband. Although some readers may have thought her disclosures unseemly, I suspect most appreciated her remarkable candor. Phyllis was Phyllis. Her voice was inimitable. I will miss her. Declaration of Interest: The author reports no conflicts of interest. The author alone is responsible for the content and writing of the paper.
REFERENCES
Dr Stern was justifiably proud of her role in expanding the international outreach of HCWI well beyond North America, and I have sought to replicate this with IMHN. Phyllis’s fasci-
Stern, P. N. (1994). Ten years of HCWI. Health Care for Women International, 15(5), v–vi. Thomas, S. P. (2006). Talking it over with the gals: an analysis of editorials by Phyllis Stern. Health Care for Women International, 27, 481–489.
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Copyright of Issues in Mental Health Nursing is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
