UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #784
BRENNAN, PATRICIA FLATLEY

BRENNAN, Patricia Flatley (1953- )
Graduate Student; Lillian Moehlman-Bascom Professor of Nursing; Professor of Industrial Engineering
At UW: as graduate student (1983-1986); as faculty (1996-)

Interviewed: 	2006	
Interviewer: 	Sandy Pfahler
Length: 	1 hour, 31 minutes

Family background; Nursing education at Delaware; Psychiatric nursing; Computer technology; Academic nursing; Graduate study at UW; Case Western; Department of Industrial Engineering; School of Nursing; Teaching; Research; HeartCare1 and HeartCare2; Committee service; Campus climate for women; Professional organizations; Honors and awards; Family.

First Interview Session (July 5, 2006): Digital File

Time	Keywords
00:00:26	[Begin Tape 1/Side 1] Patricia Flatley Brennan was born in Pennsylvania.  She was the second of ten children.  Her father worked as a fundraiser for Catholic charities and mission groups such as the Society for the Propagation of the Faith.

00:03:12	Her father had a Master’s degree in education and her mother had a diploma in nursing.  PFB talks about the impact of their careers on her career path.  She was raised with traditional expectations of being a woman.

00:04:31	PFB discusses her early education and expectations of going to college.  She ultimately achieved two degrees in nursing and a PhD in industrial engineering.

00:06:30	She pursued her baccalaureate degree in nursing at the University of Delaware.

00:07:59	She worked as a nursing assistant at a Philadelphia hospital during summers.  While she was at school she cleaned houses for spending money.

00:09:52	PFB describes her experience at Delaware.  She received more clinical training than would a current nursing student.

00:11:30	After receiving her degree she worked in a critical care unit, although her first choice was to be a psychiatric nurse.  First she had to complete a year of hospital nursing.  Her psychiatric nursing experience was in Delaware State Hospital before moving to Friends Hospital in Philadelphia.

00:14:13	She went to graduate school in psychiatric nursing at the University of Pennsylvania.  The program focused on the transition to community mental health.

00:16:06	PFB first used computers while in school at Penn.  She became interested in using this technology to help train psychiatric nurses.

00:18:46	She describes the factors behind her move into academic nursing.

00:20:28	She and her husband moved to Milwaukee and PFB taught psychiatric nursing at Marquette from 1980-82.  She still wanted to go to graduate school and learn more about computers; she began by entering an MBA program at Marquette.

00:21:11	She met Peter Keane, author of Decision Support Systems.  This book helped her to decide what she wanted to study in graduate school.  PFB interviewed at the UW School of Nursing but chose to enter the industrial engineering program.

00:22:29	Dave Gustafson from the department of industrial engineering agreed to train her.  She had to study calculus first.

00:25:10	She received five years of funding from a federal fellowship.  She discusses her graduate education at UW.  Nobody in the School of Nursing understood what she was trying to study; nursing was moving toward becoming a precise scientific discipline and away from an intellectual discipline. PFB was troubled by not fitting in but she also thrived on campus.

00:30:34	She received national recognition for her work.  While she was at Marquette she worked on a project on nursing diagnosis.  Through this work she made contacts and was selected to deliver the keynote talk of the 1984 international meeting.

00:33:38	During graduate school she knew she would become an academic.

00:35:11	After receiving her PhD she and her husband moved to Cleveland.  She worked on the faculty of nursing at Case Western Reserve University, where the dean became her patron.

00:37:43	Someone from the UW department of industrial engineering called her to see if she would come back.  PFB decided to return to UW because this university offered her the involvement in higher education that would help her live on the cutting edge of developments in health care.

00:40:42	She returned to UW in 1996 with dual tenure in nursing and engineering.  PFB talks about the changes in the industrial engineering department that had occurred in her absence.

00:44:46	She discusses the culture of the School of Nursing.

00:47:25	[End side 1, begin side 2] She continues to discuss the culture of the School of Nursing.

00:49:22	She talks about the responsibilities entailed in her appointment in the School of Nursing.

00:51:46	PFB does not enjoy classroom teaching; she prefers advising doctoral and postdoctoral students.

00:53:32	She teaches courses on health system engineering, information systems in health care, and information systems in nursing.

00:55:15	Her research examines how to use technology to enhance patient care.  Currently she is evaluating the use of technology in the home.

00:57:18	During a sabbatical several years ago she studied the structure of knowledge as it is represented electronically.

00:58:25	While working on the National Health Information Superstructure she began to wonder how to use economic game theory to apply to decisions about building health information exchange.  Steve Robinson and colleagues from computer science are working with PFB on this project.

01:02:06	In 1994 she began working on HeartCare1, which used the web for post-discharge care of people with coronary artery bypass graft surgery.  She received funding to study health information management in the home.  HeartCare2 works with people with chronic heart disease and a clinical care provider group to blend technology and clinical resources.

01:06:18	PFB discusses finding funding for her projects.  She does not enjoy writing and publishing but does it every day.

01:11:07	She talks about faculty governance and her committee service.  She has served on the Committee on Women, the Research Committee, and the University Committee.  Her most important contribution to faculty governance has been shepherding the response to the Regents’ proposal for faculty discipline.

01:14:29	PFB assesses the climate for women on campus and speaks about the idea of “micro-climates.”  She thinks the most important current issue on campus is the inability to deal with harassment effectively.

01:19:13	She discusses her involvement in professional organizations, including the American Medical Informatics Association, the American Academy of Nursing, and the Institute of Medicine.

01:20:40	She talks about the honor of membership of the Institute of Medicine.  Lillian Moehlman-Bascom professorship.

01:23:57	PFB talks about her life outside of work.

01:29:20	She talks about recent job searches.

01:31:03	End of First Interview Session

End of Interview #784