Culture Fest celebrates diversity in health care, education

Inez Tuck is an author, nurse educator and consultant. Her book, Florence and Mary: Nurse Leaders and Heroines of the Crimean War, chronicles the lives of Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole, two nurses from different cultural and economic backgrounds recognized for their work organizing care for wounded soldiers during the Crimean War in the mid-19th century. In the book, Tuck highlights the significance and intersection of race, class and gender as necessary contributors to Nightingale and Seacole's development and recognition as nurse leaders.

Tuck worked for decades in nursing higher education, most recently as dean of MGH Institute of Health Professions School of Nursing in Boston, Massachusetts, before she retired. She currently serves as professor emerita at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Nursing and principle of Inez Tuck & Associates.

Tuck has degrees in nursing, child development and family relations, business and divinity. Her research has focused on psych-mental health nursing, her specialty, especially as it relates to patients with acute or chronic illnesses or stigmatized conditions, such as HIV/AIDS. Tuck has also authored two books on forgiveness.

Alongside consulting work for her firm, Tuck serves on the advisory board of The Institute for Justice Formation at John Leland Center for Theological Studies and as a consultant for the North Carolina – Moldova Collaborative. She also serves as co-chair of global missions for Episcopal Church Women of the Diocese of Virginia.