By Anita Smith
Julia “Judy” Powell is giving to a school she loves for a cause she has long supported.
A 1971 BSN graduate of the UAB School of Nursing, Powell is donating to the School through giving during her lifetime and also planned giving through her will. Her gifts will support areas in the School related to gerontology and geriatric nursing—taking care of the elderly. Powell feels a dedication to quality care for senior citizens as a result of her career as a leader in National HealthCare Corporation, which specializes in elder-care.
Judy Powell’s gifts also will honor the memory of her late husband, Joe Powell, who died in 2021 from complications of COVID-19.
These gifts to the UAB School of Nursing will involve two areas.
An outright current gift will create the Joe and Judy Powell Endowed Scholar in Geriatric Nursing. This will support the work of a faculty member in the School whose career involves geriatric nursing. Too, Powell’s additional planned gift will enhance the Scholar endowment, with the goal of converting it into an Endowed Professorship.
Powell’s other gift is naming a space in a part of the School’s simulation laboratory that involves teaching students about care of the elderly. Through this gift, Powell will support the teaching of students in a simulated clinical environment—where they learn about patient care through high-tech computerized patient models before participating in the care of real-life patients.
When Powell retired in 2019, she was Senior Vice President of Patient Services for National HealthCare Corporation, which oversees a chain of facilities and services for the elderly in several states, mostly in the Southeast. The company is based in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where Powell makes her home. As she worked in a National HealthCare leadership position, Powell played an influential role in a company devoted to elder-care in such settings as skilled nursing units, assisted living, independent living, rehabilitation, memory care, home care, and hospice.
She said she is making elder-care-related gifts to the UAB School of Nursing because she is aware of how rapidly the elderly population is growing and how that growth continues to impact the work of nurses. “So many of our nurses already are, or in the future will be, involved in providing caring for the elderly,” said Powell. “It’s important that these nurses be able to approach each of their older patients with an overall understanding of the elderly person, with the ability to treat that patient not only for a specific diagnosis but also in the context of treating the whole person.” At the time Powell began her baccalaureate studies in the late 1960s at what would come to be known as the UAB School of Nursing, her family was residing in Montgomery, Alabama, where she had lived since early childhood. She said it was through her studies at this School that she learned foundations of nursing that have guided her. She also would earn a master’s degree in sociology, with an emphasis in gerontology, from Middle Tennessee State University.
Through the years, Powell has kept in contact with her BSN alma mater. She recently completed several years as a member of the National Advisory Council that advises the Dean of the UAB School of Nursing on ways to keep the School moving forward. “I have continued to be so very impressed with the UAB School of Nursing,” said Powell.
Powell said she is confident that the gifts she is making to the School will be used wisely for the mission of caring for the elderly—a mission that has long been her mission.
