Sarah E. Allison Collection

In 1967, Allison proposed the establishment of a center focused on the development of nursing practice at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. In 1968, she became the Associate Director of the Center for Experimentation and Development in Nursing (CEDN). Orem’s conceptualizations about nursing provide the framework for the CEDN, and it served as the first test site for the Orem theory. The work of CEDN was interrupted in 1972 when 3 of its key staff were in a car accident, killing Joan Backscheider and Mary Collins and injuring Sarah Allison. CEDN closed in 1974 but some of its activities continued in the Wilmer Eye Clinic where Sarah Allison served as Clinical Director of Nursing from 1975 to 1976. She also served as an Instructor in Nursing for the Johns Hopkins University Evening College and Assistant Professor in the Nursing Education Program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Health Services. Allison was active with the Johns Hopkins Nurses Alumnae Association, serving on its Board of Directors and as its representative to the Advisory Board of the Johns Hopkins Hospital School of Nursing from 1966-1975.

She moved to Jackson, Mississippi in 1976 to be the Vice President for Nursing Administration at the Mississippi Methodist Rehabilitation Hospital and Center, where she also implemented SCDNT. After retiring in 1990, she continued as a consultant on nursing and nursing administration using Orem’s theory. In 1991, Allison was one of the founders of the International Orem Society for Nursing Science and Scholarship, which serves as a forum on SCDNT, serving as its Vice President until 1998. Allison also conducted research in Nursing History, including a biographical study of Anna Wolfe who had been her mentor while a nursing student at Johns Hopkins. Allison worked to preserve Dorothea Orem’s papers and related materials at the Chesney Medical Archives and funded the processing of the Dorothea Orem Collection.

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