Madeleine Leininger’s Background and Development of Nursing Theories

Madeleine Leininger who lived from 13 July 1925 to 10 August 2012 was an author, scholar, professor, administrator, consultant, and a nursing theorist and anthropologist (Jeffreys, 2008). After her high school education at Sutton High School, the author reveals that Madeleine Leininger pursued a nursing diploma at St. Anthony’s Hospital School of Nursing before she furthered her education at Mount St. Scholastica College (currently known as the Benedictine College) and Creighton University where she earned relevant nursing undergraduate degrees. The development of the transcultural treatment theories dates back to the 1950s when Leininger started a psychiatric treatment facility and a learning curriculum at Creighton University in Omaha. Many scholars and nursing theorists recognise her as the as the founder of transcultural nursing. Later, in 1954, she received a Master of Science Degree in Nursing at the Catholic University of America. At the same year, the University of Cincinnati absorbed her to work as an Associate Professor and Director of the Graduate Programme in Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing and Psychology (Jeffreys, 2008). In 1966, she graduated from the University of Washington, Seattle, with a PhD in Cultural and Social Anthropology. Today, she is recognised as the first professional nurse to seek knowledge about cultural and social anthropology.

The interest of Leininger’s in nursing psychology developed during early years of her career. At one time, Leininger revealed that her aunt who ailed a congenital heart disease worn her heart to the field of nursing (Sagar, 2012). Moreover, early psychiatric interventions seemed too outdated for her to realise the needs of a culturally diverse society. This occurrence of traditional nursing interventions in a modern and complex society necessitated the need for the development of holistic nursing techniques to address the needs and behaviours of diverse cultures. After conducting adequate research, she gathered enough knowledge that helped her integrate nursing and anthropology. The growing interest in the nursing discipline is what led her to pursue a doctoral programme in Cultural and Social Anthropology. Before her demise in 2012, Madeleine Leininger had served numerous leadership positions as a nursing theorist consultant and professor of nursing and anthropology in a variety of universities in the United States.