A U T H O R S SHIRLEY SMOYAK (B.S., M.S., Rutgers - The State University of New Jersey), author of “Cultural Incongruence: The Effect on Nurses’ Perceptions,” wrote her article as a consequence of her work in two areas: 1) her use of computers to process her own research data, and 2 ) her experience in continuing education courses when she tried to explain “communications” to psychiatric nurses.

Mrs. Smoyak is an assisatnt professor in the Graduate Program in Advanced Psychiatric Nursing at Rutgers, where she teaches a thesis seminar for graduate students. She is also writing her doctoral dissertation in Rutger’s department of Sociology. She is a consultant to the American Institute of Research, research project in industrial nursing, and to the Parsons State Hospital and Training School in Parsons, Kansas. She has both directed and co-directed workshops on psychiatric concepts in nursing at the University of California, San Francisco, St. Louis University, Mo., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the Uni- versity of Illinois, Chicago. She is also a member of the Social Research Team of the Urban Studies Center, New Brunswick, N. J., where she is working on a research project concerned with computers as innovation in a hospital system.

ROSALEE C. YEAWORTH (B.S.N. and M.S.N., College of Nursing and Health, University of Cincinnati), with a masters degree in psychiatric nursing and considerable experience - both personal and professional - in maternity nursing, has combined her interest and experience to study the relationship between mental health and maternity nursing. Her article in this issue is entitled “Identification and Maternity Nursing.” The mother of three, Mrs. Yeaworth began full-time doctoral study in the department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Cincinnati, majoring in Social Psychology.

JERRY BLAYLOCK (B.S., Sul Ross State College; B.S., Baylor Uni- versity School of Nursing; M.S., The University of Texas; M.Ed., Teachers College, Columbia University), author of the review of the literature on “The Psychological and Cultural Influences on the Reaction to Pain,” was enrolled in the doctoral program at Teachers College when she submitted her article for publication. She is now an assistant professor, Medical-Surgical Nursing at The University of Texas.

IN P R O F I L E RUTH SYLVIA LUDEMANN (R.N., Blodgett Memorial Hospital School of Nursing, Grand Rapids, Mich.; B.S.N., Teachers Col- lege; M.S.N., Wayne State University, Detroit, Mich.) , author of “Empathy: A Component of Therapeutic Nursing,” is a clinical specialist in psychiatric-mental health nursing at Good Samaritan Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. Her article, first given as a paper before the Arizona State Nurses Convention last November, describes how a psychiatric nurse in a liaison capacity can integrate the psychiatric concept of empathy into general nursing practice.

Since she received her masters degree from Wayne in 1965, Miss Ludemann has been employed as a psychiatric instructor at Wayne State and Mercy College of Detroit, as an associate director of nursing at Pine Rest Christian Hospital, Grand Rapids, as a public health nurse in Kent County Department of Health, Grand Rapids, as a psychiatric staff nurse at Payne Whitney Clinic, New York City and, in her present dual position, as a clinical nurse specialist and supervisor of the mental health unit.

SENE S. COOPER (University of Wisconsin School of Nursing; B.S., University of Wisconsin; M.Ed., University of Minnesota), professor and chairman of the department of Nursing, University of Wisconsin, Extension Division, Madison, takes a philosophical approach to the need for continuing education for nurses in her article in this issue. Mrs. Cooper has convinced us of the need to publish more articles authored by nurses in continuing educa- tion programs. For those interested, NURSING FORUM pages are open to publishable articles on this subject.

CATHRYN KURTAGH, R.N., B.S., author of “Nursing in the Life Span of People” and educational director of the Detroit Visiting Nurse Association, has successfully combined a professional career with that of being a wife, a mother, and a citizen. She has worked as a public health nurse for some thirty years since she received her bachelors degree from the University of California, except for “time off” for her three children. In this issue, Mrs. Kurtagh discusses the growing obligation of professional nurses to organize nursing services to assure people who need help of an unbroken chain of care that will span infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age.

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