SPRINGVALE — When Muriel Poulin was 10 years old, it became apparent her appendix had to come out, so the little girl had surgery at Goodall Hospital in Sanford.

“In those days, you stayed in the hospital,” Poulin, 91, recalled.

That hospital stay, and the kindness of the nursing staff, created an impression.

Poulin made it her mission to become a nurse.

And she made a mark – so much so that at the end of June, Poulin was inducted into the American Nurses Association Hall of Fame.

Those in the nursing profession say Poulin is richly deserving of the honor.

“Her work has touched lives at the local level and around the world,” said Pat Boston, president the Maine chapter of the American Nurses Association. “Throughout her career, she has identified opportunities for improvement and implemented numerous innovations – in nursing administration, nursing education and nursing practice.”

ANA Maine Director Joanne Chapman pointed to one example in which Poulin, in concert with three others, looked into the qualities exhibited in hospitals that did not experience staffing shortages at a time when many were.

The work by Poulin and the others provided foundational research for the birth of the ANA Magnet designation, one of the highest honors hospitals achieve to demonstrate excellence in care, Chapman said.

Retiring in 1989 after 17 years as a professor at Boston University, Poulin was named a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Barcelona in Spain. She taught there for the next several years before retiring to Springvale.

She continued her support of the nursing profession as chairman of the board of what was then known as Visiting Nurses of Southern Maine, and then for the next 15 years managed Books Revisited, a used book store in Sanford run by volunteers and designed to support the visiting nurses program.

When she graduated from Sanford High School in 1942, Poulin had celebrated her 16th birthday just a few months before. At that time, one had to be 18 to attend nursing school.

So she went to work for Dr. H. Danforth Ross, who was taking care of folks on the homefront while his partner in the practice, Dr. Stephen Cobb, went off to do his part in World War II.

“I did what a medical technologist would do,” taking x-rays, performing blood work and the like, she said.

Then came her three-year nurse training at Massachusetts General School of Nursing.

While her roots remained firmly in Springvale, Poulin’s career took off elsewhere. She began as a staff nurse at D.C. General Hospital in Washington, rising to head nurse, then supervisor responsible for 250 beds, the emergency department and central supply.

She earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing in 1950, and went on to earn her master’s and eventually, her doctorate degree.

While attending a nursing event, she was asked if she had an interest in working in Damascus, so she departed for a stint in Syria with the Ford Foundation as a director of nursing. Later, she worked in Costa Rica with an agency of the U.S. government as assistant hospital administrator for nursing.

“I was open to different things,” she said.

She was instrumental in the launch of the American Academy of Nursing, according to a biography prepared for her induction into the Nursing Hall of Fame. As chair of the School of Nursing at Boston University, she pioneered nursing administration.

“As an educator, her focus was always on the role of the administrator as the leader of a clinical practice, making it clear to her students that excellent nursing care to patients was the raison d’être for the work,” the biography stated.

At home in Springvale earlier this week, Poulin reflected on her career and her passion for travel: she spent her 91st birthday on a river in Holland.

“I went to see the tulips, she said.

Decades before, she spent time instructing medical students on how to operate iron lung machines by hand – in case of power failures – during the biggest polio epidemic ever seen.

Pioneer? Well, Poulin said she isn’t sure about that. Her work, she said, was to lift the nursing profession. She’s a believer in the value of networking, of belonging to professional associations, and of education – which, she said, improves the quality of care and benefits nurses as well.

“They’re more apt to move up with a broader preparation,” she said.

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 (local call in Sanford) or 282-1535, ext. 327 or twells@journaltribune.com.