Nurses of the month : Helen Emori King
Helen Emori King, PhD, RN, is the immediate past dean of the School of Nursing. Dr. King served for 24 years and is a continuing to serve as emiritus Dean and emiritus Professor of the nursing.
At 6 years of age Helen Emori and her family spent nearly three years in a World War II Japanese internment camps in Arkansas. Upon their release when the war ended, Helen's family relocated to Pomona, California, where her father managed a farm owned by the College of Medical Evangelists (CME).
After graduation from Newbury Park Academy, Helen attended La Sierra College and then enrolled in the nursing program at CME. Following graduation in 1959, Helen worked briefly at Loma Linda Sanitarium and Hospital and then the White Memorial Hospital in Los Angeles. She next taught nursing at Southern Missionary College (now Southern Adventist University), returning during that assignment to obtain her master's in nursing at her alma mater - now renamed Loma Linda University. She taught nursing at LLU for several years and then began her doctoral program in nursing at Boston University in Massachusetts.
Shortly after obtaining her PhD in June of 1973, she met and married Bill King, an Adventist pastor. After teaching nursing at Boston University, she chaired the nursing department of Atlantic Union College until 1981, when she was invited to become dean of LLU's School of Nursing. During her tenure as dean Helen worked to establish a highly qualified nursing faculty, and has also encouraged departmental research, and supports Doctoral study amog the faculty. Currently, almost 60% of Loma Linda University School of Nursing faculty hold Doctoral Degrees in nursing.