Dr. Joanne DischJoanne M. Disch, PhD, RN, FAAN, has been unanimously elected chair of the Aurora Health Care Board of Directors, becoming the first nurse to hold the prestigious position. Aurora Health Care is a not-for-profit health care system headquartered in Milwaukee and serving eastern Wisconsin. The system has 15 hospitals, more than 150 clinics and 70 pharmacies.
Disch is professor ad honorem at the University of Minnesota School of Nursing. Her leadership acumen has been proven through her past service as board member and chair of the National Board of Directors for the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), president of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) and president of the American Academy of Nursing (AAN).
A 1976 Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) graduate of the UAB School of Nursing, Disch received the School’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 1994. In 2010, she was named one of the School’s 60 Visionary Leaders, and she was appointed to the UAB School of Nursing’s National Advisory Council in 2015.
