Skip to content
  • Trustee Login
  • Associate Login
  • Trustee Login
  • Associate Login
  • Trustee Login
  • Associate Login
PA logo
DONATE

search

  • About The Society

    Who Are We

    Dedicated to the history and legacy of the physician assistant profession

    Collection Description

    Chronicles the development of various professional organizations

    Founding Members

    Individuals who joined us during our first year

    Mission, Vision & Values

    Learn about our mission, vision & values

    PA Veterans Garden

    Visit the McElligott PA Veterans Garden

    PAHx History & Projects

    Explore our history and projects

    News & Events

    See what’s new at PAHx
    X icon
  • Information & Links

    Initial State Recognition of Physician Assistants

    Find out when your state started recognizing the PA profession

    Our Associates

    View the Associates of the PA History Society

    Past Presidents of the National Organizations

    View our past presidents

    National Conference

    View the locations & dates for the National Conference

    PA Glossary

    Abbreviations, acronyms & titles associated with the physician assistant profession

    Preserving History

    Find several resources for preserving, documenting & archiving historical documents and materials

    Trivia

    Test your PA history knowledge

    Newsletter

    Read the most recent issue

    Helpful Links

    Find links and additional resources

    Search Options

    View our different search options

  • Illustrated History

    Archival Research

    Use finding aids for our collections

    Biographies

    Read our numerous biographies

    Collection & Exhibits

    Our collection features artwork, artifacts and exhibitions

    Oral Histories

    Listen or watch oral history interviews from PAs or those close to the profession's history

    Research Library & References

    Library collections, books and serials

    Videos

    Our moving image collection includes film and video

    Photos

    Slides, photographs, negatives & others

    Historical Perspectives

    Essays, personal narratives and long articles on aspects of PA history

    PA Timeline

    View important milestones and events

    International PA Timeline

    View international milestones and events

    Historical Highlights

    Orgs that are saving and preserving their history

    Celebrating 50

    PA programs that have celebrated their 50th anniversaries

  • Support The Society

    How To Support Us

    Help our staff work with organizations, institutions, researchers and archivists

    Friends of the Society

    View our friends and find out how to become one

    Our Associates

    Become an active partner

    First Class Photos

    First class photos of our Associates

    PA History Books

    Find out how to order your copy

    PA History Products

    Lapel pins, posters, and art prints

    Become an Active Participant

    Learn how to support us
    X icon
  • Contact

Ann A. Bliss, BS, RN, MSW, LCSW

X icon

Ann Bliss was one of several nurses who played an important role in the establishment and development of the physician assistant (PA) profession nationally. In 1971, she coauthored a “White Paper on Physician’s Assistants — Looking at the Future” with Alfred M. Sadler Jr. MD and Blair L. Sadler JD, funded by the Carnegie Corporation, the Commonwealth Fund, the Macy Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Association for the Aid to Crippled Children. This policy paper set the direction for future PA funding and emerged as The Physician’s Assistant — Today and Tomorrow in 1972 – the first book written about the PA field. It received wide circulation during the decade and was revised and expanded by the authors in 1975 and published by Ballinger Press, Cambridge, MA, as The Physician’s Assistant Today and Tomorrow: Issues Confronting New Health Practitioners.

Born in Bristol, CT in 1932, Bliss received a diploma RN from the Grace-New Haven School of Nursing in 1955 and a BS from the University of Pennsylvania in 1960. She worked as a medical writer for McNeil International Pharmaceuticals 1960-1961; received a masters in social work from Bryn Mawr College in 1963 and served as a Professor of Mental Health Nursing while at SUNY Buffalo and at Niagara University 1963-1970. From 1970-1996, she was a faculty member of the Yale University School of Medicine, teaching in the Yale PA Program.

At Yale, she helped select PA students and taught them courses in personality development and psychopathology for 25 years. She advocated gender equality, a collaborative rather than a competitive role between MDs and RNs, no direct fee for service reimbursement for PAs to avoid economic conflict with MDs, broad medical faculty education, intense and diverse clinical training under MD supervision, strong psychosocial skills, stringent testing, certification and continuing education. These core goals, realized at Yale, subsequently were incorporated into national accreditation, certification and ethical standards developed for PAs and reinforced the idea that PAs would remain part of the mainstream of medicine and not become a separate, independent profession.

Bliss was perplexed when academic nursing rejected Dr. Eugene A. Stead, Jr. and nurse educator Thelma Ingles attempt to establish a collaborative advanced clinical nursing program at Duke University in the late 1950s. Her personal clinical nursing experience was characterized by collaboration and a mutually respectful working relationship with physicians. As head nurse at Yale-New Haven Hospital, she worked closely with a number of exemplar humanist physicians, among them Drs. Sherwin Nuland and Richard Selzer whose prize winning books put a human face on patient suffering. While attending the University of Pennsylvania, she worked at Hahnemann Hospital for the renowned cardiac surgeon Charles Bailey MD. In those days, prior to cardiac surgery ICUs, the patient remained on the operating table overnight to deal with any post-operative complications. During those critical hours she monitored vital signs, administered IVs, blood transfusions and intermittent positive pressure breathing (IPPB). Often a conscientious resident slept nearby on the operating room floor to help if needed. As a consequence of her collaborative teamwork with doctors, she opposed academic nurses’ insistence on practice independency from doctors during the 1960’s and 70’s, while eschewing bedside nursing in favor of “wellness care”. Thankfully, that stance has changed over time with some academic nursing centers carrying out scientific bench-to-bedside translational research and working with MDs to share in the “cure” as well as “care” of patients. Bliss believed that the advent of the PA helped nudge nursing back to its collaborative role in taking care of patients.

She served as managing editor of the PA Journal during its formative years in the 1970s. From 1973 to 1978, she served as a Yale based staff member for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation where she promoted the funding of joint PA-NP training and expanded roles for nurses in primary care, emergency medicine and ob-gynecology. Principal colleagues at RWJF were Dr. Alfred Sadler and Terrance Keenan. In 1977, she and Eva Cohen MPH co-edited a research compendium of studies titled The New Health Professionals: Nurse Practitioners and Physician’s Assistants.

In 1996, she retired from the Yale Medical Faculty. She was an active member of the Connecticut Society of Psychoanalytic Psychologists worked in a private clinical practice of psychotherapy. She served on the PA History Society Board of Trustees from 2011 until 2014.

Bliss passed away on December 7, 2022. Click here to read her obituary, which Bliss had written herself before her passing.

Acknowledgments: This biography was prepared by Ann A. Bliss with the editorial assistance of Alfred M Sadler Jr., MD. Ms. Bliss provided the photographs for the biography. This biography was updated in December, 2022.

When using information from this biography, please provide the proper citation as described within the PA History Society Terms of Use.

Share:

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email
biography
PA logo
Facebook-f Twitter Instagram

About Us

  • Who Are We
  • Collection Description
  • Founding Members
  • Our Mission, Vision & Values
  • PAHx History & Projects
  • Newsletter

Information

  • Initial State Recognition Of PAs
  • Past Presidents
  • National Conference
  • PA Glossary
  • Preserving History
  • Helpful Links

Support Us

  • How To Support Us
  • Friends Of The Society
  • Our Associates
  • PA History Books

Contact Us

(678) 417-8682

Contactus@pahx.org

12000 Findley Road Suite 100
Johns Creek, GA 30097-1409

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Cookie Notice
  • Collection Development Policy

© 2023 Physician Assistant History Society® All Rights Reserved