[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 184 (Wednesday, October 20, 2021)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1115]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





                   IN HONOR OF ANNE HUGHES, PH.D., RN

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. JACKIE SPEIER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, October 20, 2021

  Ms. SPEIER. Madam Speaker, I rise today along with Speaker Nancy 
Pelosi to pay tribute to a registered nurse and leader in health care 
for marginalized people, specifically people with AIDS and the 
impoverished. Anne Hughes, Ph.D., RN was born in Philadelphia, 
Pennsylvania in 1953 and studied nursing there at Gwynedd Mercy 
College. She went on to Boston College to receive her Master's Degree 
and then to the University of Washington in Seattle. She received a 
Ph.D. in nursing from the University of California, San Francisco, in 
2007.
  Dr. Hughes died earlier this year after more than 30 years of service 
to San Francisco's public health hospitals. She worked at San Francisco 
General Hospital as a clinical nurse specialist; hospice nurse and on 
the HIV/AIDS unit. From 1987 to 2000, at the height of the epidemic, 
she provided compassionate care when HIV/AIDS was highly stigmatized 
because it affected primarily gay men. She began in an era when few in 
the country knew much about this disease.
  Dr. Hughes was a soft-spoken leader known for her kindness to 
patients, and colleagues. She also served beyond San Francisco and 
helped found the American Association of Nurses in AIDS CARE, serving 
as President of the organization in its early years. Dr. Hughes used 
her clinical expertise and served as the first co-editor of the ``Core 
Curriculum for Nurses in HIV/AIDS Care,'' a major undertaking with over 
102 contributors.
  In 2000, Dr. Hughes left San Francisco General to work at San 
Francisco's Laguna Honda Hospital, the largest skilled nursing facility 
in the country. Her doctoral study research focused on how poor and 
homeless people die in San Francisco. She brought her knowledge of the 
emerging field of palliative care and her hospice experience to Laguna 
Honda. She was the first nurse selected to be a department director. 
She served on San Francisco's End of Life Task Force, an 
interdisciplinary, inter-health system group that sought to improve 
care throughout San Francisco.
  Dr. Hughes wrote numerous chapters and articles on HIV/AIDS, hospice 
care and palliative care. She was elected to, and served on, the board 
of the national Hospice and Palliative Care Nurses Association. Her 
many accomplishments won her an invitation to be inducted as a Fellow 
into the American Academy of Nursing.
  As I close these remarks, let me offer Speaker Pelosi's and my 
condolences to her wife, Marylin Dodd, Ph.D. RN, and to her extended 
family. The requirements of a public health professional likely cost 
Dr. Hughes many hours that might otherwise have been devoted to family 
and friends. In their grief they can take comfort from the reality that 
her hours were spent in heroic work, tending to the needs of those who, 
many times, had few others who would acknowledge their humanity. They 
can justifiably be proud of all that she achieved in her professional 
life.
  Dr. Hughes gave us a wonderful example of what public service can 
mean to this nation. Our nation now extends to her this 
acknowledgement, in its chronicle of the proceedings of Congress. We 
hope that other stories and facts related herein today will rise to the 
outstanding example of duty and honor demonstrated by the life of Dr. 
Hughes.

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