Margretta Styles
Margretta Madden Styles, EdD, RN, FAAN was an American nurse, author, educator and nursing school dean who conceived and helped establish national standards for certifying nurses in pediatrics, cardiology and other medical specialties. Dr. Styles was the president of the American Nurses Association from 1986 to 1988, and wrote five books and many articles published in medical journals.
Career
Styles was born in Mount Union, Pennsylvania. She graduated from Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania with degrees in biology and chemistry, and earned her master's degree in nursing at Yale University, and her doctorate in education from the University of Florida. In 1967, Styles became an associate professor of nursing at Duke University. She later served as dean of nursing at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. From 1977 through 1987, she was dean of nursing at the University of California, San Francisco.Styles played a significant role in efforts to develop stricter certification and credentialing systems for nurses. Styles wrote extensively on advanced nursing practices for nursing journals, advocating strict criteria for issuing nursing credentials. She was instrumental in the founding of the American Nurses Credentialing Center. The organization is now a major unit of the American Nurses Association and it administers testing for more than twenty specialties, helping to standardize professional expectations of nurses. Styles was elected president of the International Council of Nurses in 1993.