This research utilized a great person framework integrated with social history. Although the use of biography has lost some of its appeal, its use was appropriate for meeting the aims of this study. Inclusion of the social perspective strengthened the use of biography and enriched the analysis.

Magaw expanded the role of clinical nurse anesthetist to include teaching, mentorship, authorship and research. Magaw is a nurse missing from history, lost through time and the politics of nursing, medicine and anesthesia. At a time when anesthesia was feared more than the surgery itself, Magaw demonstrated that integrating nursing principles into the process of anesthesia could minimize patient fears and enhance the safety of anesthesia. Magaw’s tutelage was sought by physicians as well as nurses. A hundred years before the term ‘evidence-based practice’ was coined, Magaw published anesthesia outcomes in medical journals and presented her data before medical societies. She also earned an international reputation for the delivery of 14,000 anesthetics without an anesthesia-related death. This research revealed that Magaw’s clinical teachings rippled from coast to coast and her practice blurred established professional boundaries between nursing and medicine. Magaw was a catalyst for the development of the first advanced practice nursing: anesthesia. Dr. Charles H. Mayo bestowed upon Magaw the title of “The Mother of Anesthesia.”