Marilyn A. Davies, School of Nursing faculty member and former administrator at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic (WPIC), died Feb. 8, 2019.
School of Nursing Dean Jacqueline Dunbar-Jacob recalled Davies’ dozen years with the school, beginning in 2006, where Davies taught psychiatric mental health nursing and other graduate courses, including core courses: “She was also a fabulous colleague, willing to help a fellow faculty member out, such as grading papers. She was a regular presence.
“Unfortunately, Marilyn’s long-standing management of her cancer interfered with her ability to continue the research she began when she started with us,” Dunbar-Jacob said. However, Davies was able to re-direct her enthusiasm to teaching, becoming involved early in the school’s online education program, where she became a regular instructor.
“She was very devoted, very thorough in her preparation and delivery of her courses,” the dean recalled. “Students said they learned a lot from her.”
Davies “was a very devoted wife and mother,” Dunbar-Jacob added. “Her family was always a priority to her. Marilyn certainly talked very proudly about her kids across the years.”
Davies earned all her degrees from Pitt: a BSN in 1970; an MSN in psychiatric mental health nursing in 1977; and a Ph.D .from the Graduate School of Public Health in psychiatric epidemiology in 1985.
She began her nursing career as a staff nurse at Magee-Womens Hospital (1970-1971), moving next to St. Francis General Hospital School of Nursing, where she was a clinical instructor in psychiatric nursing (1971-1973), then to Altoona Hospital Community Mental Health Center as assistant coordinator of intensive care (1973-1974), finally joining Pitt’s School of Nursing for an initial stint as clinical instructor (1976-1978). She quickly became senior administrator for the schizophrenia module at WPIC (1978-1988), during which time she was also an instructor in psychiatry and epidemiology.
In 1989, Davies moved to University Hospitals of Cleveland as vice president of psychiatry services, and became assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University in 1994 and chief of the family study section of the Department of Psychiatry there the next year.
She returned to Pitt in 2006 as assistant professor in nursing’s Department of Health and Community Systems, where she finished her career.
Davies was the co-author of the book “Rape: Nursing Care of Victims” (1983) and of book chapters in volumes about the study of adolescents with schizophrenia and other topics. She was principal investigator in many studies involving hypertension in adults, atypical antipsychotic drugs, providing health information to young children and their caregivers and the treatment of schizophrenia, and was widely published in research journals.
She is survived by her husband Bill; children William (Kathleen) and Ashley Clements (Benjamin); grandchildren Emma and Patrick Davies; and siblings Diane Weil and Robert, Jim and Jack Brickner. Memorial contributions are suggested to the Dr. Marilyn A. Davies Memorial Scholarship.