Janet Gross

Health Programs

Dr. Janet Gross, DSN, RN is a Professor Emerita of Nursing from Morehead State University (MSU) in Morehead Kentucky, USA. Her academic preparation focused on adult nursing (medical-surgical), nursing education and transcultural nursing. In 2008, after over 35 years in nursing education and clinical practice she sought full retirement from the University. In recognition of her contributions to nursing education and MSU she was awarded Emerita status.

However, what started as a one year Visiting Professorship position in 2008 at University of Cape Coast, Ghana in the Department of Nursing and Midwifery led to a fulfilling second career as a nurse educator. The next seven years were spent in Ghana teaching baccalaureate and master’s students at UCC and West End University College. In 2015, given an opportunity to explore East Africa, she applied and was accepted into the Global Health Services Partnership Program of the US Peace Corps. For the next four and half years she contributed to the capacity building and sustainability of the nursing workforce in sub-Saharan Africa through her teaching in Uganda, eSwatini (formerly Swaziland) and most recently Liberia.

In December 2019 after completing her Peace Corps service, with what had become almost 50 years in nursing, Dr. Gross decided to retire once more. Yet in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, she recognized she was not quite done. Dr. Gross then served as a volunteer Nurse Educator in the master’s program in nursing/midwifery education at Mother Patern College of Health Sciences, Stella Maris Polytechnic University in Monrovia, Liberia from 2019 through 2023.

She believes that any success achieved in a person’s lifetime is best measured by those that follow. Saying that, she is deeply grateful for the relationships she has maintained with her former students and colleagues and their successes she has witnessed in the US, Ghana, Uganda, eSwatini, and Liberia.