Elizabeth Sharp

Elizabeth Sager Sharp CNM, DrPH, FAAN, FACNM, (December 16, 1933 - February 7, 2016) was an American nurse and midwife who specialized in maternal and newborn health. In 1999, she received the American College of Nurse-Midwives' Hattie Hemschemeyer Award.[1]

Sharp started to work as a midwife at Holland City Hospital in Holland, Michigan.[2] She continued her nurse training at Yale University, graduating in 1959.[2][3] She was taught by Ernestine Wiedenbach.[2] She also worked with Ruth Lubic.[2] Sharp received a doctorate in public health from Johns Hopkins University.[2][4]

Sharp set up the Yale Young Mothers program to support teenage mothers.[3] She believed that midwifery services must include family planning.[3]

In 1970 Sharp moved to Georgia.[4] She was one of the founders of the midwife service at Grady Memorial Hospital (the Emory University Nurse-Midwifery Service).[3][4] In the 1970s Sharp set up a graduate midwifery training program, the Emory University Nurse-Midwifery Program, at Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing at Emory University.[1][3] She was also one of the founders of the Graduate School of Public Health at Emory.[1][2]

Sharp was president of the American College of Nurse-Midwives between 1973 and 1975.[3] She is said to have "the credit for [setting up] midwifery in Georgia”.[4]

After her death at the age of 82, a scholarship was set up in her name at Emory University.[3] Her role in the history of midwifery and nursing has been studied.[4][5]