Christiane Reimann

International Council of Nurses First Full Time Executive Secretary (1887 to 1979) The prestigious Christiane Reimann Prize, which has been awarded to just a very few achievers in the nursing field yet, was named after her. Christiane Reimann was a Danish born woman who received her nursing degree at the Copenhagens Bispebjerg Hospital in 1916. And in 1925, only 9 years later, she became the very first paid full time executive secretary of the International Council of Nurses. Christiane Reimann was an accomplished nurse, who unselfishly tapped from her own funds to further ICNs goals. Not only did she generously shared monetary funds to the ICN, but also served as the brain behind many key ICN programs, among which is the councils official journal International Nursing Review. Reimann also spent her energy travelling the world to seek more national nurses associations to join the international council, and enable the principles of ICN to be integrated in nursing practice in different countries. The fruitages of her efforts were priceless. It stimulated many of the countries she visited to establish educational programs for nurses. Others having no NNA yet, like China, were motivated to build their own. Reiman served as ICNs executive secretary until 1934, and spent the rest of her years in this world living a much simpler life at her farm in Syracuse, Italy. And on 1979, Christiane Reimann faced death at the age of 92.