Kenneth R. White, Ph.D. (VCU ’96) traces his career back 50 years to an early patient — a Black man who was elderly, poor, and alone named Mr. Fisher.

One night, White — then a teenage nursing assistant — was ordered by a doctor to get Mr. Fisher into a chair. The man refused.

“He was cantankerous, but I usually had a way with him,” White says. With a charge nurse, White lifted Fisher out of his bed and put him in a chair. Then, they secured him with a sheet so that he wouldn’t slide out. “It’s what we did back then,” White said.

But it was not, he admits, a patient-centered or even compassionate way to care for someone.

“Tomorrow will be a better day,” White, as he was leaving his shift, told Fisher, who replied: “I won’t be here tomorrow.” White repeated himself. But on arrival the next morning, indeed, Mr. Fisher was gone. He’d died in the night.

“He gave me my passion: We have to be voices for people who don’t have a seat at the table,” says White, who shares the story with audiences often. “He gave me a passion for patient-centered care, and advocacy for advance-care planning and respecting the wishes of patients with life limiting diseases or conditions."

For all he has accomplished since, White was honored with the VCU Health Administration Lifetime Achievement & Service Award at a ceremony at the College of Health Professions on Nov. 9.

“Ken, year after year, illustrates his commitment to supporting the Health Administration department as a resource to countless students and alumni: offering advice, sharing wisdom, and finding ways for future generations to leave a lasting impact on patients and the industry,” said Paige Laughlin (MSHA ‘17), chief operating officer at HCA Florida Blake Hospital in Bradenton, Fla. and chair of the department’s alumni advisory council. “This is a much deserved recognition and the department and alumni are proud to honor him.”

White is a professor emeritus who joined VCU Health Administration in 1993, and in more ways than one: as a doctoral student, an instructor, and associate director of the graduate programs in the 1990s. From 2001 to 2008, he directed the MHA program, and is credited with reshaping the department’s curriculum to be more patient-centric and interprofessional. That meant putting students in suits alongside those in scrubs to witness patient life in hospitals, public health settings, at home, and in palliative care. And sometimes it meant putting students in scrubs to shadow residents for shifts, nurses and other care team members.

“Until then, there was nothing in the curriculum that put these young people, who in a few years were being trained to go out and make critical decisions about operations, in front of patients,” says White. “How can you comprehend life events such as new diagnoses of life-limiting illnesses, acute trauma, birth of a baby, or death and dying if you don’t witness it firsthand?”

He earned his master of public health degree in 1980 from the University of Oklahoma. After running a hospital in Guam for Mercy International Health in the early 1990s, White arrived back in the U.S. and joined VCU as a doctoral student, and soon thereafter tapped to teach. “It was always my goal to combine leadership policy, management and patient care,” he says.

While MHA director, White saw the opportunity to recruit students and move up in national recognition which would up the rankings. He led a program leadership team that began actively recruiting students to VCU — as if chasing a business deal. “We sold the place,” he says.

“I’ve spent a lot of time advising people about their lives and careers, including well known physicians and people in all life stages. It's satisfying to me to have been able to help others, and to have also derived so much satisfaction in my own two careers, healthcare management and nursing. I'm grateful for that.” 

— Kenneth R. White, PhD, AGACNP, ACHPN, FACHE, FAAN, VCU Health Administration 2023 Lifetime Achievement & Service Award recipient

They interviewed applicants, to learn about them as people. Current students met prospects at the airport. Took them to dinner. Hosted them. Wined and dined. “Student recruitment was no longer passive — it was more about selling and marketing the program,” White says. “Simply reaching out, making personal contact and following up is what it took.”

He purposefully targeted diverse students, especially those from historically Black colleges and universities, diversifying a traditionally white student body. “I went to these schools with students, set up information tables, and raised money for scholarships for students of color, first-generation college students, and those who identified as LGBTQ,” he said.

Soon, admissions grew — as did rankings. Today, VCU is ranked No. 3 in health administration programs in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. In 2006, White was named the inaugural Charles P. Cardwell, Jr., Professor of Health Administration and in 2012 the department’s first inaugural Sentara Professor. He retired from VCU in 2013 and joined the University of Virginia as its associate dean of strategic partnerships and innovation and an endowed professor of nursing. Before he left, students in the MHA Class of 2013 raised more than $26,000 to name the Kenneth R. White Scholarship in his honor.

Challenges ahead for future leaders, according to White

In an interview from his home in Boston, White touched on three challenges that lay ahead for future healthcare leaders.

• To provide care that leads to the best possible outcomes for patients and populations. “This is what good MHA programs are for. Leaders have to make sure that the structure and processes are in place, that patient-care guidelines are approved and updated, and that best-practice benchmarks and metrics are in place — in other words, what gets measured gets managed. You have to get the right people in the right jobs, and make sure people commit to continuing education, because things change rapidly. When physicians know what their outcomes are and they see how they compare to other physicians, they will change their practice. We must make sure data is available, and that evidence-based medicine and management are being practiced.”
• To solve workforce and nursing shortages. “You must create cultures that are transformational. [Management consultant] Peter Drucker said, ‘Culture eats strategy for lunch.’ Before you can have a strategy, you must have a culture where people have a sense of belonging, they like their jobs and are engaged in meaningful work. They have to feel supported. It's especially true in nursing today, because the younger generation of nurses don't stay in one place forever. If they can make $5 more an hour, they'll go somewhere else, but they will stay if the environment is conducive to their practice.”
• To improve health and healthcare equity and access. “We must pay attention to the social determinants of health, and level the playing field to ensure all people get the best care possible.”

An advocate for diversity and equity

White’s accolades and roles over the years are numerous.

He was the first man to serve as president of the American Academy of Nursing before passing the gavel this year. He is certified as a palliative care nurse practitioner, and is a fellow of both the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) and the American Academy of Nursing. He held visiting professorships at the Luiss Business School in Rome and Swiss School of Public Health, and, in addition to his time in Guam, completed consultancies in Kazakhstan, Micronesia, Palau, China, and Italy.

While White was working on Guam, he came to terms with his gay identity. “I realized on that island that I needed to come out to myself first and like who I am,” he recalls. “And it also got me in touch with the original vision for my life, which was doing something for people that don't have a voice.”

By the second semester that White joined VCU Health Administration as a doctoral student, he was asked to teach a course. As if that wasn’t enough, he also pursued bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing (executive nurse leadership) from the VCU School of Nursing, graduating in 1995 and earning a doctorate in health administration in 1996.

In 2004, White became the first openly gay member elected to the ACHE Board of Governors. He founded its LGBTQ Forum (now the LGBTQ+ Healthcare Leaders Community) and was its first president. White’s mentee, VCU assistant professor Stephan Davis, DNP, MHSA, who serves as Associate Dean for Inclusive Excellence and Belonging at both the College of Health Professions and School of Nursing, followed him in this role.

“Health administration students nationwide are still afraid to come out. I don’t mean to offend, but health administration is a conservative profession,” White says. “We've come a long way, but we have a long way to go.”

What’s next for White

Today, White lives in Boston with husband and ophthalmologist Carl Outen, MD (VCU ‘78) and serves as dean and professor of the School of Nursing at the MGH Institute of Health Professions and associate chief nurse for academic affairs at Massachusetts General Hospital. Among other writings, he has co-authored five editions of the award-winning textbook, The Well-Managed Healthcare Organization, and is hard at work on the 10th edition, due to his publisher in May.

At UVA, the Eleanor Crowder Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry now maintains the Kenneth R. White Papers, which trace his professional activities and interests from his early nursing days in 1973 to 2020, when he retired from UVA. The Center continues to receive his papers and documents, especially from his time as president of the American Academy of Nursing.

“I’ve spent a lot of time advising people about their lives and careers, including well known physicians and people in all life stages,” he says. “It's satisfying to me to have been able to help others, and to have also derived so much satisfaction in my own two careers, healthcare management and nursing. I'm grateful for that, and I thank Mr. Fisher for giving me direction for my life’s work.”