'Edie' West has over twenty years of Medical-Surgical Nursing experience and has been a Nurse Educator for the past nine years. She is currently working on a Research PhD in Nursing at the University of Wales Bangor in the United Kingdom. She spent a year in Wales to start her studies and completed her coursework at that time. She also had a unique opportunity to teach Welsh and English nursing students about the U.S. Health Care System and Nurse Education in the U.S. and Canada while overseas. She is presently working on the research portion of her PhD in a part time, distance education capacity. The title of her dissertation is: An Historical Analysis of the Frontier Nursing Service: The Early Years (1925-1950). The study includes oral history interviews of former British and American FNS Nurses and explored issues of recruitment, retention, public image and work environment that have negatively impacted nursing throughout history and continues to create nursing shortages today.