Who is Sister Callista Roy?

Sister Callista Roy introduced the Adaptation Model that simply emphasizes that the changing environment stimulates the person to make adaptive responses that for us, human beings, life is never the same. Life constantly change and present new challenges and that the person has the ability to make new responses to these changing conditions. As the environment changes, the person has the opportunity to continue to grow, to develop and to enhance the meaning of life for everyone.

Sister Callista Roy is a prominent nurse theorist, writer, lecturer, researcher and teacher. She is a professor and Nurse Theorist at the Boston College of Nursing in Chestnut Hill. She was born in Los Angeles on October 14, 1939 as the 2nd child of Mr. and Mrs. Fabien Roy. She entered the Sisters of Saint Joseph Carondelet. She earned a Bachelor of Arts with major in Nursing form Mount St. Mary's College in Los Angeles in 1963. She earned her Master's Degree in Pediatric Nursing from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1966. She also earned a Masters Degree and PhD in Sociology in 1973 and 1977 respectively. She had significant opportunity of working with Dorothy E. Johnson. Johnson's work with focusing knowledge for the discipline of nursing convinced Sr. Callista Roy of the importance of describing the nature of nursing as a service to society and prompted her to begin developing her model with the goal of nursing being to promote adaptation. She joined the faculty of Mount St. Mary's College in 1966, teaching both pediatric and maternity nursing. She organized course content according to a view of person and family as adaptive systems. She introduced her ideas about "Adaptation Nursing" as the basis for an integral nursing curriculum. The goal of nursing is to direct education, practice and research. His model is the basis of curriculum impetus for growth at Mount St. Mary's College. In 1970, her model was implemented in the school and in 1971, she was made the chair of the Nursing Department at the College as well.