Nurses were also participating in the dialogue. Most notable was Irene Mortenson Burnside, PhD, RN, FAAN, a geropsychiatric nurse and author of one of the first textbooks on geriatric nursing, Psychosocial Nursing Care of the Aged, published in 1973. Burnside, who died in 2003, is credited with helping to make geriatric nursing a nursing specialty. She wrote and spoke extensively, believing that, “the psychosocial care of the elderly in the United States needs improvement