UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Nursing students and leaders gathered in March at the Penn Stater Conference Center and Hotel for the inaugural Gail E. Latimer, RN Nursing Leadership Lecture, which addressed artificial intelligence in healthcare. The lecture was delivered by Grace Sun, assistant dean of APRN Programs at the University of Texas at Tyler.
The lecture was endowed by Gail E. Latimer, a Penn State Distinguished Alumna and former hospital chief executive officer with more than 35 years of healthcare leadership experience.
“Gail Latimer is a leader our students can look to and learn from, with a career spanning practice, administration, technology, mentorship and philanthropy,” said Laurie A. Badzek, dean of the Ross and Carol Nese College of Nursing. “We are deeply grateful for her generosity in creating a lecture that will inspire future generations of Penn State nurse leaders.”
Latimer began her career in direct care and went on to hold roles including head nurse, director of nursing, chief nursing officer and chief executive officer. Latimer served as vice president and chief nursing officer of Siemens Healthcare where she was an integral member of Siemens global senior leadership team, working closely with clinical product developers, consultants, customers, industry experts and industry advisory groups to help drive the successful use of Siemens clinical IT solutions across the world. For 13 years at Siemens, Latimer provided the strategic vision for Siemens clinical product development.
A former board member of the American Organization of Nurse Executives (AONE), now the American Organization for Nursing Leadership, Latimer also chaired the AONE Foundation board and served as president of the Pennsylvania Organization of Nurse Leaders. In 2019, she received AONE’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Latimer is a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives and the American Academy of Nursing, and she completed the Johnson & Johnson/Wharton Fellows Program in Management for Nurse Executives at the University of Pennsylvania. In her retirement, Latimer enjoys golf, volunteering and time with her family and friends.
At Penn State, Latimer has remained a dedicated volunteer and supporter of the college. She served as chair of the Dean’s Advisory and Development Council from 2014 to 2022 and currently serves as chair of the college’s Campaign Leaders Group. She is a lifetime member of the Penn State Alumni Association and holds an adjunct faculty appointment in the Ross and Carol Nese College of Nursing.
Latimer received the college’s Shirley Novosel Distinguished Nursing Alumni Award in 2006, the Penn State Alumni Fellow Award in 2009 and the University’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 2019. The Gail E. Latimer Trustee Scholarship in the College of Nursing was established in 2014.
Sun, a family nurse practitioner since 2004, a first-generation immigrant and an alumna of the University of California, Berkeley, and Johns Hopkins University, is a nationally recognized voice in artificial intelligence and nursing education who has presented before the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine. Her presentation, “The Future Is Now: Preparing Leaders for an AI-Driven World,” challenged attendees to consider artificial intelligence’s expanding role in health care.
In her lecture, Sun described AI as a force with the potential to transform health care delivery while also carrying risks. She cautioned against over-reliance on AI outputs, emphasizing that machines can process patterns and generate recommendations at scale but cannot replicate the ethical reasoning, situational awareness and moral courage that define nursing practice.
“AI is not an oracle,” Sun told the audience. “It is a mirror. It reflects the data we feed it, the questions we ask it, the values — or the lack of values — we embed into it.”
Sun introduced a leadership framework organized around the WE LEAD acronym: Learn continuously; Evaluate impact; Assume accountability; Decide with humanity. She urged nurses at every level to become AI literate, engage in institutional governance decisions around AI, and foster a culture of curiosity, responsibility and adaptability.
“The truth is, as nurses, we’re all going to be working alongside with AI, whether we realize it or not, and whether we want to or not,” Sun said. “The question isn’t whether you’re going to be working with it. The question is, are you going to be prepared to critically engage with it, to really know how to discern, to ask the right questions?”
To view photos from the event, visit the college’s Flickr site.
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