March 23, 2001

Jeanette Ives Erickson, RN, MS, senior vice president for MGH Patient Care Services and chief nurse, is in good company with the likes of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, NBC News anchor Jane Pauley and actress/singer Florence Henderson, to name just a few. Ives Erickson, along with these famous women, is featured in a new book called "How Jane Won: 55 Successful Women Share How They Grew From Ordinary Girls to Extraordinary Women." The book, by child psychologist Sylvia Rimm, PhD, is a companion to Rimm's best seller "See Jane Win," which offered advice on raising successful daughters.

Through autobiographical profiles of prominent women, "How Jane Won" reveals the qualities that have helped them triumph in the arts, business, politics, news and medicine.

Ives Erickson says in the book that she became successful professionally by surrounding herself with strong women, such as her mother, her aunts and several career mentors. "I've balanced the patient care side of nursing with the business side," she explains, "and I've learned to do that from the strong women who were my role models."