Julia Dempsey (14 May 1856 – 29 March 1939), better known as Sister Mary Joseph, was an American

religious sister A religious sister (abbreviated: Sr.) in the Catholic Church is a woman who has taken public vows in a religious institute dedicated to apostolic works, as distinguished from a nun who lives a cloistered monastic life dedicated to prayer and ...

nurse Nursing is a health care profession that "integrates the art and science of caring and focuses on the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and human functioning; prevention of illness and injury; facilitation of healing; and alle ...

and hospital administrator.

Life and work

Julia Dempsey was born in

Salamanca, New York Salamanca ( Seneca: ''Onë'dagö:h'') is a city in Cattaraugus County, New York, United States, inside the Allegany Indian Reservation, one of two governed by the Seneca Nation of New York. The population was 5,929 at the 2020 census. It was n ...

on 14 May 1856, one of six children in her family. They moved to

Rochester, Minnesota Rochester is a city in Olmsted County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. It is located along rolling bluffs on the Zumbro River's south fork in Southeast Minnesota. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a popul ...

when Julia was a child. She took her vows as a member of the

Sisters of Saint Francis of Rochester, Minnesota The Sisters of Saint Francis of Rochester, Minnesota is a Roman Catholic religious congregation for women. The congregation was founded in 1877 by Mother Mary Alfred Moes in the Diocese of St. Paul of Minnesota. The motherhouse, which is in Roche ...

in 1878 and the order trained her as a teacher during her

novitiate The novitiate, also called the noviciate, is the period of training and preparation that a Christian ''novice'' (or ''prospective'') monastic, apostolic, or member of a religious order undergoes prior to taking vows in order to discern whether ...

. Dempsey took the name of Sister Mary Joseph and taught for a dozen years before she returned to Rochester to help staff the newly built Saint Marys Hospital in 1890. Sister Mary Joseph was trained by the only experienced nurse in the city and became the hospital's head nurse and

surgical assistant An assistant surgeon, also known as a surgical assistant, surgeon's assistant, assistant in surgery or first assistant, is a healthcare professional who provides direct manual and/or instrumental assistance to meet the in-procedure demands of a su ...

to Dr. William J. Mayo, one of the Mayo brothers that founded the

Mayo Clinic Mayo Clinic () is a Nonprofit organization, private American Academic health science centre, academic Medical centers in the United States, medical center focused on integrated health care, healthcare, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science ...

. "Even without formal training, she was an excellent nurse, according to Mayo. He noted that her surgical judgment was equal to that of any medical man and that she ranked first among all of his assistants."Ogilvie & Harvey, p. 703 Sister Mary Joseph remained his assistant until 1915. She became superintendent of the hospital in 1892 and remained in that role until 1939. She founded Saint Mary’s Hospital Training School for Nurses in 1906 to help alleviate a shortage of nurses. She died on 29 March 1939 at Saint Mary's Hospital. The

eponymous An eponym is a noun after which or for which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. Adjectives derived from the word ''eponym'' include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''. Eponyms are commonly used for time periods, places, innovati ...

phenomenon known as the Sister Mary Joseph nodule refers to a palpable nodule bulging into the

umbilicus Umbilicus may refer to: *The navel or belly button *Umbilicus (mollusc), a feature of gastropod, Nautilus and Ammonite shell anatomy *Umbilicus (plant), ''Umbilicus'' (plant), a genus of over ninety species of perennial flowering plants *Umbilicus ...

as a result of

metastasis Metastasis is a pathogenic agent's spreading from an initial or primary site to a different or secondary site within the host's body; the term is typically used when referring to metastasis by a cancerous tumor. The newly pathological sites, ...

of a malignant cancer in the

pelvis The pelvis (: pelves or pelvises) is the lower part of an Anatomy, anatomical Trunk (anatomy), trunk, between the human abdomen, abdomen and the thighs (sometimes also called pelvic region), together with its embedded skeleton (sometimes also c ...

abdomen The abdomen (colloquially called the gut, belly, tummy, midriff, tucky, or stomach) is the front part of the torso between the thorax (chest) and pelvis in humans and in other vertebrates. The area occupied by the abdomen is called the abdominal ...

. She pointed Mayo's attention to the bulge, and he published an article about it in 1928, although the actual term was not coined until 1949 by Hamilton Bailey.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dempsey, Julia 1856 births 1939 deaths University of Breslau alumni American nurses American women nurses 20th-century American Roman Catholic nuns 19th-century American Roman Catholic nuns Mayo Clinic people

Life and work

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