Cynda Hylton Rushton, Ph.D., R.N., is Associate Professor of Nursing, Johns Hopkins University, and Clinical Nurse Specialist in Ethics and Program Director of the Harriet Lane Compassionate Care Program at The Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore, MD. She received her M.S.N. from the Medical University of South Carolina and completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Kentucky. She received a doctorate in Nursing at Catholic University of America with a concentration in bioethics. Dr. Rushton has authored articles in a variety of journals, was the editor of the "Dialogues in Ethics and Law" column for Pediatric Nursing 1993-1996, is involved in research, and speaks internationally. Clinical and research interests include ethical issues in clinical practice, particularly end of life decision making and pediatrics, ethics education and consultation, and on the unique ethical issues that arise in nursing practice. She has received several awards including the 1990 National Nurse of the Year by the ANA Council on Maternal Child Nursing and the March of Dimes. In 1990, she was inducted as a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing. In 1999 she was selected from a national competition as a Kornfeld Fellow in end-of-life, ethics and palliative care. The fellowship, funded by the Emily Davie and Joseph S. Kornfeld Foundation, focused on pediatric palliative care. She is the principle investigator of a “Nursing Leadership Consortium on End of Life Care” and “A National Nursing Academy on End-of-Life Care” funded by the Open Society Institute through its Project on Death in America. She has served as a consultant to a variety of national projects focusing on end-of-life care. As a member of the American Nurses Association, she served on the ANA Task Force on the nurse’s role in end of life decisions and currently is co-chair of the American Association of Critical Care Nurses Ethics Work Group. In 2001 she received the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses Pioneering Spirit Award for her work in advancing palliative care across the life-span. In 2002 she was appointed by Maryland’s governor to Chair a State Council on Quality Care at the End-of-Life. More recently, Dr. Rushton was one of 20 nurses nationwide selected as a “2006 Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse Fellow” as part of a three-year, high-level leadership development program. |
