Nursing Ethics and Professional Responsibility in Advanced Practice

About Melissa K. UvegesPamela J. Grace

Pamela Grace is an experienced critical care nurse and a primary care nurse practitioner. She received her initial nursing training at Walton Hospital School of Nursing Liverpool U.K. in 1972 and after moving to the U.S. eventually completed BSN and MSN degrees at West Virginia University.' Frustration at ongoing problems faced by nurses at all levels of practice led her to undertake doctoral studies in philosophy at the University of Tennessee Knoxville where an additional concentration in medical ethics was possible.'She received a PhD in Philosophy in 1998.' She also completed a research fellowship in medical ethics at Harvard University's School of Social Medicine in 2001 and received a Fullbright Senior Scholarship grant in 2003 to Lecture and Research in Denmark. Her research interests include professional'ethics nursing ethics moral decision making justice in healthcare and ethical healthcare delivery systems. She is also a nurse scientist at the Munn Center for Nursing Research at Massachusetts General Hospital and a member of Beacon Hospice's Ethics Committee. A nurse educator for the past 18 years she currently teaches both adult health nursing and ethics across the undergraduate and graduate nursing curricula at Boston College's William F. Connell School of Nursing. Melissa K. Uveges Ph.D. M.A.R. RN is an assistant professor at the William F. Connell School of Nursing where her research and work focus on improving the care of children and relatives with heritable genetic conditions. Dr. Uveges has worked as a registered nurse in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at several academic teaching hospitals most recently at Johns Hopkins Childrens Center in Baltimore MD. She also served as a bioethics consultant at Montefiore Medical Center (Bronx NY) and has served on hospital ethics committees and working groups at Advent Health Orlando (FL) Yale-New Haven Hospital (CT) and Johns Hopkins Hospital (MD). She is a current member of Boston Childrens Hospital Ethics Advisory Committee. Dr. Uveges is a member of the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) a national organization that promotes work in clinical and academic bioethics and the health-related humanities.