Nursing Ethics and Professional Responsibility in Advanced Practice

Pamela Grace, PhD, APRN-Associate Professor, Connell School of Nursing, Boston College, Boston, Massachusetts

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.