Innovations in End-of-Life Care
an international journal of leaders in end-of-life care

Dr. Rushton is Assistant Professor of Nursing and Faculty of the Bioethics Institute, The Johns Hopkins University, and Clinical Nurse Specialist in Ethics at The Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore, Maryland. She served as Nurse Ethicist at the Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. until 1996.

Dr. Rushton has held a variety of clinical positions specializing in pediatrics and neonatal care, and is involved in several professional organizations. She has served as President and past-President of the Association for the Care of Children's Health, was a member of the Ethics Integration Work Group for the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, and sat on the board of directors of the American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics. She worked on the development of standards for bioethics consultation as a member of the Bioethics Consultation Task Force of the Society for Health and Human Values/Society for Bioethics, and served on the ANA Task Force on the nurse's role in end-of-life decisions and on the Maryland Nurses Association Council on Ethics and Human Rights. From 1996-1999, Dr. Rushton was a member of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Last Acts Campaign Provider Education Task Force. She has published articles in numerous professional journals, been featured in several educational videos on end-of-life care issues, and from 1993-1996 was the editor of the "Dialogues in Ethics and Law" column for Pediatric Nursing.

Dr. Rushton earned her Doctorate in nursing at the Catholic University of America with a concentration in bioethics, her Master's of Science in Nursing with specialization as a pediatric clinical nurse specialist from the Medical University of South Carolina, and her undergraduate degree in nursing at the University of Kentucky. In 1990, Dr. Rushton was awarded the National Nurse of the Year by the ANA Council on Maternal Child Nursing and March of Dimes, and that same year was inducted as a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing. In 1999, she was selected to be a Kornfeld Fellow in end-of-life ethics and palliative care, with a focus on pediatric palliative care.

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