Martha A.Q. Curley, RN, PHD, FAAN
Dr. Martha A.Q. Curley’s passion for the practice of pediatric critical care nursing centers her research. Her studies have evolved from describing patterns of weaning from mechanical ventilation in young children recovering from acute hypoxemic respiratory failure to interventional studies that concentrate on how to best care for this vulnerable patient group. Her research, funded by NINR, NHLB and NICHD, has specifically focused on nurse-implemented interventions including prone versus supine patient positioning, endotracheal extubation readiness testing, and goal-directed sedation management. Dr. Curley’s research has set standards of care for critically-ill pediatric patients, has provided better tools to measure important phenomena of concern in pediatrics, and has illuminated relationship-based care when partnering with parents-of-critically-ill children. As importantly, she has carved out the disciplinary and interprofessional role of nurse scientist in clinical care and has successfully mentored many clinicians in research methods at numerous Children’s Hospitals.
Over the past decade, Dr. Curley has developed and disseminated core metrics in the field of pediatrics. Available in at least six languages, the Braden Q scale predicts pediatric pressure ulcer risk. The State Behavioral Scale (SBS) is a sedation assessment instrument for infants and young children supported on mechanical ventilation. The Withdrawal Assessment Tool – version 1 (WAT-1) instrument describes opioid and benzodiazepine withdrawal symptoms in acutely-ill infants and children. The Individualized Numeric Rating Scale (INRS) is a pain assessment instrument for nonverbal children with profound intellectual disability.
Building upon her earlier research on the mutual participation model of care, Dr Curley has now completed a longitudinal study that evaluated a major change in clinical practice: that of providing parents the option to be present during their child’s invasive procedures and/or resuscitations. The project has pioneered the development, implementation, and evaluation of a major policy change that now includes a parent-liaison role. This research also decreased variation in clinician practice, helped multidisciplinary staffs feel better prepared to provide parents more options during stressful events and allowed parents to feel well-cared-for during these tragic events.
Dr. Curley received her diploma in nursing from Baystate Medical Center School of Nursing, her BSN from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, her MSN in acute care pediatrics from Yale School of Nursing and her PhD from Boston College. She is a Professor and the Killebrew-Censits Term Chair in the School of Nursing with a joint appointment in Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Curley is also a Nurse Scientist at Children’s Hospital in Boston.
J. Randall Curtis, MD, MPH, FCCP
Dr. J. Randall Curtis is Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington and Section Head for Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Harborview Medical Center. His research focuses on improving palliative and end-of-life care for patients with critical illness and their families and improving communication about end-of-life care for patients with chronic and life-limiting illnesses including COPD, heart failure, AIDS, and cancer. He has had over 15 years of continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health and is currently Principal Investigator for 3 grants from the National Institutes of Health including two R01 Awards and a K24 Award. The majority of his research funding has been from NINR. He has been a member of the National Advisory Council for Nursing Research (2006 -2010). He has authored more than 150 peer-reviewed research articles and more than 100 editorials and chapters. He has been the recipient of several awards in this area including the Roger C. Bone Award for Advances End-of-life Care from the American College of Chest Physicians and the Grenvik Family Award for Ethics from the Society of Critical Care Medicine. He served as the President of the American Thoracic Society in 2009-2010.
Kathleen Dracup, RN, DNSc, FNP, FAAN
Dr. Kathleen Dracup is a distinguished nurse clinician, educator, leader, and researcher. Her professional career includes 35 years of experience in cardiovascular nursing and university professorships. She is currently a professor at the University of California, San Francisco where she served as dean from 2000 to 2010. She is recognized internationally for her investigation in the care of patients with heart disease and its effects on spouses and other family members. She has tested a variety of interventions designed to reduce the emotional distress experienced by cardiac patients and their family members, as well as to reduce morbidity and mortality from sudden cardiac death. She has published her research in more than 300 articles, chapters, and books.
She served as the editor of Heart & Lung for over a decade and as co-editor of the American Journal of Critical Care for 16 years. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and the American Heart Association Council of Cardiovascular Nursing. She was a Fulbright Senior Scholar to Australia and is a member of the Institute of Medicine. She has received numerous awards including the outstanding teaching award at UCLA School of Nursing on four different occasions and the American Heart Association's Eugene Braunwald Award for Academic Mentorship in 2003.
Sandra B. Dunbar, RN, DSN,
FAAN, FAHA
Dr. Sandra Dunbar is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Cardiovascular Nursing and Associate Dean for Academic Advancement at Emory University School of Nursing. She has been a member of the faculty in the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing since 1988. She is a cardiovascular nurse researcher and educator whose program of research focuses on self management and psychosocial responses to serious cardiac illness. NIH funded studies of CV patient and family responses have led to the development and testing of interventions to improve both physical and psychosocial outcomes. Dr. Dunbar’s current work is focused on testing integrated self care approaches for persons with heart failure (HF) and diabetes, and testing an intervention to improve outcomes for HF family caregivers. She recently completed an NINR funded study testing a family focused intervention to improve self care by patients with chronic heart failure and a clinical trial of a psychoeducational intervention to improve outcomes (depression, anxiety, functional status) of high risk arrhythmia patients treated with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). She was a co-investigator in an NHLBI funded partnership between Emory and Morehouse Universities to reduce cardiovascular health disparities.
Dr. Dunbar is also an active volunteer for the American Heart Association‘s Council of Cardiovascular Nursing, and is served as the Chair for the Council 2009-11. She was a former President of the American Association of Critical Care Nurses, and is a member of the editorial board of several major nursing journals including Heart and Lung and Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nurses and the American Heart Association, and has received the prestigious Katherine A. Lembright award from the American Heart Association for her contributions to cardiovascular nursing research. She has also received awards from the Georgia Nurses Association, American Association of Critical Care Nurses, Southern Nurses Research Society, and the Council for the Advancement of Nursing Science.
Marjana Tomic-Canic, RN PhD
Marjana Tomic-Canic is a Professor of Dermatology at the Department of Dermatology & Cutaneous Surgery at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, and a member of UM PIBS Graduate Faculty of Human Genetics & Genomics and Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology Programs. In addition, she is the Director of Wound Healing and Regenerative Medicine Research Program. Trained as pediatric nurse in a burn unit Dr. Tomic-Canic brings unique perspective to basic science research of wound healing and skin disease. She received her doctoral and postdoctoral training at the NYU School of Medicine and joined the faculty of NYU Departments of Dermatology and Microbiology. Her research interests since her graduate work was on molecular and cell biology of skin with main focus on wound healing. As a faculty member of the Weill Medical College of the Cornell University she directed Tissue Repair Program at the Department of Tissue Engineering, Repair and Regeneration of Hospital for Special Surgery.
She has been continuously funded by NIH for more than 10 years. She received funding from NINR, NIAMS and NIDDK. In addition, she has received research support from American Diabetes Association as well as National Pressure Ulcer and Dermatology Foundations and industry-sponsored research grants.
The current research focus of Dr. Tomic-Canic is molecular and cellular mechanisms of wound healing and its inhibition with the long-term goal to bring bench-side research back to patients at the bedside. Her research includes human and diabetic models of wound healing, wound genomics analyses, generating primary cells from patients’ wound biopsies, local sustained gene delivery, cellular assays of wound healing, and histology and immunohistochemistry of skin. Dr. Tomic-Canic and her colleagues, supported in part by NINR, made several fundamental discoveries in the field of wound healing research. These discoveries include identification of the one of the first genes and unique molecular pathway that stops wounds from healing; a novel molecular mechanism though which corticosteroids inhibit wound healing; biomarkers that can guide the extent surgical debridement; establishment of human wound tissue/cell bank; new drugs that accelerate healing.
Dr. Tomic-Canic has an established track record of successfully bringing basic science discovery to clinical use for wound patients. Her lab has identified molecular markers that may predict clinical outcome of non-healing and guide surgical debridement of chronic ulcers, which are currently being validated in an NIH-sponsored clinical trial. Dr. Tomic-Canic devotes significant time to training and teaching. Her trainees range from high school students to junior faculty and show a great track record of success in their career paths.
In addition to her research and academic activities, Dr. Tomic-Canic is an active member and established leader in the wound healing and skin biology community. She is a member of many professional societies including Society of Investigative Dermatology (SID), Association of Advanced Wound Care (AAWC), American Diabetes Association (ADA), New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS), American Association of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (AABMB) amd American Association of Advancement of science (AAAS). She is a member of Wound Healing Society since 2000 and has been a very active member serving in multiple committees. This year she was elected to the Board of Directors of the WHS and served as a Co-Chair of the Program Committee in charge of 21st WHS Meeting. In addition to participating in review panels of various NIH study sections, she has participated in national scientific and clinical panels discussing the immense need for translational research areas to improve clinical outcomes of wound healing. Also, she is a member of the Editorial Board of Journal of Biological Chemistry and Associate Editor of the Journal of Investigative Dermatology.
