Johns Hopkins awards Professor Marie Nolan

Marie Nolan, PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN, professor and executivevice dean for the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing (JHSON), received theDistinguished Career Achievement Award from the Hospice and Palliative NursesAssociation. The award celebrates Nolan’s major contributions to research,theory and education in nursing and interdisciplinary palliative care.

“I am deeply honored to be recognized with this award inpalliative and end-of-life care,” says Nolan. “It has been a great privilege asa nurse to care for patients and their families at the end life. As aresearcher, I’ve learned from patients and families about how we can best servethem at such important times in their lives.”

Nolan has contributed significant research to understandingpatient and family decision making in the face of critical illness. Herresearch has revealed that instead of the autonomous decision-making modelprevalent in clinical practice and health care policy, most critically illpatients preferred share decision making about treatments and care at the endof life with their family and physician. It was also discovered that thosepreferences remained the same over time, even as functional health declined.Her research has been conducted with members of an interprofessional researchteam including Mark Hughes and Peter Terry (Johns Hopkins School of Medicine);Richard Thompson, Gayane Yenokyan and Joseph Gallo (Johns Hopkins BloombergSchool of Public Health); Daniel Sulmasy (Georgetown University Center forBioethics and School of Medicine); Alan Astrow (Cornell University MedicalCollege); and Joan Kub and Martha Abshire (JHSON).

Within her most recent work, Nolan has continued to studythe decision-making process through end of life and remained a tremendousadvocate for advancing palliative care.

At JHSON, Nolan has served as director of the PhD program,chair of the department of acute and chronic care, associate dean for academicaffairs, and the school’s executive vice dean and a professor with jointappointment at the Johns Hopkins University Berman Institute of Bioethics. Shewas director of the first nursing doctoral program in China to graduate nurseswith a PhD through JHSON’s collaboration with the Peking Union Medical Collegein Beijing, funded by the China Medical Board.

Nolan’s career is decorated with honors and awards includingserving as past-president of the International Network for Doctoral Educationin Nursing, earning the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Excellence Awardfrom the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, being named a Fellow inthe American Academy of Nursing, and being inducted into the Sigma Theta TauInternational Nurse Researcher Hall of Fame.

“Dr. Nolan embodies the kind of nurse who breaks downbarriers between patients and providers and so skillfully demonstrates what itmeans to represent the patient at the end of life,” says JHSON Dean PatriciaDavidson, PhD, MEd, RN, FAAN. “Congratulations to her on this fantastic careerachievement.”