Katherine Brown-Saltzman, MA, BSN, RN, is the former co-director and a co-founder of the UCLA Health’s Ethics Center.  Katherine’s work in ethics is a natural extension of her clinical practice which began in pediatric oncology and then focused on end-of-life care as a Palliative Care CNS.  In 2004, as a member of three ethics committees and co-chairing the UCLA Medical Center’s Ethics Committee, she co-founded the UCLA Health Ethics Center which led to a robust clinical ethics consultation service and a clinical ethics fellowship.  She has been a co-investigator in ethics grants from AACN, ONS, Sigma Theta, was part of an NIH grant developing end-of-life education for medical students, as well as a PCORI grant on advocacy.  Her most recent area of research centered on clinical ethics.

She has been active in developing interdisciplinary programs on sustaining self-care, addressing moral distress, and ethics education.  The Circle of Caring, which she created served health care clinicians for 27 years through a bi-annual experiential three-day program on self-care.  Katherine co-founded and has been president of Ethics of Caring, a non-profit that has provided annual ethics conferences for over thirty years, now known as the National Nursing Ethics Conference, she continues co-chairing the annual conference.  She lectures nationally and internationally, has developed ethics and end of life care policies, and has published on such diverse topics as, ethics, professional self-care, end-of-life care, bereavement, spirituality, psychosocial care, guided imagery, cultural issues, and nursing leadership.  Her first publication, “Tending the Spirit” came when she was recipient of the ONS Mara Mogensen Flaherty Memorial Lectureship Award in 1994.

In her retirement, she continues to serve as president of Ethics of Caring, co-chairing NNEC, and is a lecturer for the UCLA School of Nursing’s DNP Program, while enjoying visits with her grandchildren, gardening, and poetry writing.