Critical Care: A New Nurse Faces Death, Life, and Everything in Between

Author Bio: Theresa Brown RN

Theresa Brown works as a clinical nurse. Her regular column appears on the New York Times opinion pages as well as on the Times Opinionator blog. She has also been a contributor to the popular Well section of that paper and writes for CNN.com and other national media. Brown received her BSN from the University of Pittsburgh and, during what she calls her past life, a PhD in English from the University of Chicago. Before becoming a nurse, she taught English at Tufts University. Today her focus is medical oncology and end-of-life issues. She lectures nationally, is a board member of the Center for Health, Media, and Policy at the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing at the City University of New York’s Hunter College. Brown was a panelist for TEDMED’s Great Challenges of Health and Medicine initiative and is also involved in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Flip the Clinic initiative and an advisory board member for Scrubs magazine. She lives with her husband and three children in Pennsylvania.