College of Nursing
Award Recipient

SERVICE AWARD

Katherine A. Brown-Saltzman, Nurs '75
Los Angeles, Calif.

Katherine has spent her career with an attention to caring — whether it was for children with cancer, hospice and palliative care patients or the clinicians she supported with innovative programs.

For Katherine, success and service are one and the same. She believes that we each thrive to the extent that we are concerned for the well-being and growth of others. It was this commitment that led her to and sustained her work as a nurse. The nursing profession’s promise of caring and restoring wholeness to the sick resonated with her own desire to be of service to others. She particularly dedicated herself to the care of the dying, perhaps the most vulnerable amongst us. That same focus steered her toward recognizing the brokenness within the professions and to address healing and resiliency in the form of a renewal program — Circle of Caring — that has served clinicians for over 27 years.

Katherine’s work in ethics is a natural extension of her clinical work. She passionately believes that excellence in patient care can only be achieved in institutions where moral insight, sensitivity and commitment flourish. She promoted this excellence by collaboratively founding the UCLA Ethics Center, developing a national clinical ethics fellowship and pioneering the National Nursing Ethics Conference. Her continuing work in ethics policy development, teaching, research and publishing speaks to her commitment to improve the future. Throughout, she has strived to balance the demands of her nursing vocation with the equally sacred work of raising a family. As she nears retirement, she looks forward to enjoying her grandchildren, honoring her creative work of writing poetry and continuing to serve others with love.

Fun facts:
Marquette faculty or staff member who had an impact: “Sister Ruth, who was my instructor in my first clinical rotation. She truly saw who I was and honored all the good in me, forgave the ineptitudes and understood that while I had faltered at times academically, that I had a vocation and gifts to bring to nursing.”

Favorite Marquette memory: “The pinning ceremony. Rituals and traditions bestow in an external way a transition. When the pin was placed on my lapel it was like being knighted – the mantle of entering into the profession took on new meaning with that gesture.”