The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) has honored nurse and bioethicist Cynda Hylton Rushton, PhD, RN, FAAN, with its 2022 Marguerite Rodgers Kinney Award for a Distinguished Career.
Rushton receives the award for her exceptional contributions that enhance the care of critically ill patients and their families and the nurses who care for them, and further AACN’s mission and vision. The presentation will occur during the 2022 National Teaching Institute & Critical Care Exposition in Houston, May 16-18. 
An international leader in bioethics and nursing, Rushton is the Anne and George L. Bunting Professor of Clinical Ethics at the Johns Hopkins University Berman Institute of Bioethics and the JHU School of Nursing. She co-chairs Johns Hopkins Hospital’s Ethics Committee and Consultation Service. A founding member of the Berman Institute, she co-led the first National Nursing Ethics Summit that produced a Blueprint for 21st Century Nursing Ethics.
In 2016, she co-led a national collaborative, State of the Science Initiative: Transforming Moral Distress into Moral Resilience in Nursing and co-chaired the American Nurses Association’s professional issues panel that created “A Call to Action: Exploring Moral Resilience Toward a Culture of Ethical Practice.” She was a member of the National Academies of Medicine, Science and Engineering Committee that produced the report “Taking Action Against Clinician Burnout: A Systems Approach to Professional Well-Being.”
“Dr. Rushton is an internationally recognized leader in nursing ethics, moral resilience and workforce issues and a longtime contributor to groundbreaking work on these topics,” said AACN President Beth Wathen. “Her work has influenced nursing practice, health policy and patient care.”
A member of AACN since 1979, Rushton is a frequent presenter at NTI and regularly contributes to AACN’s clinical journals.
She is a member of the American Nurses Association’s Center for Ethics and Human Rights Ethics Advisory Board and the American Nurses Foundation’s Well-Being Initiative Advisory Board.
Rushton is the chief synergy strategist for Maryland’s R3 Resilient Nurses Initiative, a statewide initiative to build resilience and ethical practice in nursing students and novice nurses.
She is a fellow of the Hastings Center bioethics research institute, chair of the Hastings Center Fellows Council and a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.
She is the editor and author of “Moral Resilience: Transforming Moral Suffering in Healthcare,” the first book to explore the emerging concept of moral resilience from a variety of perspectives including nursing, bioethics, philosophy, psychology, neuroscience and contemplative practice.
She earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing at the University of Kentucky, followed by a master’s degree in nursing at the Medical University of South Carolina and a PhD from Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
About the Marguerite Rodgers Kinney Award: Established in 1997 and named for an AACN past president, the Marguerite Rodgers Kinney Award for a Distinguished Career recognizes extraordinary and distinguished professional contributions that further AACN’s mission and vision of a healthcare system driven by the needs of patients and their families where acute and critical care nurses make their optimal contribution. Recipients of this Visionary Leadership Award receive a $1,000 gift to the charity of their choice and a crystal replica of the presidential “Vision” icon. Other Visionary Leadership awards, AACN’s highest honor, include the Lifetime Membership Award and the AACN Pioneering Spirit Award.
- Anxiety Sensitivity Affects Patients’ Care, Recovery - December 29, 2023
- CSI Academy Teams to Focus on Implementing HWE Standards - December 22, 2023
- POCUS Provides ICU Clinicians Clear Benefits - December 5, 2023