Patricia Benner, R.N., Ph.D., F.A.A.N, F.R.C.N.

Patricia Benner is a Professor in the Departments of Social and Behavioral Sciences and Physiological Nursing in the School of Nursing at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Benner received her bachelor's degree in nursing from Pasadena College, her master's degree in medical surgical nursing from the University of California, San Francisco, and the Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in Stress and Coping and Health under the direction of Hubert Dreyfus and Richard Lazarus.

Dr. Benner is the author of nine books including From Novice to Expert, named an American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year for nursing education and nursing research in 1984, and The Primacy of Caring, co-authored with Judith Wrubel, named Book of the Year in 1990, also in two categories. She edited, Interpretive Phenomenology: Embodiment, Caring and Ethics in Health and Illness (1994). She edited with Susan Phillips, The Crisis of Care, Affirming and Restoring Caring Practices in the Health Professions, (1994) which won the Librarian Choice Book Award for 1994. Expertise in Nursing Practice: Caring, Clinical Judgment, and Ethics, (1996) was co-authored with Christine Tanner and Catherine Chesla, also named a AJN Book of the Year in 1996. She edited, Caregiving: Readings in Knowledge, Practice, Ethics, and Politics, with Suzanne Gordon and Nel Noddings, also published in 1996. Clinical Wisdom and Interventions in Critical Care: A Thinking-In-Action Approach, (1999) was co-authored with Pat Hooper-Kyriakidis and Daphne Stannard and won three AJN Book of the Year Awards in 2000. A state of the art CD-ROM entitled: Clinical Wisdom and Interventions in Critital Care: A Thinking-In-Action Approach, was produced in 2001 and won the AJN Media of the Year Award in 2002. From Novice to Expert, has been translated into twelve languages and several of her other books are in multiple translations.

Dr. Benner is an internationally noted researcher and lecturer on health, stress and coping, skill acquisition and ethics. Her work has had wide influence on nursing both in the United States and internationally. For example, clinical practice models and clinical practice programs in many hospitals in the United States and New Zealand. It provided the basis for new legislation and design for nursing practice and education for three states in Australia. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. She was elected an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Nursing. Her work has influence beyond nursing in the areas of clinical practice and clinical ethics. She has received two honorary doctorates. Ten of her doctoral students have won "Dissertation of the Year" awards at the University of California, San Francisco.

Dr. Benner has been a staff nurse in the areas of medical-surgical, emergency room, coronary care, intensive care units and home care. Currently, her research includes the study of nursing practice in intensive care units and nursing ethics. She authors the Current Controversies Column in health care ethics for the American Journal of Critical Care.