Internationally Known Author, Nursing Researcher to Present 2008 Bullough Lecture

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Patricia E. Benner, Ph.D., an internationally known nurse-researcher and lecturer, will present the UB School of Nursing's 12th Annual Bonnie Bullough Lecture at 3:30 p.m. on Oct. 24 in the Adams Mark Hotel in downtown Buffalo.

The lecture, "Educating Nurses: Teaching and Learning a Complex Practice of Care," is free and open to the public.

Benner is professa emerita in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at University of California-San Francisco's School of Nursing, where she held the university's Thelma Shobe Endowed Chair in Ethics and Spirituality.

She is director of the National Nursing Education Research Project -- the first national study of nursing education conducted in the past 30 years -- sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and is co-principal investigator on a project funded by the Henry Jackson Foundation for Federal Military Research Nurses Group titled "Clinical Knowledge Development of Nurses in an Operational Environment."

She also is a consultant with Benner Associates, which works with hospitals to find solutions to problems facing nursing in the current environment.

A specialist on health, stress and coping, skill acquisition and ethics, Benner has had wide influence on nursing, both in the United States and internationally. She is author of 10 books, which have been translated in many languages, and has won several national and international awards.

The millennial edition of her book "From Novice to Expert: Excellence and Power in Clinical Nursing Practice," won the 2001 Book of the Year Award from the American Journal of Nursing. Her most recent book, of the same title as her lecture, will be published in 2009.

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 her doctorate in stress, coping and health from the University of California-Berkeley.

She was elected an honorary member of the United Kingdom's Royal College of Nursing for providing the basis for new legislation on nursing practice in three states in Australia.

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, a flagship institution in the State University of New York system that is its largest and most comprehensive campus. UB's more than 28,000 students pursue their academic interests through more than 300 undergraduate, graduate and professional degree programs. Founded in 1846, the University at Buffalo is a member of the Association of American Universities. The School of Nursing is one of five schools that constitute UB's Academic Health Center.