Biography

Katherine Brown-Saltzman‘s background is in clinical nursing and life is rich in meaning and purpose. She began working in end-of-life care with pediatric cancer patients in Boston in 1975. Katherine literally “lives for others” as an advocate for their well-being. For example, in the ’70s and ’80s, patients were routinely resuscitated, even when CPR was known to be medically futile; Katherine pushed against such an approach in order to make the final moments of patients’ lives the most pain-free as possible.  In 1992, she created a renewal retreat, Circle of Caring, for healthcare professionals, which is an experiential weekend of self-care that continues to encourage professionals to assume an ethical practice of sustainability. As Co-Founder of the Ethics of Caring, Katherine has established a non-profit that has been providing annual ethics conferences to southern California since 1993.  Over the last 15 years of her career, Katherine transitioned to clinical ethics. She is co-director of the UCLA Ethics Center. Her unique approach is based on an “Ethics of Care,” which focuses on the unique individual patient situated in a web of relationships and personal meaning. She has been active in developing interdisciplinary programs on sustaining self-care, moral distress, and ethics education.