Barbara B Germino

Barbara B. Germino, PhD, RN, FAAN, has had an eclectic career in nursing that has included patient care in three major medical centers, a community hospital, a 25-bed hospital on Kodiak Island, Alaska, and in home care; teaching in four university schools of nursing; and research on individual and family responses to life-threatening illness, including interventions to enhance their ability to manage problems and uncertainties, facilitating quality of life. Early work with chronically ill...See more

Barbara B. Germino, PhD, RN, FAAN, has had an eclectic career in nursing that has included patient care in three major medical centers, a community hospital, a 25-bed hospital on Kodiak Island, Alaska, and in home care; teaching in four university schools of nursing; and research on individual and family responses to life-threatening illness, including interventions to enhance their ability to manage problems and uncertainties, facilitating quality of life. Early work with chronically ill patients, and critical experiences, especially those with people who were dying with cancer, stimulated interests in life-threatening illness and dying. The opportunity to do her doctoral work with Jeanne Quint Benoliel, whose work had inspired her over many years, was a crucial experience. With colleagues in nursing and social work, she developed and teaches an interdisciplinary graduate course in death, dying, and bereavement across the life-span. She is currently Professor at the School of Nursing, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and holds the Carol Ann Beerstecher-Blackwell Chair of Thanatology. She is actively involved with the Carolinas Center for End of Life Care, working on a 3-year project to enhance end-of-life care awareness, knowledge, and delivery across the Carolinas. See less