KATHLEEN KOVARIK, PHD, RN

Kathleen Kovarik, PhD, RN, is an experienced clinician and educator with 17 years of teaching and lecturing in a variety of settings (schools of nursing, regional and national conferences, workshops and retreats). Her clinical experiences have taken her from a Level I Trauma Center Regional Burn Unit at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, to summers working home care for Visiting Nurses in Spokane, WA, to launching a Parish Nursing program in Missoula, MT. Currently, Kathleen calls the Black Hills of South Dakota her home, where she serves as an Ethics Committee member for Regional Health in Rapid City, is the director of Faces of Leadership (leadership training and consultation), teaches Applied Health-Care Ethics for Regis University in Denver, and team-teaches an Interdisciplinary Palliative Care Course as clinical faculty for the University of South Dakota’s medical school.

Dr. Kovarik has pursued her love of ethics and has taught ethics content for many years in her faculty positions with Washington State University and South Dakota State University. Her work in a Level I Trauma Center/Burn Unit and in home care/parish nursing gives her a broad- spectrum viewpoint and rich experiences to share. She developed expertise in pain management and end-of-life care, and was selected to serve on the Board of the Washington-Alaska State Cancer Pain Initiative and to do a fellowship with the University of Colorado in pediatric pain management.

Speaker Disclosures:

Financial: Kathleen Kovarik is the Executive Director for Faces of Leadership. She has an employment relationship with Regis University. Dr. Kovarik receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc.