News Releases
University of Maryland School of Nursing’s Tarzian Named Hastings Center Fellow
April 16, 2019
Associate professor joins institution aimed at addressing fundamental ethical and social issues
Baltimore, Md. – Anita J. Tarzian, PhD ’98, MS ’95, RN, associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Nursing (UMSON), has been named a Hastings Center Fellow. The Hastings Center is a nonpartisan bioethics research institution founded in 1969, the oldest of its kind.
Tarzian joins a worldwide network of nearly 300 elected Fellows whose work has informed scholarship and public understanding of complex ethical issues in health, health care, life sciences research, and the environment. Hastings Center Fellows are academic bioethicists, scholars from other disciplines, scientists, journalists, lawyers, novelists, artists, and people highly accomplished in other spheres. Their common distinguishing feature is uncommon insight and impact in areas of critical concern to the Center — how best to understand and manage the inevitable values questions, moral uncertainties, and societal effects that arise as a consequence of advances in the life sciences, the need to improve health and health care for people of all ages, and the mitigation of human impact on the natural world.
“In these times when the best we can be is threatened by increasingly contentious public discourse, it’s an honor to be associated with an institution that seeks to safeguard ethics as a cornerstone of global progress,” said Tarzian.
In addition to her role at UMSON, Tarzian serves as the program coordinator for the Maryland Healthcare Ethics Committee Network at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law and she serves as a lay member of the Maryland Judicial Ethics Committee. She has worked as a research and ethics consultant since 1998, providing guidance and consulting services in clinical ethics, research ethics, and research methods. Her scholarship, teaching, and mentorship center on clinical ethics, including standards for health care ethics consultation, palliative care, end-of-life care, disability rights, and evidence-based practice in these areas.
“We congratulate Dr. Tarzian on this distinctive honor,” said Dean of the School of Nursing, Jane Kirschling, PhD, RN, FAAN. “Dr. Tarzian’s many contributions to clinical ethics, including standards for health care ethics consultations, have far-reaching. In addition, her service to the Maryland Healthcare Ethics Committee Network and to the Maryland Judicial Ethics Committee have added an important and leading voice to the discussion of a broad array of ethical topics. In her role as a Hastings Center Fellow, I am certain she will continue to bring her substantial scholarship to bear on important issues facing our health care system.”
Hasting Center Fellows are elected by The Fellows Council, which consists of eight Fellows, and the center’s president.
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The University of Maryland School of Nursing, founded in 1889, is one of the oldest and largest nursing schools in the nation and is ranked among the top nursing schools nationwide. Enrolling nearly 2,000 students in its baccalaureate, master’s, and doctoral programs, the School develops leaders who shape the profession of nursing and impact the health care environment.