AACN to recognize Janet Marvin with Marguerite Rodgers Kinney Award for a Distinguished Career

The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) will present the Marguerite Rodgers Kinney Award for a Distinguished Career to Janet Marvin, RN, MN. She receives this Visionary Leadership Award for contributions to AACN's mission and vision at the 2011 National Teaching Institute & Critical Care Exposition, Chicago, April 30-May 5.

Marvin retired from nursing in 2009 after 40 years in the profession. Her efforts to improve the clinical care of burn patients contributed to far-reaching advances in pain management and wound care.

Prior to her retirement, she worked at Shriners Hospitals for Children - Galveston Burns Hospital, Texas. She joined the hospital in 1991 as director of nursing and became director of patient care services in 2003, a position she held until retirement. Marvin was the last person to leave the hospital when Hurricane Ike flooded Galveston Island in 2008. Her advocacy was instrumental in the decision to reopen the hospital, internationally known as a flagship for children's burn care.

A champion of graduate education for nurses, in 1973 Marvin helped open at Texas Woman's University and University of Texas Southwestern Medical School the first graduate nursing program for burn and trauma nurses funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In 1977, she established a burn, trauma and emergency nursing graduate pathway at the University of Washington School of Nursing. Expanded to include all aspects of critical care, the program includes graduates who are prominent leaders in the specialty.

During her career, Marvin held faculty appointments in the medical and nursing schools at the University of Washington, Seattle. Other teaching positions include University of Texas Medical Branch, School of Nursing, Galveston; Seattle Pacific University; and Bellevue Community College, Wash. An invited lecturer, she has presented at numerous local, regional, national and international meetings and conferences.

The NIH and other organizations funded Marvin's extensive research on burn care with more than $2.5 million. She served on the editorial boards for Burns, Including Thermal Injury, Journal of Burn Care and Rehabilitation and Heart & Lung: The Journal of Critical Care. She has published more than 60 articles in peer-reviewed journals and contributed to 36 books, chapters and monographs.

Marvin was elected to the board of trustees of the American Burn Association, which honored her in 1977 with the Curtis P. Artz Distinguished Service Award.