Maria Fox can tell you exactly when her journey in ethics started.

Having had a variety of previous positions and experiences in critical care nursing as a nurse, educator and manager, she was working a night shift in a hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

“While caring for this patient – long-term on a ventilator, not waking up, family fighting – I just looked at that woman and asked myself, every time I had to poke and prod her, am I helping or am I hurting her?” she said.  “That was my moral dilemma.”

Ethics Committees

“I got myself on the Ethics Committee of that hospital and have been active in ethics ever since, including a yearlong training program in ethics at Rush University in Chicago.”

Maria joined the Ethics Committee at Advent Health after moving with her family to Kansas City in 2004. Having relocated several times for her husband’s job, she thought they might have to move again. Fortunately that turned out not to be the case. She went on to work and serve on Ethics Committees at Research Hospital and at the University of Kansas Health System, which she joined in 2010 first as an APRN with the Palliative Care Teams, and for the last seven years as Director of Advanced Practice Providers.

From the beginning in Kansas City, Maria was involved with the Center for Practical Bioethics and active in its Kansas City Regional Ethics Committee Consortium. Founded in 1984, the ECC’s purpose was to share ethics education resources, discuss difficult cases and issues that transcend any one hospital, and develop institutional policy guidelines based on those discussions. At its height, the ECC served more than 40 institutions.

“It was wonderful to have the Center as a rock and anchor in our city, which hadn’t been available to me in other areas,” she said.

Empowering Nurses

For her doctoral degree from the University of Kansas in 2014, Maria’s critical care experience led her to explore the role of nurses in situations where patients, families and providers disagree about treatment.

“In my preliminary research,” she said, “I discovered that nurses have a huge role. They have the time to listen to the patient who tells them they don’t want to do this anymore. To ask whether their family is aware and whether they’ve told their doctors. To make sure everyone is on the same page.

“But nurses aren’t always empowered to have those conversations,” she said. “I think at KU we’re doing better at encouraging nurses…if they feel there’s a conflict between family members and physicians, let’s get ethics involved,” she said.

Dr. Tarris (Terry) Rosell, Rosemary Flanigan Chair at the Center and Director of Clinical Ethics at KU Med, agreed.

“During the nearly 15 years that Maria and I have collaborated at KU, we have worked hard at empowering nurses to utilize Ethics resources, including the consultation service. She has been absolutely key to success in that regard—and in general. There is no one I trust more for ethics consultation than Maria Fox. She is a role model for us all, the consummate ethics leader and colleague.”

About Maria Fox

Education has been a theme throughout Maria’s life, starting with her parents’ immigration from Peru to the United States when she was a young child to ensure a good education for their children.

Maria earned her bachelor’s degree on full scholarship from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and master’s degree from there as well, in addition to meeting her husband there.

Following in their mother’s footsteps, Maria’s daughters both work at KU, one as a pharmacist and the other in the coronary ICU. The Center has turned to Maria many times through the years to present workshops and trainings.

Along with education, a core value for Maria is servant leadership. “It’s a philosophy that aligns with my background and faith,” she says. “I’m not a boss. I’m the person that helps facilitate you to do your job well.”  Maria also loves to be involved in professional organizations and was a founding member of the local chapter of Hospice and Palliative Care nurses and is active on workgroups in the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities.

For fun, Maria loves to travel and read medieval history. She also facilitates her husband’s hobby involving his restored Pontiac and Kansas City Pontiac Motor Sports Club activities.

“Not that I know anything about cars,” she says. “It’s being together that matters.”

By Trudi Galblum