Katherine Earnest is a nurse leader with over 13 years of inpatient rehabilitation experience at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (formerly the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago), the national leader in physical medicine & rehabilitation. Katherine has spent the last 7 years as a Nurse Manager. In her current role, she is focused on mentoring early career nurse managers and developing Shirley Ryan AbilityLab’s Department of Nursing Research. As a bedside nurse, Katherine specialized in caring for patients after spinal cord injury and stroke. Katherine completed her BSN at Loyola University Chicago and MSN at Northern Illinois University. She is currently pursuing a PhD at Illinois State University. Katherine co-authored the chapter on spinal cord injury and traumatic brain injury in The Specialty Practice of Rehabilitation: A Core Curriculum. Select research and clinical interests include spinal cord injury, pressure injury prevention and treatment, experiences of individuals with newly diagnosed disabilities, nurse retention & recruitment, succession planning, translational research, and workplace violence within healthcare settings.

Dr. Linda L. Morris has unique experience in critical care, education, research, and rehabilitation nursing. She has 20 years’ experience as a tracheostomy specialist, and is the co-editor and author of Tracheostomies: The Complete Guide, with the second edition recently published in 2021. She is currently the Director of Nursing Research and Advanced Practice Nurse for Pulmonary Services at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. She also holds a faculty appointment as an Associate Professor of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation and Anesthesiology for the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Morris is an elected Fellow of Critical Care Medicine from the American College of Critical Care Medicine. She has published extensively in the field of critical care and tracheostomies. Current research interests include tracheostomy outcomes, including quality of life, body image perception, and decannulation of tracheostomy patients. Dr. Morris also provides consultation and expert testimony in medical-legal cases, involving malpractice and standard of care in nursing and tracheostomy cases.

None of the planners or presenters for this educational activity have relevant financial relationship(s) to disclose with ineligible companies whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients.