Betty D. Morgan, PhD, APRN-BC

I have over 30 years experience as a Psychiatric Nurse and 20 years of experience as a Psychiatric Clinical Nurse Specialist working with an HIV/AIDS population.  I maintain a small clinical practice providing therapy to HIV infected persons who have substance abuse and mental health problems.  I completed my Master’s degree in Adult Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing at Yale School of Nursing in 1987 with a specialty in Psychiatric Liaison Nursing.  I completed a graduate certificate program at Boston University School of Social Work in Substance Abuse counseling, completed an ELNEC (End of Life Nursing Education Consortium) train the trainer program and completed a clinical training program in Mind/Body Medicine at the Mind/Body Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. In 2003 I received a PhD at the William F. Connell School of Nursing, Boston College.  My dissertation research was titled: Knowing How to Play the Game:  Hospitalized Substance Abusers’ Strategies for Obtaining Pain Relief.

I was awarded the Research in Addictions Nursing Award, at the The International Nurses Society on Addictions, September, 2006.  Additionally, I have over 12 years of clinical teaching experience and have been an Assistant Professor at University of Massachusetts Lowell in the Adult Psychiatric-Mental Health graduate program since 2002.  My research interests are in chronic illness, especially HIV disease and Hepatitis C, pain management, substance abuse and mental health issues as well as understanding vicarious traumatization and the need for support of nurses and other health care workers who work with difficult and disenfranchised populations.

I am active in many nursing organizations in local chapters and on the national level.  I am a Past President of the Eastern Massachusetts Chapter of the American Society of Pain Management Nurses (ASPMN) and a current board member.  I am also on the board of local chapters of Nurses United for Responsible Service (NURS), the Advance Practice Psychiatric Nursing group in Massachusetts, Association of Nurses in AIDS Care (ANAC), Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA), Eta Omega chapter of Sigma Theta Tau, and I am also on the Board of Directors of Greater Lowell Mental Health Association.