2011 Founders Award Winner

Chris McKenna is the Program Manager for the Trauma Clinical Services, for the Benedum Pediatric Trauma Program at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. She earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana in 1985. She has been a clinical nurse specialist since 1989, receiving a Master of Science degree in nursing from Boston College. She has been a pediatric nurse practitioner since graduating from University of Pittsburgh’s program in 1997. She has worked in pediatric surgery and trauma her entire career, and has been with the Benedum Pediatric Trauma Program since 2002. Her responsibilities include administrative oversight for the trauma program as well as inpatient and outpatient clinical care of injured children. Chris is very active in the Society of Trauma Nurses and is currently Co-Chair of the Trauma Special Interest Group. She is described by her peers as empathetic without being maudlin, brilliant but practical, honest but tactful, a great teacher without being pedantic. Chris is further described as being the “Gold Standard” in which all nurse practitioners and physician extenders should be measured.