Obituaries

Patricia A. Burns, a retired UB Nursing faculty member who went on to become dean of the College of Nursing at the University of South Florida, died Sept. 21 after a long illness. She was 77.

A fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, Burns was nationally recognized for her research on female urinary incontinence.  

Over the course of her career she received more than $11 million in funding for more than 50 research studies and nursing training grants. She served as a reviewer for national and international journals, participated in federal and private grant review panels, published extensively both nationally and internationally, and was part of the team that developed a patented “improved perineometer” device for measuring the strength of voluntary contractions of the pelvic floor muscles.

Burns was chair of the Nurse Practitioner Program at UB when she retired in 1997 to become dean of the College of Nursing at the University of South Florida, where she was credited with raising the national visibility and reputation of the college and playing a key collaborative role in establishing what is now USF Health, a partnership of the health sciences schools at the university. She also served as a senior associate vice president for USF Health. She retired from USF in 2010.

Burns served as president of the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculty and the Southern Regional Education Board Nursing Council, and held leadership roles in both the American Association of Colleges of Nursing and its national accrediting body, the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education.

A Western New York native, Burns received her RN from the Edward J. Meyer Memorial Hospital School of Nursing and began her career in general medical surgical nursing at the hospital — now Erie County Medical Center. She joined the UB Nursing faculty in 1981 and also worked as a nurse practitioner in private practice from 1978-97.

She received an MS in 1979 and a PhD in 1988, both from UB.

Burns was a recipient of a Distinguished Alumni Award from the university in 2011 and that same year established the Dr. Patricia A. Burns Doctor of Nursing Practice Student Scholarship in the UB School of Nursing.