Our dear colleague and friend, Karen Carlson, passed away last December. Her flame continues to burn ever so brightly in the thousands of individuals she touched during her short life.
Karen always recognized that staff nurses are the people she needed to influence because they are the front line of nursing. She did so as a consummate role model, coach, mentor, teacher, author and editor. Her relentless focus and dedication to excellence made the books she produced among the most influential in acute and critical care nursing across the United States and internationally. These include the AACN Procedure Manual for Critical Care and the new AACN Advanced Critical Care Nursing for which she reviewed page proofs just days before her passing.
Karen instinctively knew how to make each member of the team feel valued, even while she mentored them as writers and editors. Through AACN's Acute and Critical Care Orientation curriculum which she edited, she influenced the development of thousands of novice nurses and set the stage for the eventual development of AACN's e-learning programs.
As her natural talent developed she became nationally recognized as a dynamic, authentic educator who understood the science and how to apply it at the bedside. As a role model, she inspired her students and colleagues to be "as good as Karen" in everything they did. She multiplied her reach by the thousands when she established the Carson Consulting Group to carry out her passion, intellectual rigor and commitment to quality.
