Claretta Y. Dupree

Fellow

Claretta Y. Dupree, Ph.D. is a registered nurse with a wide variety of clinical and academic experiences in both the civilian and military sectors. She graduated in 1975 with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Tennessee Center for the Health Sciences in Memphis. Her naval career began soon after with a direct commission, followed by Officers' Indoctrination School at Newport, RI. She has served on active duty at naval hospitals in Philadelphia and Great Lakes from 1976-1979, and at the Naval Hospital Corps School at Great Lakes from 1989-1993. From 1984-1989, she served in reserve units in Houston, TX, and New Orleans, LA.

As a civilian, Dr. Dupree earned a Master of Science in Oncology Nursing from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston in 1985 and completed a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Nursing with a minor in Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee in May, 1998. She became a collegiate educator in 1984, teaching at Texas Woman's University until 1986, followed by an appointment at Charity Hospital School of Nursing until 1989. In 1989, she was recalled to active duty, and taught at Naval Hospital Corps School in Great Lakes, IL until 1993. While there, she was Head, Staff Education and Training Division. She is an active member of The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing, and she serves on the membership committee and the affinity group committee of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities.

Dr. Dupree is active in the community where she lives with her two children. She serves as a volunteer guardian for the Kenosha Human Development Services, as an assistant pastor of her church, and as a member of the Family Life Health Curriculum Review committee of the Kenosha Unified School District.

Dr. Dupree is currently an assistant professor at Medical College of Wisconsin, where she is the Director of Research of the Pediatric Palliative Care Department. She is a past participant in the Harvard Medical School Palliative Care Faculty Development Program. In addition to advance directives and cultural diversity issues in ethics, her current research interests are readers' theater as a tool for encouraging discussions about end-of-life, ambiguity in ethical decision-makers, spirituality in terminally ill children, and moral distress among pediatric intensive care staff.