Born in 1948, Burnes Bolton grew up in Tucson and became interested in nursing at the age of seven, having suffered from severe asthma and requiring frequent hospitalizations.[1] She earned an undergraduate nursing degree from Arizona State University. She completed three graduate degrees at UCLA - master's degrees in nursing and public health and a doctorate in public health. She was the vice president for nursing, chief nursing officer, and director of nursing research at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. [2]
Burnes Bolton was president of the American Academy of Nursing, the American Organization of Nurse Executives (AONE) and the National Black Nurses Association.[3] She served as vice-chair of the Institute of Medicine Committee on the Future of Nursing.[4] She was named to the board of trustees at Case Western Reserve University in 2007.[5] In 2012, she was elected a trustee of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.[6] Burnes Bolton was on the editorial board of the American Journal of Nursing.[7]
Before she was elected president of the AONE, the organization presented her with its Lifetime Achievement Award.[8] In 2011, Modern Healthcare named her to its Top 25 Women in Healthcare.[9] She received an honorary doctorate from the SUNY Upstate Medical University in 2015.[10] That year, she was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.[11] She won the 2016 Professional Achievement Award from the UCLA Alumni Association[12] and was the 2016 recipient of the TRUST Award from the American Hospital Association.[13] She died in Los Angeles on January 11, 2025, at the age of 76.[14]
