Professional Statement
Dr. Seaman’s research centers on advancing primary palliative care, the integration of palliative care principles and practices into the routine care of patients and families. She holds a secondary appointment in the Section of Palliative Care and Medical Ethics in the Department of General Internal Medicine in the School of Medicine. She also serves as a co-investigator in the Outreach, Recruitment and Engagement Core of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh.
Dr. Seaman’s research and scholarship have been funded intramurally and extramurally through the National Institute of Nursing Research, the John A. Hartford Foundation, the Mayday Fund, the Cambia Health Foundation, the American Thoracic Society, and the McElhattan Foundation.
Within the ICU setting, Dr. Seaman’s work is focused on improving clinician-family communication through the implementation of proactive interprofessional family meetings. She developed SET-to-Meet, a nurse-led, team-based primary palliative care intervention to ensure timely family meetings are held for incapacitated ICU patients.
Dr. Seaman developed Pitt’s new interprofessional graduate certificate in Palliative and End-of-Life Care and Communication, supported by a grant from the McElhattan Foundation. She teaches three of the four constituent courses in the program. Dr. Seaman guest lectures on palliative and end-of-life care for undergraduate courses in healthcare ethics and gerontological nursing. Dr. Seaman has served as a preceptor for OB-GYN Clinical Ethics education since 2022, and she has been a member of the University Research Ethics Consultant Service since 2023. In addition, she is frequently invited to speak about primary palliative care to academic and professional audiences.
Dr. Seaman is a member of the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA), the American Association of Critical Care Nurses (AACN,) and the American Thoracic Society (ATS). Currently she serves as Nursing Assembly Chair on the ATS Council.
Appointments
- Assistant Professor Department of Acute & Tertiary Care School of Nursing
- Core Faculty Institute for Bioethics
Education and Training
- Postdoctoral Critical Care Research Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh, 2017
- PhD, University of Pittsburgh, 2014
- BSN, University of Rochester, 1988
- BA, Houghton College, 1988
Professional Interests in Bioethics
Representative Publications
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Zhang, Y, Lingler, J.H., Bender, C.M., & Seaman, J.B. (2024). Dignity in people with dementia: A concept analysis. Nurs Ethics, 31(7), 1220-1232.