Debra Holbrook

Debra Holbrook attended Wilmington University for both Graduate and Undergraduate studies. After working in the field of critical care, Mrs. Holbrook founded a Forensic Nurse Examiner Program in Delaware that became a model of the United States (US Senate, 2002).

In 2002 she testified on Capital Hill before a Senate Judicial Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs on behalf of the Bill that became the DNA Justice Act. She is a subject expert for the Department of Justice and the U.S. Military, and has developed a model for mobility in forensic care. Holbrook was inducted as a Fellow to the American Academy of Nursing in 2018 and is the recipient of numerous international awards, including the ANCC Magnet International Nurse of the Year, the Delaware Nurse of the year, the International Association of Forensic Nurses Pioneer Award, and the 2014 Most Influential Marylanders/Healthcare. Holbrook has authored grants totaling over $11 million benefitting victims of major person’s crimes and lectures both nationally and internationally on violence related topics. She has conducted more than 200 pediatric and adult SANE educational offerings.

 

Holbrook has integrated comprehensive forensic practice into a nursing model and her programs have cared for all patients of interpersonal violence across the lifespan including domestic, institutional, vulnerable populations, gunshots, stabbings, non-accidental poisonings and burns. She has pioneered the use of the Alternate Light Source in strangulation cases and set precedence in international court systems. She is currently Director of Forensic Nursing at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore which coordinates care to victims of interpersonal violence for all hospitals in Baltimore City.