Debra S. Holbrook, MSN, RN, SANE-A, FNE A/P, DF-AFN, FAAN

Mrs. Holbrook attended the Union Memorial Hospital School of Nursing in Baltimore, Maryland and completed both undergraduate and graduate studies through Wilmington University. After working in the field of critical care, Mrs. Holbrook founded a Forensic Nurse Examiner Program in Delaware that became a model for the United States (US Senate Subcommittee Biden, 2002).

In 2002 she testified on Capitol Hill before a Senate Judicial Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs on behalf of the Bill that was signed into law in 2005 as the DNA Justice Act. She 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, the 2014 Most Influential Marylanders in Healthcare, Distinguished Fellow – Academy of Forensic Nursing, and the prestigious Fellow American Academy of Nursing. She serves on the Board of the National Strangulation Institute, has authored grants totaling over 11 million dollars to benefit victims of major and lectures nationally for the Office for Victims of Crime, educating medical professionals across the country. She has conducted over 200 pediatric and adult Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) educational offerings both nationally and internationally.

Mrs. Holbrook has integrated comprehensive forensic practice into the SANE model and her programs have cared for all patients of interpersonal violence including domestic, elder, child, 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 Maryland 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.