Sister Patricia Talone, RSM, a Sister of Mercy of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Community, is vice president of mission services for the Catholic Health Association of the United States (CHA). Prior to joining CHA, she served as vice president for mission services and ethicist for Unity Health, St. Louis, a subsidiary of the Sisters of Mercy Health System, St. Louis.
Sister Patricia serves on the board of the Mid-America Transplant Services, and served for more than 10 years on the board of the National Catholic AIDS Network. She, likewise, serves on the Institutional Review Board of the American College of Radiology. She authored Feeding the Dying: Religion and End of Life Decisions (Peter Lang, Inc., 1996) along with numerous articles in health care and theological journals. She lectures extensively on mission and health care ethics and was honored as the 1994 Lindback award winner for distinguished teaching at Gwynedd-Mercy College. She received an honorary doctor of humane letters from the University of Scranton in 2005.
Sister Patricia has taught at every academic level, from third grade through graduate school. She holds a bachelor's degree from Gwynedd-Mercy College, a master's degree from St. Charles Seminary, Philadelphia, and a doctorate in theological ethics from Marquette University, Milwaukee. She spent one semester in 1996 as a visiting fellow at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University. From 1988-1997 she was associate professor of humanities at Gwynedd-Mercy College, while also serving as ethics consultant for Mercy Health Cooperation of Southeastern Pennsylvania.