Keynote #1: Conversation with Dr. Ann Burgess

INANE Conference: Monday PM 8/4/25

• Speaker: Ann Burgess
• Moderator: Kathleen Ahern Gould

Abstract: INANE member Kathleen Ahern Gould converses with Dr. Ann Burgess, a psychiatric and forensic nurse who has spent nearly six decades in criminal profiling. Dr. Burgess is the subject and consulting producer of Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer. The docuseries, which airs on Hulu, explores Burgess’s groundbreaking work. The discussion is focused on how diverse dissemination strategies can be used by nurse editors.

 

 

Summary of the discussion:

The discussion started with Dr. Burgess discussing how “it all began.” 

Background:

• Her educational background was critical and had a lot to do with how she was able to work with law enforcement, psychiatrists, etc.
• BU had one of the newest programs at the time that had a 4-year collegiate program in nursing. She graduated in 1958
• She did her psych clinical at Massachusetts Mental Health Center, a research hospital
• And then she started graduate school at UMaryland in the fall of 1958 and graduated with an MS in Psychiatric Nursing in 1959
• Went into psych because of a teacher who told her she “would be a good psych nurse”
• In 1959, at the psychiatric unit at UMaryland and half to SGSH. There were open wards and Thorazine
• Those were the days of the “nurses as handmaidens”
• The case that “stuck” with her was the case of Catherine “Kitty” Genovese. What was important about this case was that no one responded to her screaming as she was being attacked. The man ended up being a serial killer, and he lived close to her. This case was an impetus to starting the 9-1-1 program. 
• Another case that stuck with her was the 1979 Miofsky case about an anesthesiologist who was sexually assaulting people who were under anesthesia.
• Another case that stuck with her was the “Baby in a Diaper Case” in 2001. 

Rape History: Women’s Health Movement 

• In the 1970s, women would speak at “consciousness raising groups” and share their private experiences that they had never spoken about before. Many stories were about rape or assault. 
• Dr. Lynda Holmstrom (sociologist) was trying to find rape victims to interview but they were hard to find. They tried police, courts and medical leads. 
• Dr. Burgess & Dr. Holmstrom then conducted the “The Rape Study” at Boston City Hospital. They wrote 26 papers and 3 books with the 146 interviews (ages 3-73) of people who had presented to BCH with rape over a 1-year period.
• Nurses called them when a victim came in, usually in the middle of the night, and both researchers went to the hospital to interview them. They did participant observation and therefore having two perspectives was important. 
• However, they were fighting headwinds the entire way. 
• She was told NOT to study this topic! That she would never get tenure if she did. 
• They had a dual motivation for the study: both NURSING and the women’s movement
• But interviewing the rape victim was only part of the story. Then the FBI phoned….

Dr. Burgess’s Qualitative Research Style

• Open-ended questions: “What happened?” not “What is it like to get raped?”
• They only asked 10 questions, and they had to write fast! No tape recorders
• She then did follow-up telephone counseling (because they did not want to come back in person to the hospital)
• Law enforcement was often at the hospital because they brought the patient in. Dr.Burgess would start to talk to them and get to know them. That made it easier to speak with law enforcement. 

The Federal Bureau of Investigation

• Someone contacted her from the FBI and asked her come down and give the FBI a lecture on her research that was published in the American Journal of Nursing (“The Rape Victim in the Emergency Room”), only 8 months into the study!
• The FBI was accepting of listening to her and her research because they really didn’t have any experience working with victims, only the perpetrators. 
• She would teach techniques of what to do if the interview “stalls” or if they are not forming a connection with the interviewees. 

Childhood trauma, memory & dissociation

• Dr. Burgess showed us a number of “visual memories” or drawings made by victims to try to remember traumatic experiences and how she interpreted them and testified in court about them

Interviewing Serial Killers

• Dr. Burgess spoke about her experience interviewing serial killers
• One theme she noted was the troubled childhood of many of the perpetrators and that many of them had absent fathers and held lots of anger against their mothers. 
• It’s hard to interview perpetrators because they lie.
• She studied their pathways to violence
• The Motivational Model: Sexual Homicide
  • Ineffective social environment → formative events → patterned responses →actions towards self/other → feedback filter (they just keep killing)
• Pathway to Violence/Murder as a Conceptual Framework
• Dr. Burgess helped the FBI officers not only with interviewing but also with conducting rigorous research and publishing it. 

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women: “No More Stolen Sisters”

• Dr. Burgess is advocating for more research in this area
• She believes it is a human trafficking situation, not serial killing
• https://www.nativehope.org/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-mmiw/
• https://www.bia.gov/service/mmu/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-people-crisis

Questions from the audience:

#1 How do you deal with the emotional load of this work?

Answer: You need to learn how to compartmentalize and not make it personal, otherwise it’s overwhelming. Second, you need to have a mentor to debrief with. 

#2 How do you recommend editors find peer reviewers to review this type of emotionally charged work?

Answer: No advice, but she understands that it is definitely hard!

#3 What do you think about publishing in magazines, like Ladies’ Home Journal?

Answer: I think it’s great! But pick what you want to write about carefully! But it can be a way to get your work out there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKy6oB2eqJM

Your INANE 2025 reporter is Melissa Anne DuBois, BSN, RNC-OB, PhD Student.

Content for this post was obtained from the INANE 2025 website, the conference guidebook, internet searches, speaker submitted bios, and live reporting from each session. Any errors in content are purely accidental and not intended to offend. If you notice an error you would like corrected, please contact Melissa Anne at melissadubois2 at gmail dot com and she will be happy to make corrections.