After working clinically for fifteen years with an A.D. in Nursing and a B.A. in Biology, Dr. Whelton obtained an MSN and taught Nursing for five years. She then returned to the classroom as a student to inquire into the foundations of practice and research with human subjects. She graduated with a Ph.D. in Philosophy with a dissertation in philosophy of the human sciences from The Catholic University of America (1996).

During the years of acquiring her Ph.D. and before acquiring a full-time position, Dr. Whelton practiced nursing in acute home care and taught in undergraduate philosophy and graduate level Philosophy of Science at The Catholic University of America and University of Maryland. She lectures nationally and internationally on human life itself as a foundation for practice. In March 2009, she presented “Humanity, the Natural Foundation for Ethical Standards: An Aristotelian-Thomistic look at death of the donor in Organ Retrieval,” at the conference, The Ethics of Organ Transplantation. University of St. Thomas, Houston Texas.

Her chapter “The Nursing Act is an Excellent Human Act: A Philosophical Analysis Derived from Classical Philosophy and the Conceptual Framework and Theory of Imogene King,” appeared as the second chapter in the graduate level text, Middle Range Theory Development Using King’s Conceptual System, Christina Leibold Sieloff and Maureen Fry (editors), New York: Springer Publishing Company, 2007, pp. 12-28.

Publications have appeared in Linacre Quarterly, Nursing Philosophy, Nursing Science Quarterly, The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, and WVNurse. She serves as the Book Review Editor and is on the Editorial Board of the international journal Nursing Philosophy.

Courses Dr. Whelton currently teaches at Wheeling Jesuit University include Logic, Philosophy of the Human Person, Ethics, Bioethics, Philosophy of Science, Metaphysics, Women and Philosophy, and “Ethics for Health Care” (WJU’s Distance learning course for practicing health-care professionals).

She has served as president of Sigma Theta Tau International, Omicron Mu Chapter, and is currently Vice President of The International Philosophy of Nursing Society (IPONS).