2012 international new Fellows - American Academy of Nursing

Wisconsin
Rana limbO, pHD, Rn, pmHCns-bC
Rana Limbo is Director of Bereavement and Advance Care Planning Services, Gundersen Heath
System, in La Crosse, Wisconsin.
Dr. Limbo’s contributions to nursing practice have been most profound in the area of perinatal
bereavement support. She successfully launched the Resolve Through Sharing (now RTS) program
in 1981 and facilitated its transformation into a model of excellence that is now recognized
internationally as the premier hospital-based perinatal bereavement program. Serving as the
first RTS director, Dr. Limbo co-developed the conceptually driven and relationship-based RTS
training and the coordinator train-the-trainer course, leading to the spread of the model to centers
throughout the country and internationally. Over 35,000 people, about 75% of them nurses, have
completed the RTS bereavement foundational course, and over 4,500 of those have become
coordinators. Her scope of influence includes global leadership in developing core concepts for
grief and bereavement that can be extended to other populations. She has described the concepts
of intention, participation, and meaning making to help nurses understand ritual. Similarly, she
applied the concepts of personhood, place, and protection in a new way as foundational to
providing good care to women whose pregnancy ends in miscarriage.
Dr. Limbo earned her BSN from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, her MS in maternal
child nursing from the University of Colorado, her MSN in adult psychiatric and mental health
nursing from Indiana University, and her PhD from the University of Wisconsin - Madison
School of Nursing.
2012
new FEllOWs
87