Sharon Kelly-West Receives Doctorate of Professional Studies

Sharon Kelly-West is Program Manager for Women Veteran Services at the VA Medical Center in Asheville.

Asheville native Sharon Kelly-West has completed her doctoral studies in Bioethics from Albany Medical College in Albany, NY.

Ms. West is Program Manager for Women Veteran Services at the Charles George VA Medical Center, where she also serves as an Ethics Consultant. Segments of her non-empirical study on “Access and Availability of Healthcare for African Americans of Buncombe County 1890-1960” is included in Bending the Arc, an exhibition on health and healthcare disparities in Western North Carolina sponsored by UNC Asheville, Mission Hospitals, and Buncombe County.

Ms. West earned her BS-Nursing degree from Winston-Salem State University and a Masters in Health Science from Western Carolina University in Cullowhee. She also did post-graduate studies in Clinical Ethics at Wake Forest University. Author of “Barriers to completion of Advance Care Directives” and “Culturally Appropriate End of Life Care in Black American populations,” since 2004 Ms. West has written a monthly health column for the Asheville Citizen Times addressing a variety of healthcare topics.

Currently, Ms. West serves on the Health and Human Services Board of Buncombe County as the Nurse representative, and she is a gubernatorial appointee to the NC Office of Minority Health Advisory Council and to the NC Public Health Commission.

Ms. West is president of the Asheville Chapter of the Links, Incorporated. She is a national and international presenter addressing “End of Life care preferences in African Americans” and “Unjust: Ethical implications contributing to health and healthcare disparities.” She is the daughter of Edythe E. Webb and the mother of Paul, Kelly’e, and Jennifer West.