Melissa A. Fitzpatrick has forty years of healthcare leadership experience and has served as vice president of Critical Care and Cardiac Services at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and senior associate chief operating officer and chief nurse executive at Duke University Medical Center. Fitzpatrick is a past national president of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses and was inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing in 1997. She also served as the editor-in-chief of the journal Nursing Management and the first ever vice president and chief clinical officer at Hill-Rom.

In 2019, Fitzpatrick joined Kirby Bates Associates, (KBA), a nationally recognized healthcare executive search firm, as chief operating officer and was named president of KBA in January 2020. She provides strategic vision and direction to the organization and is the liaison to their parent company, Jackson Healthcare.

In July 2024, Fitzpatrick joined the board of trustees at her undergraduate alma mater, Gwynedd-Mercy University and chairs its Marketing, Enrollment and Campus Life Committee. Since 2020, she has served as the first ever nurse on the board of UNC Rex Healthcare and chairs its Quality, Patient Safety and HR Committee. Fitzpatrick also serves on the board of the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare.

Fitzpatrick earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing at Gwynedd-Mercy College and her Master of Science in Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania. She is actively engaged as an officer and member of many national nursing and healthcare organizations and serves the nursing profession with integrity and passion.