Bio

Dr. Carrie Nelms Edwards is a nationally recognized forensic nurse, emergency nurse, educator, researcher, and medical legal consultant with more than 30 years of nursing experience. She earned her PhD in Nursing Science from Texas Woman’s University and currently serves as an Associate Professor in the RN-to-BSN program at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Nursing. She is also adjunct faculty at Texas Woman’s University and remains clinically active as an emergency department nurse and Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner at Methodist Dallas Medical Center.

Since 2004, Dr. Edwards has worked as a legal nurse consultant and expert witness, bringing more than two decades of medicolegal experience to civil and criminal matters. She assists prosecution and defense attorneys, as well as plaintiff and defense counsel, with cases involving forensic nursing, emergency nursing, nursing standards of care, trauma, strangulation and allegations of impeding breath or circulation, adult and pediatric sexual assault, child abuse, domestic and intimate partner violence, and intergenerational patterns of abuse and trauma. She provides objective medical-record review, evaluation of nursing assessment and documentation, interpretation of forensic examinations and findings, analysis of clinical decision-making and standards of care, and assistance with deposition and trial preparation.

Dr. Edwards has practiced as an adult and pediatric Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner for more than 20 years. She has been certified by the Texas Office of the Attorney General as an Adult and Pediatric Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner since 2005 and has held board certification as an Advanced Forensic Nurse through the American Nurses Credentialing Center since 2017. She has examined and treated more than 900 adult and pediatric patients following sexual assault and abuse.

In 2008, Dr. Edwards became the founding director of Forensic Nurse Staffing of West Texas, where she served as Nursing Director through 2025. The program provided around-the-clock forensic nursing services to patients in Lubbock and the surrounding region. Her career has also included extensive emergency, trauma, surgical intensive care, critical care, and relief charge-nurse experience. She returned to bedside emergency nursing during the COVID-19 pandemic and continues to maintain an active clinical practice.

Dr. Edwards has testified as an expert in civil and criminal proceedings in state and federal courts across the United States. Her expertise includes the role and limitations of the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner, interpretation of genital and bodily findings, injury mechanisms and healing, delayed disclosure, evidence collection, trauma-informed care, emergency nursing practice, and the distinction between medical findings and legal conclusions.

An experienced nurse educator with approximately 30 years of academic teaching, Dr. Edwards has taught nursing jurisprudence and ethics, forensic nursing, emergency and acute care, health assessment, evidence-based practice, leadership, research, and community health. She has presented nationally and internationally to nurses, physicians, attorneys, law-enforcement professionals, forensic scientists, and other multidisciplinary audiences.

Dr. Edwards is a published scholar whose work addresses sexual violence, drug-facilitated sexual assault, psychological trauma, interpersonal violence, pediatric conditions that may mimic abuse, and clinical issues affecting forensic nursing practice. Her article addressing vaginal bleeding in a child attributed to enterobiasis received the Journal of Forensic Nursing Clinical Article of the Year Award in 2023.

Her professional leadership includes service as an elected commissioner on the International Association of Forensic Nurses Commission for Forensic Nursing Certification Board and as an elected member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. She currently serves as the 2026 President of the Emergency Nurses Association Hi-Plains Chapter and has held numerous leadership roles in forensic nursing, emergency nursing, professional education, and community service.

Dr. Edwards’ contributions have been recognized through numerous honors, including the 2025 Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Nursing Team Teaching Award, the 2022 Texas Woman’s University Hallmark Alumni Award, selection as one of the 2017 Great 100 Nurses of Dallas-Fort Worth, and the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Nursing Community Advocacy Distinguished Alumni Award. She has also been recognized by the United States Department of Justice Office for Victims of Crime and the Hi-Plains Chapter of the Emergency Nurses Association.

Dr. Edwards has repeatedly answered the call to serve communities during times of crisis. She volunteered with the American Red Cross and the Texas Department of State Health Services during Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Ike, and Harvey, working alongside healthcare professionals to assist Texas residents and displaced survivors.