Dr. Annette Cannon

Dr. Annette Cannon is an RN with over 40 years of experience who currently serves as a re-elected county coroner for a population of 600k for the last 4 years. She holds a PhD in Healthcare Administration with a focus on the mentally ill in the criminal justice system, a Masters in Management and a Masters in Nursing with an emphasis in Leadership. Her credentials include D-ABMDI (Diplomat - American Board of Medicolegal Death Investigators), MDI (Medicolegal Death Investigator through the Colorado Coroners Association) and most recently, DF-AFN (Distinguished Fellow -Academy of Forensic Nursing).

Her professional goals are to expand her expertise and certify in the forensics field; continue to provide education to nursing students, new nursing graduates, and to those desiring to change fields about forensic nursing possibilities; and provide clinical rotations or internships to nurses though the next four years of her elected appointment at the coroner’s office. Other goals include working through education about nursing and forensics; and continuing to expand all areas of forensic nursing throughout learning institutions and in the nursing community.

Since joining AFN, she has participated in the SIG committee for Medicolegal Death Investigation. As a group, they wrote an article, “Nurses and Medicolegal Death Investigation” in 2020, which was published in the Journal of Forensic Nursing. The group completed a Bootcamp Workshop that was presented through AFN. Cannon has written and published two books: An Investigation of How Inadequate Mental Health Resources Have Created a Mental Health Crisis for Incarcerated Juveniles with Mental Illness (2005) and Mental Health Crisis (2015). She has published several peer review articles and wrote a chapter for the book, Overview of Forensic Nursing Principles and Practice, called "When Death is the Outcome". She has served as the Chair of the AFN SIG Death Investigation committee since January 2021.