Flaherty served as the 22nd Director of the United States Navy Nurse Corps as well as the Deputy Chief, Wounded, Ill, and Injured at the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery from 2009 to 2010.

She graduated from Skidmore College and attended Officer Indoctrination School at Newport, R.I., in August 1974.

Upon transfer to the Philadelphia Naval Medical Center in 1977, she assumed the duties as charge nurse for the General Surgery Unit and the Obstetric and Gynecology clinic.

In February 1991, she was recalled to serve with Fleet Hospital 15, Al Jubail, Saudi Arabia, in support of Operation Desert Shield/Storm.

[2] Flaherty was the 22nd Director of the Navy Nurse Corps and the Deputy Chief, Wounded, Ill, and Injured at the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery from 2009 to 2010.