Since its foundation in 1939, Frontier Nursing University (FNU) has adopted a mission of reaching rural, diverse and underserved populations. This mission is still being lived out today, where more than 80 FNU alumni are answering the call in Alaska. In the coming months, we will be highlighting several of these alumni who serve in our country’s most remote and unforgiving state.
Kristina Amundson, DNP, CNM, remembers vividly her days at FNU. Specifically, she recalls Kitty Ernst’s directive to the class: “Go forth and be a change.”
“At the time, I thought, ‘I’m just one person, how can I be a change?’” Amundson recalls. “But it’s just one step at a time. That’s my attitude in providing excellent healthcare. You have the ability to make a difference, so go do it.”
Amundson has indeed gone forth and made a change. Originally from Traverse City, Michigan, Amundson was working as a traveling labor nurse when she met the man who would become her husband in Alaska. The year was 2009, and she’s been there ever since, working first as a labor and delivery nurse and then as a nurse-midwife at Interior Women’s Health in Fairbanks. She also has privileges at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital.
In her decade in Alaska, Amundson has come to realize that education is one of the biggest hurdles to healthcare for many people in the area.
“I find that women need increased access to evidence-based care, and the options in this community are sparse,” Amundson says. “The lack of knowledge of the available healthcare options results in a lack of self-advocacy to receive the best care. That’s the biggest thing, and I’m trying to address that.”
To address that gap, Amundson became an Evidence-Based Birth Instructor, offering her first class in January 2019. The six-week, evidence-based course teaches families what to expect during pregnancy and childbirth. Early interest came largely from her own patients, but she hopes to expand it to a much wider audience, including fellow healthcare professionals in the Fairbanks area.
Amundson attends 60-70 births per year and estimates she has a patient population of 40-50 pregnant women in her care at any given time, in addition to providing other women’s health care. Her goal to increase the exposure of her course might well be aided by a network of other FNU graduates who also work in Fairbanks. There are six other FNU graduates working as nurse-midwives in Fairbanks, including her sister-in-law, Courtney Amundson, MSN, CNM, Class 139, and Margaret Rader, MSN, CNM, Class 43, who was also one of Amundson’s preceptors.
“I think FNU has touched this community in a positive way,” Amundson says. “We have more midwives than obstetricians. If we didn’t have the ability to go to FNU and have extended learning, that wouldn’t be the case here.”
While Fairbanks is not rural, Amundson notes that many of her patients are from rural areas and have to go to great lengths to see her, some driving from as far as four hours away.
“There is a high native population here,” Amundson says. “They generally have poor access to healthcare because many live in villages with no clinics or they are closed in on an island.”
There is also limited access to specialists in Fairbanks. For example, the only access to a child cardiologist is once a month when a child cardiologist visits from Seattle. In some cases, patients have to travel to Anchorage or Seattle to find the specialists they need to see, which, Amundson notes, “can put an extreme financial hardship on a family.”
Another form of specialized care lacking in availability is appropriate mental health care. Amundson says that patients who are not suicidal and have no insurance are often unable to find help, and patients on Medicaid are put on a waiting list of up to a year.
“It is nearly impossible to find a place that will accept Medicaid insurance and even harder to find counseling for those who are not suicidal with Medicaid,” she says. “The patients that I see who are most affected by this are women suffering from perinatal or postpartum depression. In Alaska, I find that our incidence for this is a bit higher than the national prevalence. When I was doing my Doctor of Nursing Practice project, I surveyed and screened those seen in my clinic and 49% of women had some form (mild, moderate, severe) of depression in pregnancy or postpartum. I find that I am often prescribing for women who can’t seek care elsewhere. I am always encouraging counseling but the limited access is very problematic.”
To help address such gaps in access to mental healthcare across the country, FNU launched the Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner degree path in 2017. Meanwhile, Amundson continues to be a champion for the quality of healthcare being provided in Fairbanks.
“People here advocate for change,” she says, noting that the cesarean rate is much lower than the national average. “I feel very positive about our community and how we are addressing healthcare issues.”
Indeed, Amundson and her fellow FNU nurse-midwives of Fairbanks are going forth and making a change.
Justin C. Daily, BSN, RN, has ten years of experience in nursing. At the start of his nursing career, Justin worked as a floor nurse on the oncology floor at St. Francis. He then spent two years as the Director of Nursing in a small rural Kansas hospital before returning to St. Francis and the oncology unit. He has been in his current position as the Chemo Nurse Educator for the past four years. He earned an Associate in Nurse from Hutchinson Community College and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Bethel College.
Brandy Jackson serves as the Director of Undergraduate Nursing Programs and Assistant Educator at Wichita State University and Co-Director of Access in Nursing. Brandy is a seasoned educator with over 15 years of experience. Before entering academia, Brandy served in Hospital-based leadership and Critical Care Staff nurse roles. Brandy is passionate about equity in nursing education with a focus on individuals with disabilities. Her current research interests include accommodations of nursing students with disabilities in clinical learning environments and breaking down barriers for historically unrepresented individuals to enter the nursing profession. Brandy is also actively engaged in Interprofessional Education development, creating IPE opportunities for faculty and students at Wichita State. Brandy is an active member of Wichita Women for Good and Soroptimist, with the goal to empower women and girls. Brandy is a TeamSTEPPS master trainer. She received the DASIY Award for Extraordinary Nursing Faculty in 2019 at Wichita State University. 
Dr. Sabrina Ali Jamal-Eddine is an Arab-disabled queer woman of color with a PhD in Nursing and an interdisciplinary certificate in Disability Ethics from the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). Dr. Jamal-Eddine’s doctoral research explored spoken word poetry as a form of critical narrative pedagogy to educate nursing students about disability, ableism, and disability justice. Dr. Jamal-Eddine now serves as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in UIC’s Department of Disability and Human Development and serves on the Board of Directors of the National Organization of Nurses with Disabilities (NOND). During her doctoral program, Sabrina served as a Summer Fellow at a residential National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH) Summer Institute at Arizona State University (2023), a summer fellow at Andrew W. Mellon’s National Humanities Without Walls program at University of Michigan (2022), a Summer Research Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Othering & Belonging Institute (2021), and an Illinois Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and related Disabilities (LEND) trainee (2019-2020).
Vanessa Cameron works for Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nursing Education & Professional Development. She is also attending George Washington University and progressing towards a PhD in Nursing with an emphasis on ableism in nursing. After becoming disabled in April 2021, Vanessa’s worldview and perspective changed, and a recognition of the ableism present within healthcare and within the culture of nursing was apparent. She has been working since that time to provide educational foundations for nurses about disability and ableism, provide support for fellow disabled nursing colleagues, and advocate for the disabled community within healthcare settings to reduce disparities.
Dr. Lucinda Canty is a certified nurse-midwife, Associate Professor of Nursing, and Director of the Seedworks Health Equity in Nursing Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Columbia University, a master’s degree from Yale University, specializing in nurse-midwifery, and a PhD from the University of Connecticut. Dr. Canty has provided reproductive health care for over 29 years. Her research interests include the prevention of maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity, reducing racial and ethnic health disparities in reproductive health, promoting diversity in nursing, and eliminating racism in nursing and midwifery.
Dr. Lisa Meeks is a distinguished scholar and leader whose unwavering commitment to inclusivity and excellence has significantly influenced the landscape of health professions education and accessibility. She is the founder and executive director of the DocsWithDisabilities Initiative and holds appointments as an Associate Professor in the Departments of Learning Health Sciences and Family Medicine at the University of Michigan.
Dr. Nikia Grayson, DNP, MSN, MPH, MA, CNM, FNP-C, FACNM (she/her) is a trailblazing force in reproductive justice, blending her expertise as a public health activist, anthropologist, and family nurse-midwife to champion the rights and health of underserved communities. Graduating with distinction from Howard University, Nikia holds a bachelor’s degree in communications and a master’s degree in public health. Her academic journey also led her to the University of Memphis, where she earned a master’s in medical anthropology, and the University of Tennessee, where she achieved both a master’s in nursing and a doctorate in nursing practice. Complementing her extensive education, she completed a post-master’s certificate in midwifery at Frontier Nursing University.
Dr. Tia Brown McNair is the Vice President in the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Student Success and Executive Director for the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Centers at the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) in Washington, DC. She oversees both funded projects and AAC&U’s continuing programs on equity, inclusive excellence, high-impact practices, and student success. McNair directs AAC&U’s Summer Institutes on High-Impact Practices and Student Success, and TRHT Campus Centers and serves as the project director for several AAC&U initiatives, including the development of a TRHT-focused campus climate toolkit. She is the lead author of From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education (January 2020) and Becoming a Student-Ready College: A New Culture of Leadership for Student Success (July 2016 and August 2022 Second edition).
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