Kelly Polcher began searching online in 
2009 for a Family Nurse Practitioner program to advance her nursing career. Although there is an FNP program at a local university, Kelly was impressed with Frontier Nursing University (FNU), especially since those she spoke with highly praised FNU’s programs. She also enjoyed the warm reception she received when talking with Frontier employees about applying for the program. Kelly wasn’t alone; she and a friend in her community were both accepted into the FNP 72 class and provided moral support for each other while going through the program.
After Kelly graduated with her FNP, she began working full time at Family Health Care in Fargo, North Dakota. After taking a year off from school, Kelly, along with two classmates from FNP class 72 decided to return to Frontier to complete the doctoral program. She entered the FNU doctoral program in January 2013 and completed in the spring of 2014.
Kelly was attracted to work at Family Health Care because it is a community health center that provides care for underserved populations and incorporates women’s health into its focus. Kelly is proud to have been a part of the growth and expansion of the large clinic. When she started working there, it was housed in a 20,000 square foot office, and the homeless health clinic was based in the basement of a nearby church. With federal funding, grants, tax credits and fundraising efforts, the Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), was able to expand to four adjacent buildings with approximately 50,000 square feet of space. Kelly says the staff and providers are proud that their gorgeous, modern facility with state-of-the-art equipment matches the high quality care of the providers who serve their patients, and that their patients feel comfortable in the new clinic site. Family Health Care is now able to offer more services than before.
The FNU grad loves to be able to give back to her community by working with the homeless, refugees, and indigent patients within the community. In April 2016, Family Healthcare opened its first satellite clinic in West Fargo, ND. Kelly will be transferring there in July to be one of two providers at the new clinic. The other provider will be a nurse-midwife. Kelly hopes that this clinic will allow Family Healthcare to further expand their services and care to more individuals in the community while still providing great primary care, prenatal and women’s health services.
Kelly is proud that Family Health Care incorporates a dental clinic, vision care, and behavioral health to promote holistic care for their broad and diverse group of patients. The clinic has the only Homeless Health Clinic in North Dakota, and is also contracted with the local refugee resettlement agency, supported by federal programs, to provide refugee screenings for the approximately 400 refugees accepted into Fargo each year most recently from Somalia, Bhutan, and Iraq. The local agency, Lutheran Social Services helps refugees with initial housing, financial support, jobs and English language training. Kelly’s clinic screens refugees within 60 days of arrival in the New American and Refugee Clinic for infections, immunization updates and to help them with urgent health care needs such as medications for chronic conditions. Her clinic is able to help with Affordable Care Act registration support to help patients enroll in healthcare coverage. The clinic and it’s affiliated clinic also offer coverage to qualified homeless health and uninsured individuals through sliding fee services.
Kelly loves that the clinic’s mission aligns with the training she had at Frontier, which emphasized service to the underserved. Her clinic’s mission is to make healthcare accessible to everyone, to take away barriers, and to provide comprehensive care with a community-based approach. The clinic treats patients and families from newborn to geriatric, and with a full scope of preventive services with a collaborative, team-based approach by the healthcare practitioners.
Kelly explained that many patients who have not had health care services are not accustomed to consistent preventive care, and have relied on visits to emergency rooms in the past. Patients who have not had access often present with uncontrolled conditions such as diabetes. So the clinic staff and practitioners endeavor to educate patients and promote consistent preventive screenings and consistent care for chronic conditions to improve health, including mental wellbeing. As part of her DNP studies, Kelly implemented a universal mental health screening process at Family Healthcare for newly arrived refugees in Fargo. The results of this pilot study were published by Kelly and her faculty chairperson March 2015 in the Journal of Primary Care and Community Health.
Thanks for all that you do for the underserved, Kelly! FNU is proud to have alumni like you.
At the heart of Frontier Nursing University is a talented and diverse community of students, alumni, faculty, staff, Couriers and preceptors. Spotlight blogs feature members of our FNU community that are focused on the mission of educating nurse-midwives and nurse practitioners to deliver quality health care to underserved and rural populations.
Carrie Belin is an experienced board-certified Family Nurse Practitioner and a graduate of the Johns Hopkins DNP program, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Georgetown University School of Nursing, and Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. She has also completed fellowships at Georgetown and the University of California Irvine.
Angie has been a full-scope midwife since 2009. She has experience in various birth settings including home, hospital, and birth centers. She is committed to integrating the midwifery model of care in the US. She completed her master’s degree in nurse-midwifery at Frontier Nursing University (FNU) and her Doctorate at Johns Hopkins University. She currently serves as the midwifery clinical faculty at FNU. Angie is motivated by the desire to improve the quality of healthcare and has led quality improvement projects on skin-to-skin implementation, labor induction, and improving transfer of care practices between hospital and community midwives. In 2017, she created a short film on skin-to-skin called 
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).