Frontier Nursing University (FNU) alumna Nikia Grayson, CNM, FNP, APRN is seeking to fill the gap of healthcare that she sees in her urban community in Memphis, Tenn.
Already a nurse practitioner, Nikia returned to school to become a nurse-midwife after discovering a great lack of care for African American mothers in her area. In Memphis, African American babies die at a rate three times greater than that of white babies.
Fueled by that knowledge, Nikia graduated from FNU in 2017 with her CNEP (Class 142), ready to take on the role of providing quality, racially concordant health care.
She now works at a private reproductive health clinic as a nurse-midwife, where her patients are predominantly women of color who are on Medicaid.
To begin addressing the disparity in African American birth outcomes, Nikia and fellow nurse-midwife Jodilyn Owen began a group prenatal care session that meets weekly at the clinic. They are using the conversations among mothers-to-be to show them they are valued, heard and respected in a health care setting.
PBS NewsHour recently aired a story on the work Nikia and her clinic are doing for the women in the Memphis community.
“I recognized there were no midwives of color in the Memphis community,” said Nikia. “I felt the need to fill the gap.”
Nikia’s experience at FNU greatly prepared her for her role in the underserved community. She chose to study nurse-midwifery at Frontier based off stellar recommendations from her University of Tennessee nursing professors. Her decision was sealed by Frontier’s reputation for incredible education and health care models.
“I chose Frontier because of its excellent reputation in the midwifery community,” said Nikia.
This year, Nikia was named a 2018-2019 Duke-Johnson & Johnson Nurse Fellow, one of four FNU alumni to receive the honor.
Thank you, Nikia, for representing FNU and providing better birth outcomes in your underserved community!
