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 who are focused on the mission of educating nurse-midwives and nurse practitioners to deliver quality healthcare to underserved and rural populations.
Tarnia Newton, DNP (Class 28), FNP-C, has seen a shift in nursing and the understanding of the importance of culturally concordant care in healthcare outcomes.
A self-proclaimed “disruptive innovator” and an educator of students she calls “JEDI nurses,” Dr. Newton understands that change does not occur without action. It is a lesson she is instilling in her students at the University of Arizona College of Nursing, where she is an Assistant Clinical Professor and a member of the Equity, Diversion, and Inclusion (EDI) Committee.
“I think nursing as a whole had to really pause and honestly think about systemic and structural racism and the role it plays in health outcomes and what nursing institutions are doing about it,” Dr. Newton said. “I have successfully integrated Safe Zone Training into the DNP program. This introductory workshop provides an overview of LGBTQ+ terminology, health disparities, and issues facing the LGBTQ+ community. It is truly believing, as a practitioner, the importance of offering affirmative care for all.”
Originally from the Bahamas, Dr. Newton had numerous aunts who were nurses, and her great-grandmother was an informal midwife for the rural island community of Andros in the Bahamas.
“It (nursing) may be in my genes,” Dr. Newton said. “I always liked to help people.”
Dr. Newton embraced her nurturing manner and healthcare ancestry and pursued a career in nursing. She started as a Licensed Practical Nurse, working in pediatric home care. After obtaining her RN, she went into critical care. For 16 years as a critical care nurse, she worked in several specialties, including open heart, neurology, trauma, pediatric medical, and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation perfusionist. She then went on to become a Family Nurse Practitioner.
When Dr. Newton decided to pursue a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP), she picked Frontier Nursing University.
“I chose Frontier because it was an online program that genuinely focused on the DNP essentials and gave me the skills I would use in the clinical environment,” Dr. Newton said. “I always say it was the best money I spent on education. I would not be where I am today if it was not for Frontier. They have a great way of creating community and fantastic faculty. I have recommended many of my colleagues to attend Frontier to get their DNP, and just like me, they drank the Kool-Aid. Frontier gave me the tools to be a disruptive innovator. It inspired me to be at the steering wheel of change, therefore truly preparing me for my current role.”
Though Dr. Newton did not formally become a professor until after completing her DNP, she had always enjoyed teaching others. She taught advanced cardiac life support and basic life support and assisted in her hospital’s annual clinical skills fair. Completing the DNP at Frontier in 2018 fully opened the doors to her current career in academia. Dr. Newton began working at Galen College of Nursing in December 2018.
True to her nature, Dr. Newton jumped right into her new career, soaking up knowledge and distributing it to others with equal enthusiasm. She has quickly become a leader in higher education diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
I recently completed the AACN Diversity Leadership Institute, and my capstone project was focuses on creating a resource toolbox but also training faculty on culturally responsive pedagogy and how they can integrate it into their syllabus and classrooms,” Dr. Newton said. “As an educator, advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging through culturally responsive pedagogy is an alternative to improving cultural humility, thus improving community health.”
Data demonstrates that culturally concordant care improves healthcare outcomes. Providing culturally concordant care means increasing diversity in the healthcare workforce and educating healthcare professionals about its importance. It is a tall task, to be certain, but an essential one. It calls for the skills of a JEDI.
“My future goal is to actively participate in changing the landscape of nursing,” Dr. Newton said. “I am so passionate about nursing education to be transformative for students and creating JEDI nurses – meaning Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. It will take JEDI nurses to make a difference in healthcare to be patient-centered, creating inclusive environments for patients and healthy work environments for nurses that are nourishing and not toxic.”
Unfortunately, there is still far too much toxicity in the political climate, which ultimately spills over into other areas, including healthcare and education. Pushback and even legislation against university-driven DEI initiatives are becoming more common nationwide. Those actions demand a response, not a retreat.
“With the new anti-DEI legislation happening across the country, it has become worrisome, especially when considering the importance of health outcomes and how they genuinely relate to diversity, equity, structural racism, and biases,” Dr. Newton said. “Anti-DEI is truly not an option in educating future healthcare providers. The social determinants of health, equity, and justice have to be the focus. This is a time more than ever when we need to take a stand and recreate the nurses we need for the future. We need JEDI-nursing warriors to advocate for all patients. We need health policy, population health, JEDI attributes, and quality improvement skills to be fundamental to the vocational, associate, and bachelor’s level nursing curriculum. We often leave it to the master’s or even doctorate level, but it needs to be at a grass root level. We need to develop nurses who can transform communities by addressing inequity in healthcare practices to improve health outcomes.”
With Dr. Newton’s expertise, commitment, and passion, perhaps, in her case at least, those last two letters of “JEDI” nurse should stand for “Disruptive Innovator.”
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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).