Robyn E. Weller, CNM, MSN was a member of Class 33 of Frontier Nursing University’s Community-based Nurse-midwifery Education Program (CNEP). She took that education and training and turned it into a remarkable career. She has worked as a certified nurse-midwife for Kaiser Permanente in southern California for over 20 years. She is a successful published author, and she is passionate about participating in medical missions. Somehow, she still found time to answer our questions and share her inspiring story with us.
Please describe your current practice and why you pursued a career in nursing.
I work in a large HMO setting in Southern California. We are full scope here and have a wonderful working relationship with our OBGYN/Perinatal colleagues.
I initially thought I wanted to be a physician and was a year shy of graduating with a degree in biology and getting ready to start applying to medical school when I had the good fortune to follow a friend’s mom who was a labor and delivery nurse. I saw my first birth and thought it was the absolute coolest and most mind-blowing thing ever! They introduced me to the person who caught the baby as a midwife. I had never even heard the word midwife. Once they explained what a midwife was, I literally went back to school and changed my major. Luckily my undergraduate happened to have a great nursing program too! Ironically in a true full circle moment the hospital that I saw my first birth at was the same hospital that I was hired at and still work at today.
What is a typical day for you now?
My typical day depends. It is sometimes in the clinic and sometimes in the hospital. It really is a nice mix of the two.
Please tell us about your book, Happy Mama Postpartum Self-Care — what led you to write it, and how has it been received?
One of my passions is taking care of postpartum moms and families. As a mom of four that experienced postpartum depression, I wanted to offer something a bit different than what I could just do alone at work. The idea of writing a book always lingered in the back of my head. COVID really brought the isolation that moms have to the fore front. It seemed like almost every postpartum person I saw was experiencing it! So, I just started the project. It really was a labor of love.
It is impossible to summarize a book in a few sentences, but how would you describe your book and what readers can expect to take away from it?
Much like a first pancake it is my first official book. I self-published it and just put it out to the world in hopes it would speak to someone. I wrote it with the idea of your very bestie being there for you, but that person also happens to have some medical knowledge and life experience.
There is some snark and humor and sadness and reality throughout the book. It is a book that I wish I had when I had my kids. I would describe it as a guidebook for the first 12 weeks of postpartum. The initial what to anticipate, both physically and emotionally, down to ideas on how to ask for help or gently guide people to help you would actually need.
While it is a drop in the ocean on the needs that our postpartum families have it was my way of starting the ripple.
What do you enjoy most about your job? What are the primary challenges?
What do I love about my job? Certainly, the patients and seeing families grow and change is what keeps me going. However, one of the best things is the people that I work with!
One of my very dearest friends – Mary Schroeder – was a fellow CNEP 33 classmate! We met at bound! She has been such a dear friend and now I can also — after 17 years of trying to get her to come to the HMO world – call her a coworker!
She and I have volunteered together for years also. From numerous breast cancer walks, marathons and now we both go to Sinaloa Mexico with the Flying Doctors of Mercy. The Mexico trips are a blast! We don’t work as midwives, however, and work in the OR with the general surgery team. Mary even assists on laparoscopic surgeries while I circulate! She’s super rad! She even drove me to the hospital (maybe speeding a little in the carpool lanes) with both of us laughing at the thought of an unplanned car delivery with two midwives.
What are your future goals and plans?
Maybe more books. I’ve been working on a menopause book too!
What else do you want to share with the FNU community?
I want to share my gratitude to the FNU community. I have gotten so much more out of being a midwife than I feel like I have put in and it all started with Frontier. You never know where this world will take you.
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).