The Frontier community is proud to have students and alumni serving on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic. We are committed to sharing their stories in order to provide insight, hope, and encouragement. Thank you to all the health care workers who are risking their own well-being daily to serve our nation. Click here to read more stories of courage and dedication.
The past several months have been rife with troubling news as we have seen a global pandemic change our daily lives. Meanwhile, our modern-day heroes of the healthcare system like Frontier Nursing University (FNU) student Sunoz “Sunny” Soroosh have continued to adapt and serve without hesitation.
Soroosh is a student of FNU’s Nurse-Midwifery (CNEP) program. She had expected to graduate in the Fall of 2020, after also completing her Women’s Health Care Nurse Practitioner (WHNP) Certificate. Soroosh was only 14 births away from graduating in mid-March when the pandemic brought her student clinicals to a screeching halt. After finding out clinicals would be postponed, she switched her part-time RN job at Planned Parenthood to full-time but was laid off two weeks later, like many others forced out of work in the wake of the pandemic. While disappointed, it didn’t stop her from looking for an opportunity to serve. Soroosh has been a resident of New York City for 10 years, so she naturally felt called to help those in her community.
“I never expected to find myself jobless and in the middle of one of the worst-hit areas by a pandemic, but I quickly adapted and found a way to help,” she said. “I was afraid at the beginning, but I tried to be brave and think of those who came before me — my mentors and role models at Frontier.”
Soroosh took a position at the Javits Center Medical Station in April, working alongside the U.S. Military. Javits Center, which is a large convention center known for hosting the New York City ComicCon and other events, was converted into a makeshift hospital for about a month when the surge hit.
At the epicenter of the pandemic, Soroosh worked alongside other nurses providing direct bedside care and helping patients wean off of oxygen so they could return home. Meanwhile, like many healthcare workers, she had to make personal sacrifices and isolated herself for the sake of her loved ones.
“I lived alone in a hotel to prevent my loved ones from getting sick and used a rental car to avoid public transportation and risking exposure to others,” she said.
While working in close proximity to the virus, Soroosh witnessed the inadequacies of the U.S. healthcare system, especially the lack of resources and qualified staff available in minority communities.
“We were not prepared for this pandemic,” she said. “I found this to be especially true in public hospitals in poor inner-city neighborhoods. Many deaths were preventable.”
Despite the frustrations, she says she also witnessed positive changes for maternity and family care. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo eased out-of-hospital birthing restrictions to give women more options during the pandemic. This led to the creation of Jazz Birth Center, a midwife-led birthing center for low-risk pregnancies, where Soroosh works as a birth assistant. Soroosh has seen its positive impact on the women of NYC throughout her time working there.
In addition to her work at Jazz Birth Center, Soroosh is also working as an RN at a public COVID-19 testing site run by the city, as well as finishing her clinical hours at North Central Bronx Hospital.
Thank you, Sunny, for being brave and answering the call in New York City. Your Frontier community is very proud of 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).