Julie Drude, FNP Class 136, CNEP Class 81, DNP Class 26, doesn’t “do boats. I don’t like them. I hate boats.” Even though she was born and raised in Hollywood, Florida, and resides in Chattahoochee, Florida, she said “my extent of the beach and the waves is laying on the beach and sunbathing. I don’t do boats.”
Why, then, was she pictured in front of a boat in Alaska as part of a widely circulated news story in January? The answer as to why she’s in Alaska is that Drude is a travel nurse, currently working as a locum tenens in Homer, Alaska. The answer to why there’s a boat in the picture is because Drude, fellow FNU graduate Kourtney Holder, DNP, Companion, DNP 2, and two other medical personnel were delivering the COVID-19 vaccines to Seldovia, a small town located on Alaska’s Kachemak Bay, about 25 miles from Homer. There are no roads to Seldovia — the only ways to get there are across the bay via bush plane or, unfortunately for Drude, by boat.
Drude began working as a travel nurse in 2012, with her first assignment being the rural town of Bethel, Alaska. She worked there again in 2015 and 2017, and in Valdez, Alaska in the summer of 2020. This is her first trip to Homer, however, with her assignment scheduled from December through March. So, despite her familiarity with rural Alaska, she was not prepared for her assignment on her fourth day in Homer.
“It was my fourth day here and they were like, ‘Oh, by the way, you’re going to Seldovia today to vaccinate’,” she said. “That’s where the picture came from. That was the first day that we got the Pfizer vaccine. Now, this Florida girl who doesn’t do much flying or boating has to get on a boat or a bush plane every Monday and Tuesday and fly over to the village of Seldovia.”
That day, like many in Alaska, the weather was too rough for the bush planes to make the trip over the bay. The only way was by boat. Make no mistake, this is no pleasure cruise across a tranquil bay. It’s a rough trip.
“Because it was the Pfizer vaccine and there is that window that you have to use the vaccine, we had to take a boat,” Drude said. “It was my first boat ride in Alaska. We braved six-foot waves and rough water and delivered COVID vaccines. I had total faith in the captain of the boat, but it was like nothing I had ever experienced in my life. It was even rougher on the way back.”
As scary and unpleasant as the trip was, Drude said it was well worth it.
“It was such an amazing moment to be one of the first people here in this community to deliver some vaccines to Alaskans,” she said. “Mondays and Tuesdays are a little stressful waiting to know how we are going to get across the bay. But it’s been great. There are a lot of Alaska natives here and it’s rural, so it’s a great community to serve.”
The site in Homer is a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC). In addition to Seldovia, and the main clinic in Homer, there is another satellite clinic in Anchor Point, about 20 miles from Homer. The clinic has been providing vaccines at the Homer and Seldovia sites, with the first round going to first responders and Alaska natives over the age of 65.
“The majority of people are very eager to get the vaccine,” Drude said. “I think they see this as a ray of hope because, in places like Alaska, being outdoors and being with family and people, that’s such a huge part of life here. So many of these folks have been in isolation since March and April. Alaska was one of the very last states to be affected, but when the winter months came, COVID started hitting harder here.”
Drude was hit hard by COVID herself. From 2017 to 2020, she worked full time in school-based health in Florida. But when the pandemic began, found working from home to be an unproductive and poor use of her time.
“I saw an ad for staffing in New York for the COVID crisis in April,” she said. “I did a three-week assignment in New York for COVID.”
By the end of her time in New York, she was experiencing shortness of breath. Thinking it was probably anxiety or the result of wearing an N95 mask for 12-hour shifts almost 21 days straight, she nonetheless wore a double-mask on the flight home.
“I went to the ER and my COVID test was negative but I had pneumonia with ground-glass opacities, which is a common finding in COVID pneumonia,” she said. “Over the course of three weeks, I had very random symptoms. Fever, body aches, chills with no fever, body aches with no fever, very odd muscle cramps from my hips all the way to my toes, shortness of breath continued, severe dizziness, headaches. It took me about three weeks to almost fully recover. I am 9 months out and I still suffer from tachycardia, dizzy spells, and brain fog. My case was not as severe as most. I was not hospitalized. I never even got a positive COVID test, but I did have antibodies six weeks after I was ill. Both my pulmonologist and my cardiologist said it was highly likely that it was COVID. I still have what they are calling long-haul symptoms.”
Along those lines, Drude said she intends to be a travel nurse for the long haul.
“My goal is to continue doing locum tenens as a nurse practitioner,” she said. Drude and her husband John have five children, ages 21, 19, 17, 8, and 6. “I like the idea of working in a big clump, then having some time off and being home with them. The beauty is most jobs I take, my husband and two younger children can travel with me.”
Despite treacherous boat rides, COVID, and the other hazards of being a travel nurse, Drude is drawn to the opportunity to provide care in areas where little is available.
“Even though I have a little anxiety about lots of things, I have found that this trip has gotten me way out of my comfort zone,” Drude said. “These residents have to depend on a boat or a plane to get out if they are sick or injured. It’s just nice to be part of something where I can be over there twice a week to provide the care that they need without them having to spend the extra money to go to Homer to get care.”
Fellow FNU graduate Kourtney Holder accompanies Drude on many of these trips. Holder was contacted for this story, but unavailable for an interview. “I enjoyed my time at FNU and appreciate the great education I received there,” Holder said via text.
Drude echoed that comment, crediting FNU for readying her for the risks and rigors of travel nursing.
“I felt very well prepared as a Frontier graduate to do any job,” Drude said. “I love the emphasis on rural health and getting outside of your comfort zone and going where no one has gone before to serve. Frontier ingrains that in you. Get out in the world and serve.”
Even if you have to do it by boat.
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).