Frontier Nursing University alumna Dr. Nagavalli Thiruvalluvan, DNP (Class 47), APN, NP-C, CRRN, migrated from India to the United States in 1995, along with her husband and 2-month-old baby. Since then, she has achieved a remarkable nursing career, including the completion of her Post-Master’s Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) from FNU in 2023.
Since 2020, Dr. Thiruvalluvan has owned and operated Adult & Geriatric Primary Care in Metuchen, NJ. The suburban borough, located outside of Staten Island, NY, features a diverse population of Caucasian, Asian, African American, and Hispanic residents. She has provided primary care for adult and geriatric patients in the community focusing on individualized care based on cultural values and beliefs.
Because the opening of her clinic coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Thiruvalluvan initially focused her efforts on going above and beyond in helping patients with COVID-19 testing and treating acute illnesses via telemedicine. She now cares for her patients by providing weight loss management, offering preventative care through education and counseling, and following evidence-based guidelines. She is also passionate about providing medical care to the geriatric population at the clinic, but also in their homes.
“My goal is to treat patients and address all their needs within the scope of my practice,” said Dr. Thiruvalluvan. “I genuinely see the reward of my work in patient statements and satisfaction.”
As an entrepreneur and nurse practitioner, Dr. Thiruvalluvan realized that she needed to expand her knowledge to the doctoral level and get involved with advocacy and policy making, as she encountered bias with insurance companies and physician colleagues who failed to acknowledge the full potential of the practitioner role.
Acting on advice from one of her colleagues, Dr. Thiruvalluvan began her DNP journey at FNU in June of 2022 while continuing to work in her primary care practice. She found the didactic courses to be very helpful as she prepared for her overall DNP project, including PC727: Ethics and Health Policy, where she learned how to identify health-related social issues in the community and dive into the problems.
“It provided me with the knowledge to approach policymakers to address these kinds of issues and fix them at the community level,” said Dr. Thiruvalluvan.
For her DNP project, Dr. Thiruvalluvan developed a weight management program for her primary care clinic, where 75% of her patients had a BMI of 27 or above. She set a goal that 90% of her patient population dealing with weight management issues would achieve their desired goal weight through comprehensive lifestyle modifications.
And then, the pounds started coming off!
With Dr. Thiruvalluvan’s renewed emphasis on preventative care and weight loss management, her patients were able to manage and control comorbidities as they started losing weight. Patients also experienced improved body image and many of them resolved other health conditions, with several medications being reduced or eliminated.
“The biggest reward was seeing evident patient outcomes due to treatment,” said Dr. Thiruvalluvan.
Prior to her DNP journey, Dr. Thiruvalluvan focused on equity when delivering patient care. However, she learned to acknowledge diversity and varied treatment options when delivering individualized care. Her quality improvement (QI) project was especially valuable in not only broadening her knowledge, but also in helping her address weight gain issues and their consequences on her patients at a deeper clinical level.
Dr. Thiruvalluvan identified her project focus while taking PC739: DNP Clinical Prep 101. In addition to supporting overall project preparation, the course also served as an essential starting point to navigating resources for her topic. She then progressed to the DNP planning section, requiring her to learn Google forms, patient data collection, and how to measure her progress through the course workbook and operation definitions.
About FNU DNP Projects
DNP projects are guided by the needs of the clinical site. Projects are small in scope and need to be appropriate for implementation within three months of the student and sponsor deciding on the clinical topic. Students complete planned improvements using the Institute for Healthcare Improvement “Model for Improvement” over an eight-week period. Examples include: improving compliance with childhood vaccination appointments, implementation of a palliative care shared decision making tool, initiating bedside huddles, or utilization of a toolkit related to a nationally endorsed quality measure.
“The operational definitions in the planning section of the course workbook were difficult to wrap my head around,” Dr. Thiruvalluvan reflected, “but they were very useful and tremendously helpful with patient data collection and generating my statistics.”
During project planning and implementation, Dr. Thiruvalluvan and her mentor met biweekly so she could provide updates regarding her progress and discuss the need for improvement and changes if needed.
Through her QI project experience, Dr. Thiruvalluvan was taught to provide the best care available for patients by analyzing evidence through data collection. By learning the importance of practicing scientific, evidence-based care, she was able to improve how she provides safe, effective, and quality care to her patients. The project also pushed her to better advocate for her patients.
“DNP-prepared nurses can improve healthcare outcomes in this country and lead to saving millions of dollars in healthcare costs,” she said.
DNP Program Overview
- Complete your coursework online.
- Complete 30 credit hours in 18 months.
- In collaboration with your clinical site, lead a rapid cycle quality improvement project (500 clinical hours).
- One three-day campus immersion experience (orientation before beginning the program).
- Small cohort of students.
“I recommend students pursue their DNP through FNU, as it teaches you how to think critically and address healthcare in a broader spectrum,” Dr. Thiruvalluvan continued. “By learning more about your key role as a healthcare provider, you will understand how you can be more influential to patients and the healthcare team.”
Dr. Thiruvalluvan truly enjoys her days working with patients in the clinic and seeing how their healthcare outcomes improve. Outside of work, she keeps herself updated with medical and political news, and likes cooking, shopping, and spending time with her 2-year old dog, Sony.
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