National Midwifery Week is October 4-10, and Frontier Nursing University (FNU) is celebrating by hosting their 6th annual virtual event dedicated to nurse-midwifery. This year’s free event is themed Empower 2020 Year of the Nurse and the Midwife. Everyone is invited to participate in this exciting experience, which will exhibit presentations from passionate leaders in nurse-midwifery as they explore ways in which the community can commit to better care for women and families.
To get things started, on Monday, Oct. 5, at 5 p.m. EDT, FNU faculty Jeneen A. Lomax, DNP, APRN, CNM, and FNU Department Chair of Midwifery and Women’s Health Dr. Tonya Nicholson will present, “It’s the Year of the Nurse and the Midwife: Get the 411 on Becoming a Nurse-Midwife,” featuring a diverse student panel including Jamilla Webb, BSN, RN, Sunoz “Sunny” Soroosh, RN, MPH, Erin Hanks, RN, IBCLC, and Cheryl Appleton, BSN, RNC-OB, C-EFM. This session is designed for current nurse-midwifery students or anyone considering becoming a nurse-midwife. Listen to Dr. Jeneen Lomax and Dr. Nicholson discuss the value of midwifery and then get the inside scoop from current students about their experiences as they work to become nurse-midwives. The presenters and panelists in this session come from a wide variety of personal and healthcare backgrounds. FNU will be taking questions before or during this live session to engage participants and promote a better understanding of FNU’s approach to nurse-midwifery education.
On Tuesday, Oct. 6, at 5 p.m. EDT, FNU faculty members Dr. Tanya Belcheff, Dr. Cassie Belzer, Dr. Judith Butler, Martha Harvey, Dr. Audrey Perry, and Heidi Loomis will present a free continuing education course, “Midwifery Pearls of Telehealth.” This relevant session will provide an overview of telehealth from a nurse-midwifery perspective with special emphasis on the areas of patient engagement, group care, provider satisfaction, and best practices for meeting compliance requirements. The information is especially pertinent in the age of COVID-19 and will provide helpful information to anyone who has had to make adjustments to their practice during this unprecedented year.
The fun continues on Wednesday, Oct. 7, at 5 p.m. EDT with another continuing education session, “Hot Topics in the Management of Perimenopause & Menopause: A Conventional & Integrative Approach,” hosted by FNU faculty members Dr. Ruth Ellen Elsasser and Dr. Ana Verzone. This session will provide a review of conventional and evidence-based integrative medicine interventions used during perimenopause and menopause. Some of the topics covered include: understanding menopause and its varied presentation and symptoms, knowing the critical differences between perimenopause and menopause, identifying complications of conventional pharmacology, and developing a patient-centered, individualized plan of care when managing perimenopause and menopause.
This event will conclude Thursday, Oct. 8, at 5 p.m. EDT with FNU Assistant Professor Dr. Heather Clarke and FNU President Dr. Susan Stone presenting “Racial Disparities in Maternity Care: Where Do We Go From Here?” This session will discuss how high maternal and infant mortality rates are directly correlated with racism and how the nursing community can use strategic planning to rebuild these systems and create real change. The session will help nurse-midwives identify disparities in health care outcomes for Black and indigenous women and apply real strategies to combat racism and improve outcomes.
We hope you will join us for one or more of these impactful evenings! Visit frontier.edu/MidwiferyWeek for more information or to register for one or all of the sessions. See FNU’s full lineup of virtual events here.
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).