National Nurse Practitioner Week is always an exciting time for Frontier Nursing University (FNU). This year was particularly noteworthy as the celebration corresponded with the 50th anniversary of FNU’s Family Nurse Practitioner program, which was the first of its kind in the United States. In honor of this important week, FNU hosted its fifth annual virtual event to educate, support, and encourage those in the nursing field.
This year’s virtual event was themed Empower 2020 and ran Nov. 8-14, featuring a remarkable line-up of speakers and course selections. Below is a recap of all of the great sessions, including a FREE pharmacology CE session on anxiety in children and adolescents that interested parties can participate in through Oct. 2021.
Empower 2020’s Virtual Sessions:
Becoming a Nurse Practitioner: A Journey in Distance Education
Dr. Paula Alexander-Delpech and Dr. Lisa Chappell
Designed to enlighten current nurse practitioner students or anyone interested in becoming a nurse practitioner, this session offered a 360-degree view of FNU’s distance education program. A panel composed of current students from FNU’s family nurse practitioner, psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner, and women’s healthcare nurse practitioner tracks gathered to share their personal experiences as graduate-level nursing students in an online program.
Free Pharmacology CE: Anxiety in Children and Adolescents: Trends in Treatment
Billinda Tebbenhoff, DNP, PMHNP-BC, PMHCNS-B
This session discussed the approximately 4.4 million children and adolescents in the United States (CDC, 2020) who meet diagnostic criteria for an anxiety disorder and the many more who remain undiagnosed. Though anxiety and stress are an expected part of the human experience, consistently elevated anxiety can interfere with a child’s sense of self and impact the entire family. The implications of the current pandemic related to child and adolescent anxiety are beginning to emerge and depend on the child’s stage of development and pre-pandemic functioning. Predictive trends and guidance regarding helping children, families and communities during the pandemic are all discussed.
Nurse Practitioners Leading Care Through Telehealth
Dr. Jess Calohan, Martha Harvey, Dr. Rachel Mack and Dr. Vicky Stone-Gale
Made up of a panel of Frontier Nursing University nurse practitioner faculty members, this session discussed the rise of telehealth in the panelists’ respective specialties. Panel members represented family nursing, psychiatric-mental health, nurse-midwifery and women’s health departments within FNU. Throughout the session, panelists shared current telehealth trends along with their professional experiences using telehealth as a patient care delivery model and the effects it could have on the future of healthcare.
Dismantling Implicit Bias to Promote Optimal Health Outcomes
Dr. Katheryn Arterberry, Dr. Diane John and Dr. Lisa Chappell
In reaction to the rise in social justice movements this year, this session focused on the negative impact of implicit bias in optimizing health outcomes. In this session, advanced practice nurses identified new processes for changing attitudes and behaviors that can lead to health disparities and move towards equality throughout the healthcare system. The session intended to engage participants in reflective and introspective thoughts leading to individual plans for minimizing personal biases.
FNU would like to thank everyone who participated in this year’s virtual National Nurse Practitioner Week event. It has been a challenging year for many in the field, and it was encouraging to celebrate all of the great work being accomplished while looking towards the future. To view all of the details of Empower 2020 visit the event page 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).
You must be logged in to post a comment.