At the heart of Frontier Nursing University is a talented community of students, alumni, faculty, staff, Couriers and preceptors. Spotlight blogs feature members of our FNU community who are focused on the mission of educating nurse-midwives and nurse practitioners to work with all people, with an emphasis on rural and underserved communities.
FNU graduate Brandi Milton, NP-C, has always been drawn to helping others. Inspired by her grandmother who was a nurse, she knew from a young age that she wanted to work in healthcare. Today, that passion has led her to establish her own wellness practice: Conqr Aesthetics & Wellness in Atlanta.
Originally from North Carolina, Milton earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and later completed an accelerated BSN Program at Winston-Salem State University. She then went on to serve as a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) nurse.
While working in the PICU, Milton discovered that although she didn’t see herself remaining in a bedside nursing role long term, she had a strong passion for building meaningful relationships with her patients. As a bedside nurse, she was juggling heavy workloads and urgent needs which limited the time she had to connect with patients.
To build on her experience, Milton decided to pursue her MSN with a Family Nurse Practitioner specialty through the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Milton has now served as a nurse practitioner for 13 years, working in areas such as Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology, Interventional and Diagnostic Pain Management, and Interventional and Diagnostic Radiology.
To further expand her expertise, Milton pursued a second specialty as a Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) in Frontier’s post-graduate certificate program. Milton said her decision to become a PMHNP was driven by the realization that mental health plays a critical role in every position she has held throughout her healthcare career.
“In every single specialty, mental health is woven throughout,” she said.
As a post-graduate student at FNU, Milton said she found a great support system of like-minded individuals.
“I have met and made friends with so many other providers. I went into the program as a post-graduate student, so it was different than the traditional students who were coming in for their first degree,” she said. “We had a really close-knit community.”
For Milton, the journey to embracing holistic wellness was one influenced by her family’s own experiences with health challenges. Milton’s late mother was diagnosed with breast cancer while Milton was a senior in college. She said watching her mother change her lifestyle and embrace wellness shifted her perspective on health.
“That’s when I really started to focus on the holistic side and the wellness side because I saw how her overall health outcomes improved when she made those changes,” she said.
Milton founded Conqr Aesthetics & Wellness in 2022. The business offers a comprehensive range of treatments designed to help patients achieve their aesthetic goals and enhance overall wellness. Treatments range from minimally invasive cosmetic procedures to personalized weight loss programs and revitalizing IV therapy.
Milton is committed to providing natural-looking results and personalized treatment plans tailored to each individual’s unique needs and goals. She plans to broaden the scope of her practice with the PMHNP certificate from Frontier. While she may be seeing a patient for one concern, her ability to assess mental and emotional health will allow her to focus on the full spectrum of a patient’s needs. Her plan is to add a concierge medicine component and on-call providers to her practice to bridge the gap between physical and mental health.
“I knew there was a need, and I knew that I could create a business where we treat the whole person,” she said.
Milton said that whether you’re just beginning a career in healthcare or advancing your education, it’s essential to find the specialty that brings you a unique sense of joy and fulfillment.
“Finding that area that brings you joy translates to providing the best patient care,” she said. “When you love your job, when you love what you do, your patients notice it.”
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We had the opportunity to visit Brandi Milton and her aesthetics clinic in Atlanta during our Presidential Tour. Go behind the scenes with Brandi, President Dr. Brooke Flinders and PMHNP Clinical Director Dr. Susan Piper in this episode of On the Trail:
If you’d like to meet up with us this year, please see our full Presidential Tour schedule for events and more where we will be connecting with and celebrating the FNU community. To read more graduate stories, visit our alumni news page.
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).