When Sandra Tebben Buffington retired in 2014, she did so having lived a life of service as a nurse, midwife, missionary, educator, and researcher for over 50 years.
She grew up in a rural farming community in Pekin, Illinois. Inspired by her mother, Buffington knew at an early age that she wanted to be a nurse.
“My mother wanted to be a nurse, but her mother became ill, and my mother had to leave school in 6th grade and help her father care for her mother and cook for the family,” she said. “I just remember her telling me how much she wanted to be a nurse and the seed was planted that I was going to be a nurse. In church at age 8, I heard a missionary family talk about helping others in Papua New Guinea and again seeds planted. I decided in high school that I would be a nurse and help others in another country.”
She graduated from the St. Francis School of Nursing in Peoria, Illinois, and in 1964 she made good on her goal to help people in other countries. She worked in a 120-bed hospital in Nigeria, where the need was great and the training was sparse due to lack of time and resources. Inspired, she made it her goal to develop and conduct many types of training.
In Nigeria, she began going with a team to schools for immunizations, tuberculosis diagnosis, and teaching about hygiene. Her missionary work overlapped with a civil war in Nigeria. She was evacuated in 1966 and the Lutheran Church that employed her in Nigeria requested she go to Frontier. Several of Buffington’s fellow mission nurses had attended Frontier prior to being assigned internationally. Buffington enrolled at Frontier and passed the Kentucky boards in 1968 as a certified nurse-midwife.
“My experience at Frontier Nursing Service (FNS) offered me so many learning experiences thanks to the staff, including Dr. Mary Wiss and Dr. Mary Fox,” she said, noting that she learned how to do lab work, and take and read x-rays while at Frontier. “All of this was extremely useful when I returned to Nigeria as the level of equipment was similar. The doctors were the most amazing doctors. (They were) so willing to teach me everything and I was thankful to build on my experience in Nigeria.”
“The caregivers, cooks, cleaners, and security guards were helpful, lovely and so much a part of the entire service in those days,” she said. “The quality of training and experiences stayed with me as I continued to develop training programs throughout my life. I was not privileged to meet Mary Breckinridge, but Anna Mae January, Molly Lee, and Betty Lester were my treasured guides.”
“My entire career turned towards midwifery following the FNS days. First returning to Nigeria with the International Red Cross during the civil war, I found myself in many situations where I was grateful for the additional training at FNS and my midwifery education.”
After the war, Buffington helped build a maternity ward and three care villages in Nigeria to reduce travel time for patients. She and her colleagues also educated the village women about caring for illnesses, administering medications, and providing pregnancy care.
“Thanks to all the clinical experience and extra teaching by the doctors at FNS, I found myself more confident and capable of guiding/teaching others. We had many challenges with malnutrition, tropical illnesses, injuries, infections, anemia, obstructed labor, and low birth weight babies.”
“We started offering pregnancy care including delivery. We built an inpatient ward and delivery room and trained staff to conduct deliveries. We offered family planning services and in some places the communities built small huts to use for counseling, providing birth control items, and insertion of IUDs. We started a well-baby clinic offering immunizations and evaluation of children under five. The attendance was overwhelming, and we ran out of supplies to provide care. The need was great.”
In 1978, Buffington left Nigeria to upgrade her training skills with a Master of Public Health. Resuming her missionary work, she lived for over 20 years in Africa and Asia. Additionally, she made more than 30 trips as a consultant and technical advisor for stints ranging from one to three months.
“I am thankful for these opportunities and would do it all over again,” Buffington said.
She retired in 2014 when her husband could no longer travel with her. She continued to volunteer, however, as a long-distance resource for trainers in some countries where she worked. She now enjoys her time with eight grandchildren, and 10 great grandchildren.
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).