The community at Frontier NursingUniversity (FNU) believes it is our 
responsibility to serve the underserved in ways that change the lives and improve the overall health of community members. Frontier course faculty member Ruth Elsasser is at the heart of this movement, hosting impactful presentations to locals that invite them to consider how diet and lifestyle choices affect their health and wellness.
Ruth, a 2015 graduate from Frontier’s Post-Master’s Doctor of Nursing Practice (PM-DNP) program, says her goal was always to teach.
“I am constantly striving to improve my skills as a clinician and gain as much knowledge as possible to positively influence the lives of all those that I touch,” Elsasser says. “The DNP has provided me with more opportunities to do just that.”
Elsasser chose FNU because the DNP program encourages students to develop and implement solutions to close the gap in health care. Since her graduation in 2015, Elsasser has been teaching Advanced Pharmacology at Frontier.
Stemming from her experience as a student and faculty member at FNU, Elsasser has a message she is sharing with the community. Her target audience is new moms and chronic pain patients, and her theme is clear: diet and lifestyle choices directly affect personal and family health and wellness. Since beginning to share her presentation locally, Elsasser has seen positive developments.
One couple followed a few recommendations they heard from the presentation and are now weaned off of eight different medications (as a couple). They reported to Elsasser that they are much more present in the lives of their kids and grandkids because of the changes.
“They felt that their lives had become ‘theirs again’,” Elsasser says. “This has motivated me, as well, to continue learning and reaching out to as many as possible.”
Thank you, Ruth, for representing Frontier Nursing University’s mission, both on and off campus!
At the heart of Frontier Nursing University is a talented and diverse 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 deliver quality health care to underserved and rural populations.
Carr, CNM, from St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Boston, Mass., was honored as FNU’s “Featured Preceptor” for the summer term. Kathryn was nominated by Clinical Director, Dr. Jane Houston.
Frontier Nursing University (FNU) is heading to the Big Apple! FNU students, alumni, faculty, staff and supporters will flood into New York City during during National Midwifery Week on October 1-7, 2017, for several events celebrating and supporting the important work of nurse-midwives. The United States has the highest rates of maternal death and injury, the lowest birth weights, and the widest disparities in the entire developed world. FNU hopes to raise awareness of how nurse-midwives are a part of the solution.
Jackie Brooks as the Spring Term Circle of Caring Award winners! The Circle of Caring Award is a new recognition for faculty and staff who go above and beyond their job duties and strive to uphold FNU’s mission and Culture of Caring everyday. One faculty and staff member will be recognized each term.
conference, June 1-4, 2017 on the historic FNU campus in Hyden KY. This year’s theme focused on “Moving Forward: Uniting through Diversity” where students, alumni, faculty, staff and guests united for team building tasks, cross-cultural activities and collaborative discussions to address health disparities and ways to improve minority health among underrepresented and marginalized groups.
The enthusiastic Mannequin Challenge activity brought everyone together to create awareness of the Diversity Impact event and to showcase how participants are impacting health care within their communities. The Mannequin Challenge illustrates that everyone has a role at the frontlines of healthcare to combat health disparities.
my thick blue nursing scrubs. In the little birth rooms in the free-standing birth center, the labors and births seemed to create more heat than the Texas sun, even in the middle of the night. Hour after hour, the women stretched and strained, moved and made noise, opened and gave forth life. For a year as an Americorps volunteer on the border of Mexico, hour after hour I learned how to provide support and to monitor and trust the normal physiologic processes of labor and birth. The vast majority of the women delivered vaginally, and we transferred those few who needed cesarean sections to the local hospital.
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).