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  • Diversity Impact

    FNU Diversity Impact Student Conference

     June 3-5, 2016

    Join Us for an Impactful, Sight-Seeing, Cultural Excursion! You’re Invited to…

    Learn more on diversity while taking in the sights of nature’s mountains and quiet rivers in Hyden, Ky. Diversity Impact 2016 Weekend Conference is hosted by the FNU student organization Diversity PRIDE Program, and is open to all students who want to become part of FNU’s legacy of providing culturally competent care to rural and underserved communities. Students will engage in cross-cultural and inter-cultural workshop activities, along with leadership strategies on current diversity healthcare trends as it relates to patient-provider care.

    FNU Diversity Impact 2016 opens the door for nurse practitioners and nurse-midwifery students to become global thinkers and leaders within their communities. Come and join us for this cultural excursion!

    Student Registration is OPEN: (click link to register)

    REGISTRATION OPEN: Seating reservations, campus room and board will be given on a first-come, first-serve basis until the conference has reached maximum capacity….Hurry, seats are going Fast!
    CICK HERE TO REGISTER For Diversity Impact 2016!


  • Alumni Spotlight: Nadene Brunk, CNM

    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 that are focused on the mission of educating nurse-midwives and nurse practitioners to deliver quality health care to underserved and rural populations.

    When Nadene Brunk graduated from FNU as a nurse-midwife she knew her skills would be valuable in the U.S., but it wasn’t until she visited Haiti that she comprehended just how powerful her skills could be. With a maternal mortality rate 12 times that of women in the United States, Nadene realized she could literally save lives in Haiti and has now dedicated her life to doing so.

    An FNU nurse-midwifery alumnus from Class 8, Nadene founded Midwives for Haiti, a nonprofit that educates Haitian women in prenatal care and skilled birth assistance. Nadene hopes to reduce maternal and infant mortality in Haiti, which is deemed the most dangerous place in the Western hemisphere to give birth.

    After traveling to Haiti in 2003 as part of a medical team, Nadene witnessed first-hand the lack of resources and skilled care for pregnant women. Determined to provide a long-term solution, she formed a small team of volunteer midwives and medical professionals and soon returned to Haiti. At the request of a Haitian community leader, Nadene established a culturally appropriate training program for Haitian nurses in Hinche.

    With few resources, the first class of nine students held class outdoors with nothing more than a blackboard under a tree. Equipment was donated. Nadene and the other volunteers traveled in a truck that was held together with wire and duct tape.

    Midwives For Haiti became a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in 2006. The hospital from which the team works – St. Therese – is said to be decades past its useful life, but it is adequately staffed by 16 Skilled Birth Attendants, all graduates of the Midwives For Haiti program.

    We are proud to have alumni like Nadene making such a difference!

    Read more about Nadene and Midwives for Haiti in an article by Richmond Times-Dispatch here.

    Watch Nadene’s presentation, “Collaborative Approach to Global Maternity Healthcare” here.

  • FNU Traditions: Building a Community, Part 2

    Student-Led Traditions

     

    With roots tracing back to the early 1900s, Frontier Nursing University (FNU) is a school rich in history. The “FNU Traditions” blog series will give the friends and family of FNU a greater understanding of our many traditions, several of which date back to the days of our founder, Mary Breckinridge.

     

    Our last blog in this series told all about our traditions on campus and around the Wendover dinners during Bound sessions, most of which are faculty led. Here are just a few of our traditions that are student-led:

     

    Blessing Ways: “Blessing Ways” began as a Native American tradition, in which a ceremony was held to celebrate a woman’s right of passage into motherhood. For years now, FNU students have adapted this into their own version of “Blessing Ways”. During Clinical Bound, students are given time to hold a ceremony for one another, “blessing” or honoring each other as they prepare to care for people as nurse-midwives and nurse practitioners. Each group of students can create their own version of Blessing Ways or opt out of it. Some students choose to hold their ceremony in our beautiful historic chapel.  Often times, students use a very special ceramic bowl that was specially crafted and donated to FNU by one of our students for the hand washing or “Blessing of the Hands” portion of the blessing way.  No matter how students choose to celebrate the ceremony, it has become a staple student-led tradition of Clinical Bound.

     

    Bead Exchange: For years students coming to Clinical Bound would bringbeads to give to their fellow classmates. Students would then make bracelets with one bead from each of their peers. The bracelets would be worn during clinicals and the preceptor would cut the bracelet off the  the student has met all clinical goals and objectives.This tradition hasn’t happened in a few years, but it’s never too late to bring it back!


    Giving Back: One of the greatest student-led traditions at Clinical Bound is when students decide to give back to the institution. Many times this comes in the form of adopting a room on campus. Students will paint, decorate, or fix-up things on campus that need improvement. Some examples include donation of DVD players for common rooms, new bedding and lamps for dorm rooms and revitalization of the outdoor areas around a fire pit.  These improvements demonstrate the connection and dedication  our students have to FNU and are enjoyed by students who come to campus after improvements are made. What great students we have at FNU!

     

    Learn more about FNU traditions in Part 3.

     

    Related Content:

    FNU Traditions: Building a Community, Part 1

    Campus and Wendover Dinners

  • Faculty Spotlight: Mr. Zach Young

    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 that are focused on the mission of educating nurse-midwives and nurse practitioners to deliver quality health care to underserved and rural populations.

     

    Zach Young is the Assistant Director of Library Services at Frontier Nursing University. His duties include answering faculty, staff and student reference questions, providing research instruction to FNU students, and assisting the Library Director with maintaining an up-to-date and relevant library collection.

     

    Zach is instrumental to the success of both students and FNU’s evidence-based education approach. He shares, “My favorite part is the interaction with the students and seeing their information literacy skills grow from orientation at Frontier Bound to graduation.”

     

    Zach is often asked to present and his work has also been published, evidence of his commitment to excellence at FNU. He participated in writing a book chapter entitled “Evaluating and Using the Evidence,” in the book Best Practices in Midwifery: Using the Evidence to Implement Change. Zach has also attended numerous library conferences to present research data on student mobile device usage, culminating with the article “Mobile resources use in a distance learning population: what are they really doing on those devices?” published in the Journal of Library & Information Services in Distance Learning.

     

    Zach joined FNU in 2010 as Information Services Librarian. He previously worked at the University of Kentucky Medical Center Library as a Senior Technician. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a Masters of Science in Library Science from the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Ky.

     

    Zach’s hobbies include reading, photography, soccer and board games. His research interests include open access publishing, consumer health information, mobile device usage, rural health, practice based research networks, distance education and innovative teaching techniques.

    Meet Zach Young

     

  • AANP 50th Anniversary: Interview with FNU Dean of Nursing, Julie Marfell DNP, APRN, FNP-BC, FAANP

    AANP 50th Anniversary: Interview with FNU Dean of Nursing, Julie Marfell DNP, APRN, FNP-BC, FAANP

    Frontier Nursing University is proud to announce that our very own Dean of Nursing, Julie Marfell, was interviewed by the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) in honor of its 50th anniversary. Frontier had the first Family Nurse Practitioner Program in the nation in 1970.

    Here is the four-page spread with the interview with Dr. Julie Marfell.

  • Student Spotlight: Anna Marie Nieboer

    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 that are focused on the mission of educating nurse-midwives and nurse practitioners to deliver quality health care to underserved and rural populations.

     

    When the American Medical Resource Institute (AMRI) announced they would be offering a $2,000 scholarship to the winner of an essay contest, FNU Student Anna Marie Nieboer took full advantage. Although she didn’t ultimately win the contest, Anna beat out hundreds of essays to become one of only five finalists. Our team at Frontier Nursing University (FNU) couldn’t be more proud of Anna who is currently enrolled in the Master of Science in Nursing program and plans to become a Certified Nurse-Midwife.

    As a hardworking mother, foster parent, and on-call labor and delivery nurse, Anna feels the call to also pursue the study of Nurse-Midwifery.  She works to carefully balance her personal and professional life so that she can dedicate the needed time to be successful in her studies.In her essay, Anna explains that her passion for midwifery stems out of a desire to provide holistic care to families long after birth. Her essay explains:

     

    “Delivering babies has always been a deep desire of mine since I first held a newborn baby. I decided I would become an OBGYN in elementary school and then changed my career path to a labor & delivery nurse so I could help deliver babies while also welcoming my own.”

    Read Anna’s full essay here.

    Way to go, Anna!

  • Faculty Spotlight: Lisa Chappell FNP, MSN

    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 that are focused on the mission of educating nurse-midwives and nurse practitioners to deliver quality health care to underserved and rural populations.

     

    Lisa Chappell is the Associate Dean of Family Nursing since January 2014. She has worked as faculty at Frontier Nursing University since January 2009.

    Dr. Chappell has been a nurse for 40 years including 20 years as a Family Nurse Practitioner. She obtained a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Auburn University, a Master of Science in Nursing from University of Alabama in Birmingham as a Maternal-Infant Nurse Specialist and a second MSN as a Family Nurse Practitioner.

     

    She earned a PhD in Nursing from the Medical College of Georgia in 2007. Her dissertation was titled: Caring for Their Mothers: The Experiences, Self-Care Practices, and Cultural Influences of African American Women Caregivers.

    Dr. Chappell’s clinical practice experience as a nurse practitioner includes rural clinics, emergency medicine, student health, a psychiatric facility, and correctional medicine. Dr. Chappell has 17 years of teaching experience mostly at the graduate level with nurse practitioners.

    NursePractitionerSchools.com recently interviewed Dr. Chappell concerning Frontier’s programs and history. Go here to view the article.

  • Erin Tenney’s Weekend with Kitty

    By: Erin Tenney

    When Frontier Nursing University student Erin Tenney won the “Weekend with Kitty” contest she had no idea what was in store for her. As winners of the contest, Erin and her friend were able to spend a weekend in Kitty Ernst’s home, where FNU began in the “coop” in Perkiomenville. The following blog includes an excerpt of Erin’s reflections of the weekend. Our team at Frontier is proud to have students like Erin!

     

    We talked a lot about leadership with Kitty Ernst, and how to affect change. I really wanted to learn from her, how she managed to do so much important work in her lifetime that has made such an impact. I guess I was expecting a more complicated response, but the bottom line is that we simply have to respond the needs we see and be diligent in our efforts.

     

    She said, “Only politicians seek leadership”. Others become leaders simply by doing the work and having some success. Eventually others notice and more opportunities arise. When I asked her how she did it all, she said emphatically, “I did not do it. I inspired others to do it. That’s leadership”. She also said that “leadership is 90% inspiration” and that the three R’s are the key: resilience, relationships and reflection. We kept coming back to those and each one was apparent in the many stories she told of all the amazing midwives, leaders and friends she has worked with over the years.

     

    It was remarkable and humbling to hear so many stories of key moments in the history of nurse-midwifery in the U.S., such as when Kitty moved the budding nurse-midwifery training program into what was her chicken coops (and where her house stands now) and started the first CNEP program with a brave group of first students (including Susan Stone, our current FNU President and how when Hattie Hemschemeyer (in her blue suit, with her hand on her hip and cigarette hanging out of her mouth) appointed Kitty to be the next president of the early ACNM organization.

     

    Kitty’s stories are vivid, and priceless. I have always felt akin to the mission and vision of Frontier, and to be so close to the early years was incredible. It solidified my sense of pride and fierce commitment to what has always been the mission and vision of Frontier, “to educate nurses to become competent, entrepreneurial, ethical and compassionate nurse-midwives and nurse practitioners who are leaders in the primary care of women and families with an emphasis on underserved and rural populations.”  

     

    How to do that? It turns out it’s pretty simple. According to Kitty, “make the cause and get good at it”. Work hard. Be diligent and “do your homework”. She said a turning a point in her career is when she “decided to stop fighting to be a midwife, and started fighting for midwifery”. That resonated with me as I complete my doctoral project, focusing on finding successful pathways for integrating midwifery in tribal communities in the U.S. Like Kitty, my work is to support the success of midwifery for ALL women and families, but I am specifically interested in supporting midwifery in Native communities. Indian Health Services has integrated nurse-midwives into their maternity care systems since the 1960s and currently, more than half of AI/AN babies are delivered by nurse-midwives (as opposed to less than 10% in the U.S. overall)!

     

    I’ve been learning about how this model has been and continues to be so successful in Indian Health Services, and yet, for a number of reasons, many AI/AN women and families still do not have access to midwifery care. One of the important solutions to this problem is that we need more AI/AN women to become nurse-midwives.

     

    My friend who attended the weekend with me, Angela, is one of the strong and eager young women who is ready to take up this responsibility, and work toward her dream of starting a birth center on her reservation. She desires to provide her community with the opportunity to birth safely and with autonomy on their land, and truly in accordance with their cultural life ways.

     

    Honestly, the most inspiring part of the whole weekend for me was just before we were getting ready to go, and after Kitty and Angela were talking about leadership, affecting change, tribal sovereignty and the power of women. Angela stood up and with utter conviction (like the most powerful sermon) declared that she would take up a leadership role in her community, because when women take back control over birth, that is a starting point for sovereignty and healing, and THAT is what is going to make a positive difference among tribal communities. It’s not the commodity foods or the grant funded programs, it’s the ability to be self-sustaining and to resume control of key life experiences, such as birth.

     

    I could never say it like she did, and that powerful, emotional moment has passed, but there’s plenty more where that came from! In fact just yesterday, several days after getting back, I visited Angela at the coffee shop where she works, and she had just been telling her co-worker all about birth and sovereignty. She has been enthusiastically supporting and teaching others about birth and breastfeeding for years and is only getting started. She starts nursing school next fall, and plans to attend FNU to become a nurse midwife.

     

    While I could never summarize all of the key takeaways we gained from Kitty, I would say the biggest was a sense of empowerment, because there’s no magic, it just takes vision, persistence and hard work. I’m filled with inspiration from the generations of leaders: Mary Breckinridge, Kitty, Angela and so many others who have done, and will do so much amazing work for women, babies and families. And finally, I gained an even greater sense of clarity and determination to keep the mission and legacy of Frontier moving forward. Kitty gave us valuable context, guidance and tools to guide and encourage our work as we move ahead. There’s no stopping us now!

     

    I woke up today at 4:30 am to write this piece and get to work on advancing midwifery. I hope that like Kitty, when I am 90 years old, that I’m doing the same thing.

     

    Thank you to Frontier for sending us on this adventure. We promise to put our lessons learned to good use!

    Watch Erin Tenney’s Video Contest Entry here.

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