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 healthcare to underserved and rural populations.
Tarnia Newton, DNP (Class 28), FNP-C, has seen a shift in nursing and the understanding of the importance of culturally concordant care in healthcare outcomes.
A self-proclaimed “disruptive innovator” and an educator of students she calls “JEDI nurses,” Dr. Newton understands that change does not occur without action. It is a lesson she is instilling in her students at the University of Arizona College of Nursing, where she is an Assistant Clinical Professor and a member of the Equity, Diversion, and Inclusion (EDI) Committee.
“I think nursing as a whole had to really pause and honestly think about systemic and structural racism and the role it plays in health outcomes and what nursing institutions are doing about it,” Dr. Newton said. “I have successfully integrated Safe Zone Training into the DNP program. This introductory workshop provides an overview of LGBTQ+ terminology, health disparities, and issues facing the LGBTQ+ community. It is truly believing, as a practitioner, the importance of offering affirmative care for all.”
Originally from the Bahamas, Dr. Newton had numerous aunts who were nurses, and her great-grandmother was an informal midwife for the rural island community of Andros in the Bahamas.
“It (nursing) may be in my genes,” Dr. Newton said. “I always liked to help people.”
Dr. Newton embraced her nurturing manner and healthcare ancestry and pursued a career in nursing. She started as a Licensed Practical Nurse, working in pediatric home care. After obtaining her RN, she went into critical care. For 16 years as a critical care nurse, she worked in several specialties, including open heart, neurology, trauma, pediatric medical, and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation perfusionist. She then went on to become a Family Nurse Practitioner.
When Dr. Newton decided to pursue a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP), she picked Frontier Nursing University.
“I chose Frontier because it was an online program that genuinely focused on the DNP essentials and gave me the skills I would use in the clinical environment,” Dr. Newton said. “I always say it was the best money I spent on education. I would not be where I am today if it was not for Frontier. They have a great way of creating community and fantastic faculty. I have recommended many of my colleagues to attend Frontier to get their DNP, and just like me, they drank the Kool-Aid. Frontier gave me the tools to be a disruptive innovator. It inspired me to be at the steering wheel of change, therefore truly preparing me for my current role.”
Though Dr. Newton did not formally become a professor until after completing her DNP, she had always enjoyed teaching others. She taught advanced cardiac life support and basic life support and assisted in her hospital’s annual clinical skills fair. Completing the DNP at Frontier in 2018 fully opened the doors to her current career in academia. Dr. Newton began working at Galen College of Nursing in December 2018.
True to her nature, Dr. Newton jumped right into her new career, soaking up knowledge and distributing it to others with equal enthusiasm. She has quickly become a leader in higher education diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
I recently completed the AACN Diversity Leadership Institute, and my capstone project was focuses on creating a resource toolbox but also training faculty on culturally responsive pedagogy and how they can integrate it into their syllabus and classrooms,” Dr. Newton said. “As an educator, advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging through culturally responsive pedagogy is an alternative to improving cultural humility, thus improving community health.”
Data demonstrates that culturally concordant care improves healthcare outcomes. Providing culturally concordant care means increasing diversity in the healthcare workforce and educating healthcare professionals about its importance. It is a tall task, to be certain, but an essential one. It calls for the skills of a JEDI.
“My future goal is to actively participate in changing the landscape of nursing,” Dr. Newton said. “I am so passionate about nursing education to be transformative for students and creating JEDI nurses – meaning Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. It will take JEDI nurses to make a difference in healthcare to be patient-centered, creating inclusive environments for patients and healthy work environments for nurses that are nourishing and not toxic.”
Unfortunately, there is still far too much toxicity in the political climate, which ultimately spills over into other areas, including healthcare and education. Pushback and even legislation against university-driven DEI initiatives are becoming more common nationwide. Those actions demand a response, not a retreat.
“With the new anti-DEI legislation happening across the country, it has become worrisome, especially when considering the importance of health outcomes and how they genuinely relate to diversity, equity, structural racism, and biases,” Dr. Newton said. “Anti-DEI is truly not an option in educating future healthcare providers. The social determinants of health, equity, and justice have to be the focus. This is a time more than ever when we need to take a stand and recreate the nurses we need for the future. We need JEDI-nursing warriors to advocate for all patients. We need health policy, population health, JEDI attributes, and quality improvement skills to be fundamental to the vocational, associate, and bachelor’s level nursing curriculum. We often leave it to the master’s or even doctorate level, but it needs to be at a grass root level. We need to develop nurses who can transform communities by addressing inequity in healthcare practices to improve health outcomes.”
With Dr. Newton’s expertise, commitment, and passion, perhaps, in her case at least, those last two letters of “JEDI” nurse should stand for “Disruptive Innovator.”
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Frontier Nursing University is proud to be accredited for nursing continuing professional development by ANCC. As an ANCC NCPD-accredited organization, FNU has proven that our organization is committed to the growth of our nurses through high-quality continuing professional development. We offer a variety of continuing education courses for advanced practice nurses and midwives as well as other healthcare providers.
Frontier Nursing University (FNU) has announced the addition of two current FNU students to the university’s Board of Directors. The Board, led by Chair Dr. Michael Carter, DNSc, DNP, FAAN, FNP/GNP-BC, formally approved FNP student Kate Corbett and DNP student Bridget Ehrhart-Bennett, FNP, PMHNP, as non-voting student representatives serving one-year terms on the Board.