Corinne Dunn Chabot graduated from the Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing at the Frontier Nursing Service in 1976. For the next 40 years, she worked as a nurse practitioner (NP), retiring in 2016. Recently, she graciously took the time to share her stories from four decades of nursing.
“I arrived in Hyden, Kentucky, about a month after graduating from a four-year college program as a boarded Registered Nurse with zero experience in real life. My friend and I had planned to spend one adventurous year in Kentucky and then return home to Minnesota to real careers,” Chabot said “I was assigned to work in the clinic, otherwise known as the emergency room, with the supervision of other NPs.”
After nearly a year of working in the clinic, upon the urging of friends, Chabot enrolled in the Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) program. After graduating from Frontier, Chabot took a job with the National Health Service Corps in a rural hospital in the logging community of Forks, Washington. “There was a great deal of discussion and disagreement about what people in this new role should even be called. The term ‘nurse practitioner’ came about as a way to define us as different from ‘ordinary nurses’ because of the skills we developed and the tasks we did,” Chabot said. “We examined patients and then made decisions about treatment plans. We chose medications and wrote prescriptions. This was almost treason in the vision of physicians and hospital nurses. There was a great deal of pushback in some areas until there were enough of us working in the field to show our fellow professionals what we could do and how we could help both them and the patients.”
Dedicated to bringing healthcare to rural and underserved areas, the National Health Service Corps proved to be a perfect fit for nurse practitioners.
“I was given extra coaching and observation and was put in the rotation of managing normal deliveries in the hospital, with a doctor always on-site,” Chabot said. “We all did well and had no obstetrical disasters on my watch. I also learned how to sew up chainsaw cuts very neatly.”
Chabot moved to Reedsport, Oregon, two years later to work at a brand new Robert Woods Johnson rural practice project clinic. Working alongside a physician there, she provided family care, prenatal and postpartum visits, and occasionally delivered babies.
“This was a small town, and word spread there was a woman at the clinic who could do your pap smear and as well as talk about depression. I was busy,” Chabot said.
Not only did she have a full plate at the clinic, but Chabot also became a leader and advocate for nurse practitioners. Working with state nursing and medical groups, she helped define state laws for rural clinics like the Robert Woods Johnson clinic. She was also a key advocate for obtaining independent prescriptive privileges for the state’s nurse practitioners.
“Prescriptive privileges were a critical need for NPs working very distantly from their legally required preceptors,” Chabot said. “One of my patients was the wife of the state senate president, and she told me she was going to lots of parties and telling people about the role of nurse practitioners and the need for legal support. The law passed in 1979 as one of the first in the country.”
Corinne with her husband, Dan.While living in Reedsport, Chabot married and became pregnant with her first child. She anxiously awaited the birth, but concerns grew as her due date came and went.
“When my labor finally started, it was four weeks past my due date,” Chabot said. “My perfect daughter could not survive beyond early labor. After there was no heartbeat, I was transferred to the next largest hospital for an eventual C-section.”
Chabot insists on sharing this tragic experience because of the important lessons that came with it. With family on the other side of the country, she and her husband found a family in their community.
“The La Leche League ladies brought us suppers for a month. I never carried my groceries to my car or pumped my gas. We were given space or comfort as needed. My patients, any and all, gave back what I had given, and I was humbled,” she said. “The experience of losing an infant also taught me about grief, grieving, healing, and living. The greatest gift my daughter gave me was the gift of empathy. I really know what grief pain is. That gift served me throughout the rest of my long career in primary care, pediatric psyche care, and in cancer care. That was my daughter’s gift to all my patients. I understood pain.”
Chabot shared her story as an essay on motherhood with loss for the National Public Radio show “Listen to Your Mother.” She and her husband later had two healthy sons and eventually moved to Maine, where her husband had grown up. They also spent time living in Minnesota, and Chabot earned a Master of Science degree as an FNP from the University of Minnesota in 2000.
“I was returning to an educational process 27 years into my career as a ground floor nurse practitioner after introducing the role in several states,” she said. “I always felt I had learned the absolute bedrock of independent nursing practice and honest family-focused care at Frontier Nursing Service. What saved me from making many critical errors was that I learned from the best, most basic, independent, strong role models in the profession while they were forging a pathway to define what this new role would become. The Family Nurses and Midwives at the Frontier Nursing Service were unequaled both as caregivers and as teachers. I have always been proud to claim that certificate from the Frontier Nursing Service as the strongest building block of my resume. It was recognized as such.”
In the latter part of her career, Chabot took on the challenge of learning something new and began working in oncology care and worked in the radiation department, helping patients cope with the side effects of treatment.
“The Frontier Nursing Service has really defined the trajectory of my whole life,” Chabot said. “I am always a nurse practitioner and will be a decision-maker until I die. My son, who is now a physician, told me once, ‘Mom, I want to be the one who knows what to do. Like you.’”
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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.
Frontier Nursing University (FNU) has announced that Dr. Susan Piper, DNP, APRN, PMHNP- BC, has accepted the position of Clinical Director for the Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) Program. Dr. Piper has been a faculty member at FNU since 2018.
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).