Front: Kimberly Smith, Azam Tayyebi, Amy Rohr, Carrie Dunaway, Caroline Carpenter, Kevin Brunacini
Frontier Nursing University (FNU) seeks to empower its students and graduates to make positive changes in the healthcare field. One of the many ways students do this is through participation in the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI).
To successfully complete Frontier’s DNP program, all students must complete a quality improvement project utilizing the IHI. In December 2018, fifteen students and five faculty attended the IHI National Forum in Orlando, Florida to showcase their presentations. Dr. Jane Houston facilitated Facebook Live presentations of each poster for those who could not attend the conference in person.
There were 17 Frontier poster presentations at the conference, and many received recognition from the British Medical Journal encouraging them to submit their Standards for QUality Improvement Reporting Excellence (SQUIRE) narratives for publication.
FNU students also had the opportunity to present their posters to the keynote speaker, Zubin Damania, who is known as ZDoggMD on YouTube, as well as Don Berwick, MD, MPP, President Emeritus and Senior Fellow at the IHI.
Tarnia Newton, Graduate of DNP Class 28, submitted her abstract for the conference to see if she would be selected to present her final project. Not only was she accepted into the conference in Orlando, but she was actually chosen as a finalist in IHI’s “Pitch Perfect” competition in Glasgow, Scotland.
“This competition gives you three minutes to present your DNP project in an informative but entertaining, TED Talk-type of presentation. I decided to submit an abstract, never thinking it would be accepted!” said Tarnia.
Although there were many applicants, Tarnia’s presentation was chosen, and it is one of only six being presented at the Glasgow Conference this week.
Tarnia is presenting her project, “Improving Diabetes Care in a Nurse-Practitioner Led Clinic” during the Glasgow conference March 26 – April 1. The presentations are judged by Dr. Don Berwick, President Emeritus and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Fiona Godlee, who is editor-in-chief of the British Medical Journal will also be a judge.
While Tarnia’s main motivation for attending this conference is to make improvements in healthcare, she also wants the world to see how FNU students and graduates are adding great value to their field. She hopes that by attending the conference in Glasgow, she can represent FNU and it’s vision and values.
Tarnia said, “Frontier Nursing University has so many amazing projects, and the world needs to know about them!“
FNU is proud of Tarnia and the way she is representing and promoting FNU to both a national and international community of healthcare professionals!
To Tarnia, the most important part of the DNP project is dissemination. She wants to encourage fellow students to take advantage of every opportunity to disseminate their work through posters and podium presentations.
Any student currently in the DNP program, or MSN students who are interested in quality improvement should contact Tarnia, who is the FNU Chapter Faculty Liaison for the IHI Open School. She is available to help students plan ahead to create and disseminate their valuable projects so that FNU students can be the #1 presenters at IHI conferences!
The next IHI Conference takes place in Orlando in December. Click here for more information and start planning now to attend and/or submit an abstract!
Frontier Nursing University (FNU) is proud of our alumni who make a difference in their communities and in their field.
“I feel like I can talk with her about the struggles and fears that I’m experiencing. She gives me her shoulder to cry on advice that keeps me going,” said Stephanie. 
Because Frontier has such a unique distance learning model, it is critical that FNU faculty are up to date on best teaching practices for distance learning. The CITL provides resources and training for faculty on ways to incorporate effective teaching strategies, such as active learning, in a distance learning format. Faculty and Staff learn about these innovative practices and new educational technology through the faculty focused newsletters. The CITL even creates student focused newsletters to ensure that all parts of the Frontier family are receiving the best possible information on educational advancement. 
“I love the ongoing impact I have in my community,” said Marie of the important work she is doing for victims of sexual abuse, physical abuse, and neglect. 
“After being a nurse for over 20 years I knew I wanted to make an even bigger impact in my community,” Marie said.
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).