WEAVING WELL-BEING INTO EVERY ASPECT OF THE SCHOOL AND THE PROFESSION MARKING THE DNP’S 20TH ANNIVERSARY: THE FIRST OF ITS KIND
HOW (AND WHY ) IT MUST BE NURTURED
“As a member of Columbia Nursing’s Board of Advisors, I made my planned gift because I really want to thank Columbia for the opportunity to attend nursing school, which gave me my career. I am really happy with the training and exposure to the health care community that Columbia gave me. This is one of the benefits of planning for your own future; I thought I might need the annuity in retirement, but it turns out that I don’t—and I feel very strongly about ‘paying it forward’ to Columbia.”
— Patricia Riley, BS ’76How do you care for yourself? Do you follow an exercise regimen? Do you meditate regularly? Whatever your routine is, self-care for our bodies and minds is essential if nurses are to sustain our physical and emotional energy and do our best work.
The nurses in our first feature—which starts on page 6—discuss how to find joy in their work, something that certainly counts as self-care. True, this can be tough for those who care for terminally ill patients or those working on a short-staffed unit. Yet just connecting with patients is all it takes to elicit joy for some nurses. For others, joy may come from seeing the positive impact they can have on students or young nurses whom they’re mentoring.
The nurses included in that conversation agreed on one point: that crucial to experiencing joy is finding a sense of meaning or purpose in their work. They also acknowledged that recognizing such purpose can be difficult when they are pulled in a dozen different directions. But that makes it all the more important to pause occasionally throughout the day, if only briefly, to focus on meaning and joy—a simple but critical act of self-care.
In addition to finding joy in their work, many of the nurses highlighted in these pages share something that would have been impossible 20 years ago: a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree. The NPs in our second feature—which starts on page 12—would never have landed the high-level positions they hold in complex medical, academic, or business settings without the education they received in Columbia’s DNP program, the first of its kind in the country and a model for some 400 subsequent doctoral programs nationwide.
Judy Honig, DNP ’05, EdD ’95, who retires at the end of this academic year as the school’s vice dean of academics and dean of students, was one of the program’s first graduates. She also helped design the program, which emphasizes clinical expertise and an understanding of the health care landscape in which NPs practice. For those contributions and innumerable others, we at Columbia Nursing owe Judy considerable gratitude; happily for us, she will remain in a special consulting role for the next several years.
One of Judy’s classmates in the program was Edwidge Thomas, DNP ’05, a Haitian immigrant who grew up in a medically
underserved, socially marginalized community and lost her mother to an overlooked heart ailment; she now enhances care delivery in impoverished communities and fights disparities that typically affect women of color, like her mother. Lora Peppard, PhD, DNP ’08, was yet another early graduate of the program; her fascination with nursing and health care systems has led her to oversee several programs, like the Center for Advancing Prevention Excellence at the University of Baltimore.
Columbia Nursing excels in preparing clinicians able to connect the dots between environments—like neighborhoods without safe housing, transportation, recreation, or access to healthy food— and patients’ health problems—like chronic illnesses, depression, or substance use disorders. Our curricula emphasize community health and wellness, including teaching children in after-school programs about having a healthy brain; helping cancer patients and their families handle the burdensome costs of illness; and offering health screenings, education, and other forms of preventive health to underserved populations—programs that are the focus of the feature that starts on page 18.
Our focus on well-being relies, at its core, on the expertise and excellence of our faculty. In classrooms and clinics, they mentor and inspire our students. That’s why the final feature in this issue—starting on page 24—highlights the backgrounds of several of our new and newly promoted colleagues, including Mary Hickey, EdD, whom we recently welcomed to Columbia Nursing as our new vice dean of education.
I truly hope that the sense of community we all share—those named in this issue being merely a few representative examples— brings every one of us meaning and joy in our careers in nursing.
LORRAINE FRAZIER, PhD, RN, FAAN Dean, Columbia University School of Nursing
Mary O’Neil Mundinger Professor of Nursing Senior Vice President, Columbia University Irving Medical Center
Lorraine Frazier, PhD, RN, FAAN Dean, Columbia University School of Nursing
Mary O’Neil Mundinger Professor of Nursing Senior Vice President, Columbia University Irving Medical Center
ALUMNI NEWS EDITORS:
Janice Rafferty Grady
Associate Dean, Development and Alumni Relations
Janine Handfus
Associate Director, Annual Fund
Sharon Sobel
Assistant Director, Alumni Relations
BOARD OF ADVISORS:
Laura Ardizzone, DNP ’10 Director of Nurse Anesthesia Services, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center New York, NY
Felesia Bowen, PhD ’10 Professor and Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, School of Nursing, University of Alabama at Birmingham Birmingham, AL
Brenda Barrowclough Brodie, BS ’65 Durham, NC
Paul Coyne, DNP ’16, MBA President & Co-Founder, Inspiren; Senior Vice President and Chief Nurse Executive, Hospital for Special Surgery New York, NY
Delphine Mendez de Leon, BS ’78, MBA, MPH Chief Strategy Officer, University Hospital of Brooklyn New York, NY
Angela Clarke Duff, BS ’70 Forest Hills, NY
Marjorie Harrison Fleming, BS ’69 Chair Seabrook Island, SC
Susan Fox, BS ’84, MBA President and CEO, White Plains Hospital White Plains, NY
Susan Furlaud, MS ’12 Vero Beach, FL
Karen Hein, MD Jacksonville, VT
Linda Muskat Rim, Editor-in-Chief Senior Associate Dean, Strategic Communications and Marketing
DESIGN AND ART DIRECTION:
Eson Chan
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS:
Anne Harding
Andrea Kott, MPH
Kenneth Miller
Debra S. Heinrich, EdD ’22 Bedford, NY
Mary Turner Henderson, BS ’64 San Francisco, CA
Richard I. Levin, MD Senior Advisor to the President, Arnold P. Gold Foundation; Emeritus Professor of Medicine, McGill and New York Universities New York, NY
Wilhelmina Manzano, MA
Group Senior Vice President, Chief Nursing Executive, and Chief Operating Officer for Perioperative Services, NewYork-Presbyterian New York, NY
Janet Ready, BS ’81, MBA, MPH COO, Premier Medical Group Poughkeepsie, NY
Patricia Riley, BS ’76 Captain (Retired), U.S. Public Heath Service Atlanta, GA
Susan Salka, MBA Independent Director, McKesson Dallas, TX
Sara Shipley Stone, BS ’69 Brooksville, ME
Edwidge J. Thomas, DNP ’05
Vice President of Clinical Solutions, Northwell Holdings & Ventures New York, NY
Jasmine L. Travers, PhD ’16
Assistant Professor, New York University
Rory Meyers College of Nursing New York, NY
· In Memoriam 4 34 30
· NHLBI Awards Caceres $3M to Study Stigma, Blood Pressure
· Nursing School Ranks #1 in NIH Research Funding for FY 2023
· Study Investigates Walking for Maintaining Brain Health
· Fewer Nurses Now Serve as State Legislators, Study Finds
· A Glimpse of Alumni Events Throughout the Year
· From the Alumni Association Board President
· Meet Your New Alumni Association Board Members
· Class Notes
6
Four Columbia Nursing alumni, in a conversation facilitated by a fellow alum and current faculty member, wax enthusiastic about the joy to be found in many aspects of nursing.
A s Columbia Nursing’s DNP program turns 20, it celebrates its past—and looks to its future.
18
How Columbia Nursing supports wellness among its varied communities.
24
The Columbia Nursing faculty has grown notably over the past year. Here’s insight into the expertise newly represented in the school’s leadership and faculty ranks.
Assistant Professor of Nursing Billy Caceres, PhD, will receive a $3,084,733 grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NHLBI), his first R01 award, for a study looking at how anticipated and vicarious stigma influence blood pressure (BP).
The four-year project, “A Daily Diary Examination of the Influence of Intersectional Stigma on Blood Pressure,” uses a novel approach to examine the relationship between discrimination and cardiovascular disease.
Stigma can include discrimination related to one’s identity, as well as to the effects of systemic racism, sexism, and other types of bias. “There is robust evidence to support stigma as an important social determinant of health,” explains Caceres, noting that exposure to stigma has been linked to hypertension, diabetes, obesity, smoking, and disturbed sleep.
Research to date in this area has focused on the direct experiences of discrimination due to a single stigmatized identity, adds Caceres, an affiliated investigator with both the Center for Sexual and Gender Minority Health Research and the Center for Research on People of Color at Columbia Nursing. “It sort of ignores the fact that people of color can also be women, they can also be gay, they can also have a disability.”
The new study is designed to measure whether the number of stigmatized identities a person has influences the effects of experiencing anticipatory stigma (expecting unfair treatment) and vicarious stigma (witnessing or hearing about discrimination without experiencing it directly). In their daily lives, Caceres notes, people may have more exposure to these indirect but pervasive forms of stigma, with potentially greater health effects.
He and his colleagues will enroll 400 adults diverse in sexual identity, race, ethnicity, and gender, who will have their blood pressure checked twice in the morning and twice at night for seven days. Each morning, they will note their level of anticipated stigma, and at bedtime they will report the amount of vicarious stigma they experienced that day.
Caceres and his colleagues hypothesize that people will have a greater increase in BP when they are reporting higher levels of stigma and that the effect will be stronger in those with a higher number of stigmatized identities.
The study will be a critical step for identifying mechanistic targets for interventions and policies to reverse the adverse effects of stigma on cardiovascular disease risk in stigmatized adults. At the individual level, Caceres notes, “we need interventions that would address both cardiovascular health and discrimination-related stress.” Enrollment will begin in spring 2024.
For the second year in a row, the Columbia University School of Nursing ranked #1 among all U.S. schools of nursing in terms of total research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), with 38 grants totaling nearly $24 million in fiscal year 2023.Those totals compare to 36 grants and about $18.7 million in funding in FY 2022, and 26 grants and $9.5 million in FY 2021, when Columbia Nursing ranked #4 in research funding.
“Our school’s diverse research enterprise, dedicated to advancing health for all, continues to flourish,” says Dean Lorraine Frazier, PhD. “It’s all about the impact of what we do on patients. Our investigators are building the evidence base we need to help patients and communities thrive. We couldn’t be more proud of our scientists and the Columbia Nursing community that helped us reach #1 again.”
The Columbia Nursing research funded by the NIH in FY 2023 included multiple interventions to address racial and ethnic disparities in maternal outcomes, improve asthma control in adolescents and adults, promote viral suppression among people living with HIV, support better care for patients with heart disease, and much more. A full list of Columbia Nursing research funded by the NIH in FY 2023 is available at https://www.nursing.columbia.edu/news/nih-awardees-and-projects-fundedfy-2023.
Members of the Columbia Nursing faculty also continue to secure funding for their research from a wide variety of other governmental and private sources, including the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Betty Irene Moore Foundation.
“Our faculty, postdocs, and PhD students are engaged in an exciting array of projects, locally and globally, with the common goal of promoting health for all across the life span,” observes Elizabeth Corwin, PhD, vice dean of strategic and innovative research. “I continue to be amazed by their creativity and commitment.”
Professor Ulf Bronas, PhD, has begun recruiting people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and chronic kidney disease to investigate whether a six-month, home-based walking regimen can help stave off cognitive decline in this high-risk group.
“On average, a patient with chronic kidney disease has a brain that is about 10 years older than a healthy age- and sex-matched individual, and we don’t really know why that is,” Bronas notes.
He initiated the Accelerated Age-Related Cognitive Decline: Impact of Exercise on Executive Function and Neuroplasticity (EXEC) study while at the University of Illinois Chicago. Funded with $2.6 million from the National Institute on Aging, the five-year project will continue at Columbia Nursing for years three to five.
Participants will be assigned to a six-month exercise intervention or health education. The exercise group will receive instruction and coaching on walking and exercising safely, in a way that works for them and is tailored to their needs. The health education group will receive the same information and contact time, but no coaching.
Bronas and his colleagues hypothesize that the exercise group will show improvements in executive function, cognitive subdomains, brain white matter integrity, structure, and functional connectivity compared to the control group after six months.
“We think that walking improves blood flow and perfusion to the brain, which then helps the connectivity in the brain, which then helps to improve cognition,” he explains.
The number of nurses holding state legislative office in the U.S. has declined significantly over the past decade, investigators from Columbia Nursing reported in a new study.
This 10-year downward trend is concerning and should be a call to action to support all forms of civic engagement among nurses, say study authors Darlene Curley, EdD, a member of the advisory board of Columbia Nursing’s Center for Health Policy and a Maine state legislator from 2002 to 2007, and Patricia Stone, PhD, the Centennial Professor of Health Policy in the Faculty of Nursing and the center’s executive director.
Curley and Stone created a directory of registered nurses holding elected office as of January 15, 2023. Out of 7,382 elected state legislators nationwide, there were 72 nurses in office in 36 states in 2023, compared to 97 nurse legislators in 39 states in 2013. Most of the nurses serving in 2023 are up for re-election in 2024.
The study was published in the January-February 2024 issue of Nursing Outlook.
Headlines today are more likely to associate nursing with “burnout” than with “joy.” But four Columbia Nursing alumni, in a conversation facilitated by a fellow alum and current faculty member, waxed enthusiastic about the joy to be found in many aspects of nursing—while also acknowledging the challenges in the field.
THE FOUR PARTICIPANTS IN THE CONVERSATION WERE: Laura Ardizzone, DNP ’10, MS ’04, director of nurse anesthesia services at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Felesia Bowen, DNP, PhD ’10, associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion and a professor of nursing at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Nursing.
Kevin P. Browne, DNP, MS ’92, associate executive director and chief nursing officer for Northwell Health, overseeing Lenox Hill Hospital; Manhattan Eye, Ear, and Throat Hospital; and Lenox Health Greenwich Village.
Paul Coyne, DNP ’16, MBA, MSF, senior vice president and chief nurse executive at the Hospital for Special Surgery.
THE FACILITATOR OF THE CONVERSATION WAS:
Ashley Graham-Perel, MS, EdD ’21, director of diversity and cultural affairs and an assistant professor of nursing at Columbia Nursing.
The conversation was recorded, transcribed, and condensed and edited into this article.
Illustration by Luisa Jung
ASHLEY: I’d like to start this conversation by hearing what the phrase “joy of nursing” means to each of you. Laura, can you start—and, please, let’s use first names.
LAURA: Sure. There are two aspects of it for me. One is mentoring new nurses—seeing students and novice nurses go on and do great things, achieve what they wanted to. That gives me great joy.
The second is connecting with patients. I still work clinically, delivering anesthesia one day a week, and the days I take care of patients remind me why I do this. Recently, we had a 3-year-old whom escort services couldn’t get to the OR in time, so I brought her down for her procedure. This little 3-year-old radiated joy as we walked along and looked at paintings in the hallways. It reminded me of the simple things in life, as well as what a privilege it is to care for patients and see them through hard times. That’s why I became a nurse.
ASHLEY: Thank you, Laura. Felesia, what does “joy of nursing” mean to you?
FELESIA: I’d like to start by defining joy. To me, joy is different from happiness. I can be not happy but still feel joy. It’s a spiritual feeling, a sense of peace, no matter what’s going on around me. It’s a settling sense that keeps me grounded.
So when I think about joy in nursing, no matter how bad a day is, no matter how many fires have to be put out, I know I’m in the right place.
ASHLEY: I never considered differentiating joy and happiness—that’s powerful. Thank you, Felesia. Kevin, how about you?
KEVIN: For me, “joy of nursing” means the impact I have on another person and the impact that person has on me. When I insert myself into their story, into what I call “sacred space,” it’s a powerful moment. Being with that person and that family gives me deep satisfaction—even if I don’t know them and they don’t know me, even if the outcome isn’t what we hoped for.
Like Laura, I still practice in addition to serving as chief nurse. I was in Labor and Delivery recently, helping deliver a newborn. As I watched the nursing team supporting this tiny baby, the feelings I had in nursing school came flooding back. It was a difficult delivery, but I felt joy as I watched my colleagues around his bassinette, supporting him as he struggled to take his first breath. When we heard his little cry, it was truly joyous.
ASHLEY: That’s beautiful.
PAUL: I think if you keep in mind the purpose behind what you do, assuming that purpose is fulfilling to you, then you’ll experience joy. For me, the joy of nursing means remembering why I chose to be a nurse.
I’m so glad we’re having this conversation, because I don’t think we talk about such feelings enough. Weeks go by without my saying, or hearing someone else say, what we’ve just said out loud. Maybe that’s why we’re not experiencing as much joy in health care nowadays. So let’s take any opportunity we get to say it out loud—that we could help another person.
ASHLEY: Well put, Paul. I’m wondering if, over the course of your career, your sense of joy has taken different forms?
PAUL: That’s a great question. It makes me think of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which we all studied in school. In other words, if you don’t have enough food, it’s tough to seek joy; overcoming your physical need has to take priority.
I had a stroke early in my career and had to learn to walk and talk again. Everything I did was focused on overcoming those deficits in the hope of someday finding joy again, as opposed to seeking joy in the moment. It’s like joy was something I’d get later if I tended to my immediate needs.
ASHLEY: Thank you for sharing that, Paul. I’m sure it helps you see the patient perspective. Felesia, how about you—any shifts in how you’ve experienced joy?
FELESIA: Absolutely. I live in Birmingham, Alabama, a city where parts are flourishing—but in other parts, people struggle economically. My joy comes from going into those communities, working with children there, putting together programs to support them.
We recently signed an agreement with the Birmingham schools to build a pathway-to-nursing program. It took a lot of sweat but brought me considerable joy. So even when I’m not having the best day, I know I’m where I’m supposed to be, which gives me joy.
But when I was in school and first working as a nurse, if I wasn’t having a thoroughly good day it felt like a bad day. But my perspective changed when I was deployed in the first Persian Gulf War. I hadn’t even been a nurse a year and was going to this place of uncertainty, unsure if I’d make it back. Being exposed to all that emotion—and, as Kevin said, being inserted into people’s lives, willingly or not—if I could have gotten on a plane and gone home, I would have.
So I decided I had to find some meaning in each day or I’d lose my sanity. And I realized I didn’t need to be “tee-hee” happy all the time. Happiness, I learned, is transient. But joy stays with you, no matter your situation. That understanding was life-changing.
LAURA: I hear you, Felesia. Early on, I was a little selfish. I wanted to accomplish things for myself: be an ICU nurse, go to CRNA school, do X and Y and Z. But as I’ve grown in my career, my goals and sources of joy have changed from being focused on myself to being more focused on others.
Now, when I see former students or former colleagues and am reminded of the hand I had in helping other people accomplish things, I feel a tremendous amount of joy. Even something simple like talking to my kid’s class about the human body gives me joy, to know I can take knowledge I’ve learned, simplify it, and share it with first-graders. Cultivating and nurturing all these relationships gives me profound joy.
PAUL: Something that’s shifted for me is I no longer feel I need to escape tough times. I try to enjoy each day for what it is—be fully present, whether I’m at work with my team or at home with my wife and son. I try to make whatever room I’m in a better room for everyone else in it, not necessarily for me. I think a lot of people who feel burned out are seeking to escape from that feeling. But that means you’re pushing joy off to the future and not experiencing the present.
That’s not to negate that health care has issues, of course: staffing ratios, documentation, and so on. But if we’re always pushing joy into the future, we’ll never find it.
KEVIN: What’s shifted for me is that as I’ve moved further from the bedside, I’ve struggled with maintaining a sense of purpose, a sense of having an impact on others. Yes, I’m leading a thousand-plus nurses, but how do I stay energized and find the feeling you get at a patient’s bedside?
So, like Laura, I focus on the next generation of nurses: nurturing their desire to join the profession, fostering their passion for helping people, modeling how to feel joy. That’s what sustains me now. We need to make sure the new generation of nurses finds the kind of joy that will keep their passion ignited, so they’ll want to walk across the threshold each day and care for other people.
ASHLEY: Are there things you feel get in the way of finding joy?
PAUL: I think a big one is we don’t say it’s a priority. If you ask the leadership of any hospital in America, “What are your institution’s priorities?” they’ll list safe patient care, outcomes improvement, through-put, and so on. I don’t think anyone would mention joy. But joy should be at the top of the list—well, maybe safety, then joy.
If you don’t say joy is a priority, those other things take precedence unless someone raises their hand and asks, “Hey, what about joy? Is that a priority?” Then everyone goes, “Yeah, of course,” like it’s understood. But we have to say it’s a priority for it to stick.
And if no one’s having fun doing this work, no one will want to do it, and then there’ll be no one to do it. So, really, it’s the most important thing.
ASHLEY: Exactly. The nursing shortage is persisting, even though nurses today make a good salary, largely due to the discontentment experienced by many nurses. So how can nursing leadership keep staff inspired and engaged?
PAUL: One thing I do is make an effort to know the name of every person who reports to me and a fact about them. I try to pick something that brings them joy: their child’s name, their new puppy, whatever lights them up.
Then when I see them, I say, “How’s your kid?” or “How’s your dog?” Other people on my team have started doing it, too. Then, even if it’s not a good day, you’re working with a team that cares about each other, so joy—or at least a sense of belonging that may lead to joy—is there somewhere.
ASHLEY: That’s great.
PAUL: I don’t think a “Here’s a slice of pizza” gesture makes a nurse feel genuinely cared for. But “Tell me about your family” shows you care about them as a person.
FELESIA: I think level of leadership matters. Top-level leaders understand the importance of nurturing. But someone working on the floor doesn’t see them every day; they see a charge nurse who may or may not be skilled. I think that’s where professional development should be focused—on that first level of leadership, because immediate supervisors are the ones who determine if a floor nurse has a good day or a terrible day.
KEVIN: I agree that the relationships you cultivate with your staff are key. Just like Paul, I make a point of knowing something about
everyone on my team. So I can say “Hey, how’s the new house?” or “How’s the family?” or whatever—some way to connect with them, so they feel seen.
If leaders see staff, then staff feel seen and valued and respected. I don’t know if that alone cultivates joy, but it helps.
LAURA: I think nurse managers and preceptors typically don’t get enough support for the important role they play in mentoring frontline staff. They’re the glue that holds it all together. But they’re not trained appropriately, they’re pulled in a thousand directions, and they’re responsible for so much—quality metrics, financial metrics, and so on.
I worry about them, to be honest. It’s hard to be a manager—to be open and honest, to listen to your staff, to take calls at 9:00 at night and on weekends, to remember a fact about everybody who works for you. Being a middle manager is the worst—you get it from the top and the bottom. Yet the success of each new generation of nurses is dependent on the nurse managers and preceptors, so we need to take care of them.
FELESIA: That’s exactly right.
KEVIN: Laura, spot-on. Too often, they’re coping on their own.
I think the visibility of senior leadership is important, so frontline managers feel connected to someone who supports them and values them. It’s a hard job. Most businesses don’t have managers with 100 direct reports, like nursing does.
So how does a nurse manager maintain joy amidst the day-to-day chaos, the average daily census, the churn, the smattering of other tasks, the staff complaints, who doesn’t want to work with who—it’s so much to juggle. They’re like Wallendas on the high wire.
ASHLEY: Great points, everyone. That leads me to ask about a word we’re hearing a lot: “burnout.” Thoughts?
LAURA: I actually think the word “burnout” should be removed from the lexicon. In every field, there’s some fatigue, some burnout—it’s not unique to health care. Maybe health care talks about it more, but people are feeling pressure in industry after industry.
I think what we need to do is find what gives each of us joy. Maybe it’s nursing, maybe it’s family or a hobby, but whatever it is we have to find it. In some metropolitan areas, people work 100 hours a week because they value money and want to live well, and if that’s what they want, that’s fine. But for some of those people, maybe it’s not what they really want. You have to take stock of what you value, so you can prioritize it.
PAUL: I agree. It gets to Felesia’s point about when she was in the military. If you’re in a period of struggle and are seeking only to escape it—to get out of the war zone, to go home at the end of the day, whatever—that day never comes. We need to find joy during a struggle.
LAURA: I will say, and I’m making a generalization here, I feel that bad days used to be few and far between. But now much of our workforce feels like every day is a bad day, like they can’t catch their breath. Some places are in a vicious cycle of staffing shortages.
KEVIN: True—and I would say that’s when the term burnout actually applies. When you have consistent understaffing, consistent disrespect, consistent devaluing of nurses—then I understand the concept of burnout.
ASHLEY: Felesia, I’d like to hear what you have to say on this point.
FELESIA: You know, it reminds me of when kids say, “I’m starving.” My response is, “No, you’re not. Starvation is a metabolic state. You’re just hungry or maybe bored, but you’re not starving.” I think that’s what burnout has become. Often, nurses are just tired. Or annoyed because someone disrespected them. Or upset because they had to empty the trash.
Of course, nurses on the front lines during the pandemic—I get that they burned out. Nobody trained them to see so many people die, to see bodies piling up; that’s not normal.
In most situations, though, I feel it’s not my employer’s responsibility to make me happy. We’re big kids. We’ve got to decide what we want, slow down and do some reflection. Reflection is part of professionalism.
PAUL: Exactly. I trained in palliative care at Columbia; the program was formative for me, because I saw things clinically that couldn’t be fixed and still witnessed people experiencing joy.
I think if we just pause for a second, the way one does on a palliative care unit, we’ll find joy. But our health care system doesn’t allow pauses.
ASHLEY: So true. I’d like to ask next who first opened your eyes to the joy of nursing? Mine was my nurse manager, who always kept an extra pair of scrubs in her locker. When things got tough, she donned them and came onto the unit with us. I saw that with my CNO, too. Who introduced each of you to the joy of nursing?
LAURA: One of mine was my first nurse manager, on the thoracic unit at Sloan Kettering. I didn’t get how chest tubes worked. I’d studied them in school but didn’t understand the chamber—it was like gobbledygook. So I went to her, and she sat down in the middle of her busy day, took out a piece of paper, drew me a picture, and talked me through it. I was like, “Wow!” Before that, I’d thought she was a little scary. But she took the time to answer my question. That was profound for me.
KEVIN: For me, it was two women I worked with as night nurses on a vascular floor at NewYork-Cornell Medical Center. All three of
us had just graduated, yet what we cultivated as brand-new nurses was nothing short of amazing. We didn’t really know what we were doing, but we relied on each other so much that it was a joyful time in my life. I knew I’d found my calling.
FELESIA: One of mine was a patient, a little girl, when I was still in nursing school. She lived in rural Alabama and had been badly burned when her nightgown caught fire. She’d been in the hospital a long time.
My job was to get her ready to go home. She still had some graft patches, but her grandma was picking her up that day. I brought her into the bathroom, and as I watched her brush her teeth—dipping the brush in the water, then turning it off—and use the toilet—not flushing—I suspected, from having visited my grandparents, who were very poor, that this little girl’s family had no indoor plumbing. I knew she shouldn’t go home yet.
I explained this to my instructor. She talked to the little girl and found that indeed her family had no running water. So her discharge was canceled, until social work could find a place where her grandma could take proper care of her. I was like, “Wow, I made a difference.”
I might have saved that little girl’s life—kept her grafts from getting infected. I knew I was in the right spot.
Another was in the Army—a lieutenant colonel in her Class B uniform. We called nurses like her “clipboard carriers,” because they just went around and checked on things. One day we were getting slammed
on the unit. She came in and said, “What do you need me to do?” We just stared at her, so she went on, “I’m not passing meds or hanging IVs because I’ll kill somebody, but I can take op orders, change beds, answer phones.” And this lieutenant colonel changed beds, emptied bedpans, and delivered trays. I would have walked through fire for that woman. To me, she was a quintessential leader. Nothing was beneath her if it helped us. From that moment on, I’ve tried to be that type of leader.
LAURA: My influential nurse was when I was a patient. I’d just had twins and worked right across the street, so everybody wanted to visit me. I’d had a C-section and hadn’t taken my pain meds all day, so by 7:00 p.m. I was almost delirious.
The day nurse hadn’t paid much attention to me. She just watched my friends coming and going, like Grand Central Station.
Then the night nurse came in. She looked at me and said, “You need to rest. The rest of you, get out so she can recover.” I was so grateful somebody was looking out for me. It took a seasoned nurse to assess the situation and say, “Your priorities are wrong. Get your visitors out of here, take your pain medicine, and get better.”
KEVIN: I had a similar experience. I was really sick with COVID in 2020, and one day I became clinically unstable. Amidst the chaos, one nurse kept saying, “I’ll stay with you, Kevin.” She stayed with me until I got back to the ICU; she focused on me while everybody else worked around me. It was remarkable nursing care. Being the recipient of joyful, deliberate practice is extraordinary.
ASHLEY: Those are powerful stories—thank you, all.
LAURA: Not to state the obvious, but this conversation has been a truly joyful experience.
ASHLEY: I agree, Laura. You’ve all been so eloquent about why we do what we do.
PAUL: The problem with feeling joy is sometimes you think, “Am I the only person who feels this way?” It’s like you’re in a twilight zone. But as I hear the rest of you talking, I know I’m not alone, and that gives me joy. So, thank you!
KEVIN: I agree. I’d love to leave you with a quote. It’s by Martha Rogers [of NYU]. In 1966, she wrote: “Nursing’s story is a magnificent epic of service to mankind. It is about people: how they are born and live and die; in health and in sickness; in joy and in sorrow. Its mission is the translation of knowledge into human service. Nursing is compassionate concern for human beings. It is the heart that understands and the hand that soothes. It is the intellect that synthesizes many learnings into meaningful administrations.”
I read this quote every day, because it grounds me and reminds me of the important work we do each and every day.
ASHLEY: What a perfect coda to this conversation. Thank you, all.
What do you call a degree for nurses whose advanced, comprehensive clinical training places them at the apex of their profession? To anyone familiar with the field today, the answer is obvious: a doctor of nursing practice, or DNP. However, that riddle was unsolvable until 2004, when the Columbia University School of Nursing became one of the first institutions to confer such a degree.
The school’s DNP program, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, has since been joined by some 400 others across the United States. Their progenitor at Columbia has grown exponentially, now graduating over 100 students each spring, and is widely recognized as one of the leading DNP programs in the country. Its alumni have gone on to serve in some of the most demanding positions the field has to offer: as senior nurse practitioners in complex medical settings, graduate-level nursing educators at major academic institutions, and leaders of health care organizations ranging from urban maternity centers to federal substance-use programs.
The program has also served as a model for many that came after it—particularly those dedicated to preparing top-notch clinicians, rather than nurses interested in indirect-care roles such as policy development, informatics, or administration.
“We continue to be laser-focused on improving patient outcomes by producing an astute, well-educated nurse practitioner who understands the context in which care is delivered,” says Judy Honig, DNP ’05, EdD ’95, who will retire at the end of this academic year as vice dean of academics and dean of students; she not only helped design the program but was among its first graduates. “Our students
come away with a deep knowledge of the health care landscape,” she adds, “and unparalleled expertise in the care modalities specific to their specialty.”
That clinically oriented approach to DNP education may not sound controversial. But it was revolutionary 20 years ago—and it remains rare today.
Columbia Nursing’s DNP program was conceived by Dean Emerita Mary Mundinger, DrPH, who took the helm in 1986—one of the most difficult periods in the school’s history. Like many nursing schools at the time, Columbia’s was suffering from budget cutbacks and enrollment declines; university officials were considering shutting it down. Instead, they asked Mundinger (who was assistant dean for health policy at the medical school, after a stint directing the nursing school’s master’s program) to return to the school and try revitalizing it.
After being appointed dean, Mundinger recalls, “I took some pretty radical steps.” The first was to downsize the faculty by nearly two dozen members who were not willing to take on the challenges she felt were necessary. “We were left,” she says, “with a very small but loyal and excited cohort of people who wanted to see the school transformed.” With that group, she instituted committees to re-envision Columbia Nursing’s approach to issues like education, clinical practice, research, and health policy. A series of sweeping reforms followed.
In 1988, Mundinger unveiled what came to be known as the Columbia Model of nursing education. Its central feature was the nation’s first universal faculty practice plan in nursing. Instructors with doctorates, classified as “research scholars,” were required to conduct research in nursing or
As Columbia Nursing’s DNP program turns 20, it celebrates its past—and looks to its future.
a related field. Non-doctorally prepared faculty, or “clinical scholars,” were required to participate in an outside clinical practice that offered opportunities to develop or test nursing theory or methodology. This new mandate attracted growing numbers of highly credentialed faculty, as well as talented and ambitious students.
Under Mundinger’s leadership, the school established CAP (later called CAPNA), the first independent primary care faculty practice run by NPs, who were compensated at the same rate as PCPs.
In 1994 the school leveraged its emerging research prowess by launching a part-time doctor of nursing science (DNSc) program, which eventually morphed into a full-time PhD program. The following year saw the birth of Columbia Nursing’s faculty practice in Washington Heights—the Center for Advanced Practice (CAP), the first independent primary care practice staffed by nurse practitioners; today, it’s known as the ColumbiaDoctors Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Group.
Thanks to Mundinger’s negotiating acumen, two things distinguished Columbia’s NP practice from most that followed in its footsteps: Its nurses had full authority to admit and treat patients at the university hospital, and they were compensated at the same rate as primary care physicians (PCPs). Those features reflected her belief that well-trained NPs could do anything PCPs could do. “If a patient in your outpatient practice was hospitalized,” she explains, “the nurse who was their primary care provider would be able to follow them in the hospital. They’re not going to take care of a heart attack, any more than a primary physician would, but they’d have the same oversight over other conditions, like making sure the patient’s diabetes remained under control.” They could then discharge the patient back to their practice, as primary physicians did.
To ensure that Columbia NPs had the skills they needed to handle such responsibilities, Mundinger arranged a partnership with Columbia University Irving Medical Center’s Department of Internal Medicine, whose faculty provided one-on-one mentoring. And to test her theory that NPs could match physicians in providing primary care, she led a clinical trial comparing health outcomes over the course of a year among several hundred patients treated at CAP and a similar number of patients treated by physicians at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2000, the study found no significant differences.
By then, other nursing schools were showing interest in Mundinger’s approach to educating NPs who could perform at the top of their licensure and across the continuum of care. “I thought, maybe we should formalize it, so that they could do the same thing,” she says. She also recognized that CAP’s mentoring model would be difficult to scale up if nurses were to expand their role in the health care system at large. So she convened a committee to design a doctoral program in clinical practice—distinct from the research focus of a DNSc or PhD.
Meanwhile, support for the concept of a DNP was growing across the profession. In 2002, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) appointed a task force to study practice-based doctoral programs in other fields and make recommendations for their implementation in nursing.
In June 2004, the Columbia University trustees approved the new degree, and the first contingent of students enrolled in the program that fall. Although one other nursing school offered a DNP, stressing administrative skills, Columbia’s was the first to focus on clinical competence. In October, the AACN task force released its report, calling for more such programs across the U.S.
The AACN document, however, had what Honig (who served on the task force but dissented from its conclusions) calls a “fatal flaw”: Its concept of DNP education embraced not only the direct care of patients, but also areas such as administration and policymaking. “They defined the degree to be so broad that it encompassed anything a nurse does,” Mundinger says. “It no longer signified advanced clinical practice.”
Of the hundreds of subsequent DNP programs, only 15% were clinically focused, according to a 2019 paper coauthored by Mundinger in the journal Policy, Politics, and Nursing Practice. “That’s been a disappointment,” says Honig.
But Columbia’s DNP program has stayed true to Mundinger’s vision. The first enrollees included about a dozen faculty members and administrators—veteran advanced practice nurses who’d long dreamed of earning a clinical doctorate. Several, like Honig, went on to teach in the program as its enrollment expanded.
In fact, the current director of the DNP program is an alumna who entered the program just a couple of years after its establishment. Susan Doyle-Lindrud, DNP ’08, now the assistant dean for academic affairs at Columbia Nursing, was an NP at a comprehensive cancer center when she enrolled in the nascent program.
She’d been thinking about going back for a doctoral degree, she explains, but felt that a practice-focused doctorate would be the best fit for her—and yet such a program didn’t exist at the time. “When I first heard about the Columbia program,” she says, “I knew it was what I’d been waiting for.”
“Completing the DNP degree changed the course of my career dramatically,” Doyle-Lindrud continues. “I had every intention of taking the skills I learned and staying in clinical practice full-time, but soon after I graduated the school asked me to come back and teach oncology courses. Soon after that, I was appointed coordinator of the oncology subspecialty, and I’ve been on the faculty ever since.”
Another student whose horizons the program expanded was Edwidge Thomas, DNP ’05, who’d immigrated from Haiti to New Jersey with her family as a child. After earning her BSN from Rutgers and working at NewYork-Presbyterian, she graduated from Columbia Nursing’s master’s program in 1993 and then took a job at King’s County Medical Center in Brooklyn. There, she learned to care for patients who were medically underserved and socially marginalized—like people she’d grown up among.
Then her mother died of a heart attack, after experiencing warning signs her cardiologist had dismissed. “I realized,” says Thomas, “that even as a medical professional I’d been unable to protect my mother from the disparities of care afflicting women of color. So I decided to invest my anger and energy in trying to change the tide.” She began doing so as a clinical assistant professor at Columbia and a
Susan Doyle-Lindrud, DNP ’08, shown here being awarded her degree, now directs the program.
“None of these amazing roles I’ve had would have been possible without this degree. And I’ll go a step further: They wouldn’t have been possible if my degree hadn’t been from this school.”
— Edwidge Thomas, DNP ’05
founding member of CAP and next as the clinic’s director, enhancing care for its largely impoverished and nonwhite clientele. When the DNP program was launched, Thomas signed up immediately, knowing a doctorate would help her further her mission.
After graduating, Thomas became director of clinical practice affairs at NYU’s College of Nursing, where she led an NP-managed primary care practice modeled on CAP and a mobile health van program for immigrant teens. Her next job was at Mount Sinai, as clinical lead of the hospital’s Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (DISRIP) program—a federal effort that incentivizes states to improve health care quality and cost efficiency. In her current position, as vice president of clinical solutions for Northwell Holdings, she develops new offerings for the vast Northwell Health system. To feed her soul, she volunteers as an NP at a clinic for low-income patients and is an adjunct professor at Columbia Nursing. And she recently received a $100,000 grant from Johnson & Johnson to establish a scholarship in her name, for nurses from underrepresented and marginalized communities in pursuit of graduate education.
“None of these amazing roles I’ve had would have been possible without this degree,” Thomas says. “And I’ll go a step further: They wouldn’t have been possible if my degree hadn’t been from this school. The training and experience I received, and Columbia’s reputation for excellence, has opened doors that might not have been so open if my DNP had come from somewhere else.”
Her DNP degree has helped Edwidge Thomas, DNP ’05, further her mission to improve care for the medically underserved and socially marginalized.
The program was also transformative for Lora Peppard, PhD, DNP ’08. She majored in international business in college, but a stay in a German hospital with a herniated disc left her with a deep appreciation for nurses. After returning to the States, she earned a master’s in advanced practice psychiatric-mental health nursing from Boston College and spent a few years as a psychiatric nurse practitioner. Then she read about Mary Mundinger’s program at Columbia. “I was all in with her vision for the DNP,” Peppard says.
“I was struggling with trying to get clients medication or services in a timely manner due to insurance or access issues,” she recalls. “I experienced challenges throughout the entire system, and I was hungry to ... be part of the solution.”
At Columbia, Peppard found that “systems thinking was promoted throughout the curriculum, including a course exploring how clients travel through the micro, meso, and macro systems of health care. We added tools to our toolbox by developing business plans, conducting systematic reviews of the literature, and appraising and translating sci-
ence for multiple consumers.... For someone who was eager to learn, it was heaven.”
After completing her degree, Peppard initially went back to clinical practice. Soon, however, George Mason University recruited her to help start a DNP program and a psychiatric nurse practitioner concentration, then to establish behavioral health services in a network of clinics for low-income patients. She also began teaching as an adjunct professor at Columbia Nursing and providing services to community mental health clinics. In 2015, George Mason asked her to launch a regional Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) training program, part of a federal early intervention approach for substance misuse; soon she was implementing the SBIRT strategy at health care systems across Virginia. “That was when I entered the substance use prevention space,” she says, “and I’ve never looked back.”
Today, Peppard is executive director of the University of Baltimore’s Center for Advancing Prevention Excellence; director of a national training and technical assistance substance use prevention division funded by the federal High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) program; deputy director for treatment and prevention of the Washington/Baltimore HIDTA; and president of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association. “Columbia Nursing’s DNP program prepared me for this whole adventure,” Peppard says. “It gave me the knowledge, the skill set, and the courage to go where I’m needed.”
For students currently in the school’s DNP program, the adventures are just beginning. Ian West, MS ’22, is one of them. He grew up outside of St. Paul, Minnesota, and earned an undergraduate degree in psychology and neuroscience, plus a master’s in kinesiology, from the University of Minnesota. Then he bounced around a bit. Moved by the suffering of a young concussion survivor he met while coaching high school hockey, he did a research fellowship on pain management at Tufts University School of Medicine; next, he worked as a researcher at the Mayo Clinic, focusing on substance use and rural mental health. But he was struck by the gap between the lived experience of his research subjects and the constraints of the protocols used to study them.
Meanwhile, he kept remembering a nurse who’d been one of his mentors at Tufts. “I’d talk with her about the role of social determinants in chronic pain, and she’d tell me, ‘Hey, this is what nursing is all about. We look at the intersection of all these different factors in life, not just the biology.’” Eventually, he became convinced that pursuing a DNP could lead him to the understanding he’d been seeking.
West chose Columbia for both its academic rigor and its location: As a lifelong Midwesterner, he figured that moving to New York City would be an education in itself. He started the MDE program in 2021, completed it the follow-
ing year, and expects to receive his doctorate as a psychiatric nurse practitioner this May.
One of West’s biggest revelations in the master’s program was that “psych is everywhere,” as he puts it. “On every floor, med surg to labor and delivery, you’d see mental health issues of every kind.” Another was that he loved working at the New York Psychiatric Institute, the site of his final clinical rotation.
Once he entered the DNP program, West was surprised by a rotation at the Bloom Foundation for Maternal Wellness, caring for women with postpartum depression and anxiety. He took the assignment on the advice of Laura Kelly, PhD, then director of the Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Program. “She told me, ‘This will force you outside of your comfort zone,’” West says. “‘That’s how you grow.’” For the first few weeks, he felt at sea—separated from the patients by gulfs of gender, culture, and experience. But he found ways to connect, and he emerged more confident of his ability to navigate such challenges.
West has surprised himself in other ways as well, discovering unexpected talents for teaching (he recently won a TA of the Year award) and leadership (he’s recruited fellow students for jobs at the Psych Institute, where he continues to work). Although he’s still not sure what he’ll do after he completes his DNP (work at a hospital? start a private practice? freelance as a consultant?) he’s not worried. “My calling is to make health care better,” he says. “The good news is, I have lots of options.”
Another current student, Kelly Rojas, MS ’23, is a couple of years behind West in her studies but surer of her future path: She aims to become a family nurse practitioner, providing primary care to low-income patients in a Federally Qualified Health Center.
Rojas has dreamed of being a nurse since she was a little girl. The daughter of Mexican immigrants, she grew up in a low-income household in Yonkers, where she saw many in her community seeking care only in emergencies. “That’s what kickstarted my career choice,” Rojas says. “Primary care is so crucial. Yet so many people in underrepresented communities don’t have health insurance or can’t take time off from work to see a provider.”
The calling grew more urgent for Rojas in her early 20s, when one of her uncles was diagnosed with a glioblastoma. “He didn’t seek treatment until he experienced an excruciating headache and had to go to the ED,” she says. “He wound up needing emergency brain surgery that same day. Looking back, he was like, ‘I did have these headaches before. I should have gotten them checked out, but I couldn’t afford it.’”
Rojas, who was working as a medical receptionist, became his primary caregiver and liaison with the health care system. After chemotherapy and radiation proved ineffective, she found a clinical trial that gave him access to an experimental medication. That treatment bought her uncle a few more months, but he died at age 38, shortly before Rojas entered Columbia’s MDE program.
Throughout the ordeal, however, she found a pillar of support in the nurse practitioners who cared for her dying uncle. “They were the ones on top of his case, who we’d see consistently at follow-ups,” Rojas recalls. “That personal relationship with patients and family members is pivotal.
“That’s what kickstarted my career choice. Primary care is so crucial. Yet so many people ... don’t have health insurance or can’t take time off from work to see a provider.”
— DNP student Kelly Rojas
As a nurse, you understand the importance of being with them in the moment.”
And that, Rojas says, is what she hopes to give her own patients and their loved ones. She’s pursuing a DNP, she says, for one simple reason: “To be as educated as possible to serve the community I want to serve. I want to give them the best, most up-to-date care that I can.”
As Judy Honig stresses, that’s been the point of Columbia’s DNP program since the beginning. “The content of our courses has evolved with the times,” she says, “but our mission remains the same.”
BY ANNE HARDING
HOW COLUMBIA NURSING PROMOTES WELLNESS AMONG ITS VARIED COMMUNITIES
It was Aristotle who, in the 3rd century BCE, coined the phrase “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” There is surely much about the 21st century that the Greek philosopher couldn’t begin to comprehend. But he would likely not only understand but appreciate the emphasis on holistic wellness that permeates the Columbia University School of Nursing.
The school’s commitment to community wellness is a key element of its mission of advancing nursing to advance health for all. And that commitment (the “whole” part of Aristotle’s quote) is evident in numerous ways throughout the institution (that’s the “sum” part).
Wellness, or well-being, encompasses all aspects of a person’s life, relationships, and environment, in addition to mental and physical health. The World Health Organization defined health in its 1946 charter as “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” Wellness is now considered in eight dimensions: intellectual, emotional, physical, social, occupational, spiritual, financial, and environmental.
FNP and PNP
students welcomed P.S. 128 fourthgraders to the Helene Fuld Health Trust Simulation Center this April for the fifth and final session of the Brain Health Program. Participants mixed up brain-boosting overnight oats and learned about what it’s like to be a nursing student.
Nursing shares this holistic perspective, aiming to help individuals and communities thrive by seeing the whole patient and addressing social determinants of health as well as clinical needs.
“Well-being is a commitment and a lifestyle that permeates this whole school and building,” says Dean Lorraine Frazier, PhD. Two ingredients essential for wellness are, as it happens, integral to both the profession of nursing and Columbia Nursing as an institution: having meaning and purpose in one’s life and being connected with others.
“You see yourself as part of something bigger,” Frazier explains. “You’re part of a community. You’re part of life. You’re connected to people, to your family. Every day, nursing focuses on patients and our community. Growing and helping and connecting to our patients gives us meaning.”
At Columbia Nursing, Frazier adds, you don’t have to be a nurse to find meaning in your work. “When you’re in this building, and you’re staff, you know that we’re
educating students who go out to make a difference in people’s lives. That meaning is a part of our job,” she says.
“I think our community is healthy because we have that meaning. We have that meaning no matter what our role in the school is.”
Living with purpose and being part of something bigger also makes people more resilient, according to the dean, so they’re ready for the next challenge. “It’s saying, ‘You know what, whatever comes, we’ll get through this together,’” she says. “Supporting each other wherever we are, but together as a whole. Coming together as a whole, a united whole, we’ll get through this.”
Beyond its walls, Columbia Nursing belongs to multiple, overlapping communities: Washington Heights, Harlem, the Bronx, New York City, New York State, the nation, and even the whole world, through the school’s Office of Global Initiatives.
Assistant Professor Ellen Fahey, DNP ’11, who is the assistant director of the family nurse practitioner (FNP) program, started thinking about ways to con-
nect with local constituencies after attending a webinar that emphasized the importance of medical and nursing schools embedding themselves in their communities to help meet health care needs and address social determinants of health.
Both Fahey and Associate Professor Sabrina Opiola McCauley, DNP ’10, the program director of the pediatric nurse practitioner (PNP) program, participate in the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Community Service and Programs committee, which aims to develop community service projects that align with the school’s mission of combating racism, eliminating health disparities, and promoting health equity for underserved communities.
Through her work on the committee, Fahey learned about Fresh Youth Initiatives (FYI), a nonprofit that works with schools across New York City. Among the group’s efforts is an afterschool program at PS 128 that was happy to collaborate with Columbia.
At the same time, Fahey says, “the faculty were looking to provide NP students with an opportunity to work with pediatric patients, because during COVID we didn’t have a lot of access to our community resources for clinical placements.” The venture that grew out of that confluence of interests is called the Brain Health Program.
“What we decided to do was provide clinical hours for the NP students who chose to participate and ask that they look at the students from a clinical lens—from a developmental, social, emotional perspective—which would then allow this opportunity to be considered clinical hours, because there’s faculty supervision. That’s really how it originated. Now it’s taken on a life of its own to a certain degree.”
The number of NP students participating in the Brain Health Program has grown steadily since it was launched in 2022. Second- and fourth-graders participating in FYI’s afterschool program learn about topics that are reinforced in wellness checkups, but framed around brain health. The first four sessions are each devoted to a specific topic—sleep, nutrition, screen time, and exercise—followed by a field trip to Columbia Nursing for the fifth and final session.
FNP and PNP students develop and deliver curricula based on these topics, are briefed before the sessions start and debriefed after they conclude, and are supervised in the clinical setting. The program is offered twice a year.
“We’ve gotten some great feedback through the FYI staff from the parents of the students, which I think we both were a little shocked about,” McCauley says. “The children come home and share the information with the family, and they’re really excited about it and very grateful. I think it’s making a bigger impact than we thought, because it is really going back to the fami-
Two ingredients essential for wellness are, as it happens, integral to both the profession of nursing and Columbia Nursing as an institution: having meaning and purpose in one’s life and being connected with others.
lies and deeper into the community and hopefully really making a difference.”
Nowadays, when she passes a Brain Health Program graduate on the street, McCauley adds, “we say hello. . . . It really has made a stronger connection from our school of nursing with the community.”
Adds Fahey: “The other outcome that we didn’t anticipate, which was really awesome, is that when we have the students come to the school of nursing, each and every session there’ll be a student who says, ‘I want to come to this school’ or ‘I’m going to be a nurse.’”
Cancer patients and survivors not only face uncertain health risks; they are also at risk of financial toxicity, with resulting negative impacts on their well-being that can persist for years. Adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer survivors—defined as those aged 15 to 39—are at especially high risk and are more likely to file for bankruptcy and/or to be unemployed than older cancer survivors.
Assistant Professor Melissa Beauchemin, PhD ’19, studies financial toxicity with a focus on AYA patients; she has worked as a pediatric oncology NP for over 15 years, currently at NewYork-Presbyterian.
“We care for families that come from Connecticut and Westchester and New Jersey as well as families
At Columbia Nursing’s first health and wellness fair this April, faculty, staff, and students could check their blood pressure, learn about breast cancer screening, get public safety tips, and even take a yoga class.
from our local community, so you see a lot of different experiences,” she says. But no matter their life situation and experiences, she adds, a child or adolescent’s cancer diagnosis has a major impact on a family.
Even when patients and families are eligible for government resources for financial assistance, Beauchemin notes, they often still face burdensome costs. “They have trouble affording transportation, they have trouble affording rent, and they have trouble affording anything else outside of the health care costs. And sometimes they may sacrifice some health care needs because of the difficulty affording them, but they don’t qualify for additional services or there are no other resources that are available to support these families.”
Beauchemin has received two pilot grants to study needs navigation for 15- to 39-year-old patients and for the caregivers of younger patients who are experiencing financial toxicity. “What I think is most exciting is that we’re partnering with community organizations,”
she says. “We’re trying to be thoughtful about existing resources and processes that have been developed to support the community, that folks have relied on for a long time. We are leveraging those.”
The problem, she notes, is that people may not connect with these organizations on their own. “If we can support them in that connection, almost navigate them to the navigation, then maybe we can alleviate some of that burden.”
Beauchemin’s primary partner in her research is the Patient Advocate Foundation, a national organization that helps people with chronic or life-limiting illness and provides case management services in English and Spanish.
“Most of these young people with cancer are going to become long-term survivors, and so the hypothesis is that if we can intervene and identify financial burdens and financial toxicity earlier, can we prevent its longterm negative outcomes?” says Beauchemin.
But truly addressing financial toxicity, especially when it is compounded by structural inequities, will require systemic change, she adds, noting that her research is forming an evidence base to support these policy changes.
“If you’re diagnosed with a cancer that has an 85% to 90% cure rate, we want to give every individual who comes in that same 85% to 90% cure rate,” Beauchemin says, “instead of the current disparities we see, which are striking and unacceptable.”
ColumbiaDoctors Outreach, a collaboration between the ColumbiaDoctors Nurse Practitioner Group and Columbia Primary Care, was launched in 2022 to expand access to primary care for staff and faculty at Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC), as well as people living in the surrounding community.
Maura Abbott, PhD, an associate professor and assistant dean of clinical affairs at Columbia Nursing, partnered with Amy McElroy, director of population health at CUIMC; Diana Hernandez, practice manager at NPG; and Kristin O’Meara, director of strategic communications for ColumbiaDoctors, to create the program, which grew out of early efforts to offer breast cancer screening to people working at CUIMC.
Abbott also co-leads the NPG, the original primary care group at the medical center. “We wanted to expand our reach to our community, not just our CUIMC community, but neighboring communities in terms of getting access to care and access to health education and access to understanding preventive health and health maintenance,” she explains. “The idea was to bring the care to them and not for them to have to come to us seeking it.”
Another goal of the program is to help people navigate the CUIMC system when they need specialty care, Abbott adds, “so they don’t drop through the cracks on the way to getting what they need.”
ColumbiaDoctors Outreach began by offering breast cancer screening and prostate cancer screening, and soon began presenting Columbia Health Benefit expos and working with CUIMC specialty services, including ophthalmology, neurology, pediatrics, cardiology, and dermatology, to offer health screenings. A skin cancer screening at Haven Plaza reached 350 people, including 100 who came for free skin cancer screening checks after the event.
Outreach efforts in 2023 included tabling at the Haven Plaza Farmer’s Market from June through October, holding a prostate cancer screening event at Yankee Stadium, partnering with All Hallows High School in the Bronx, and more. Pediatric NP students spoke to parents and students at All Hallows about the HPV vaccine for preventing head and neck and anal and rectal cancers. A breast cancer screening initiative for the school community identified three high-risk women who were referred for mammograms and breast medical oncology, Abbott notes.
“If you’re diagnosed with a cancer that has an 85% to 90% cure rate, we want to give every individual who comes in that same 85% to 90% cure rate,” oncology NP and nurse scientist Melissa Beauchemin says, “instead of the current disparities we see.”
“We all kind of own a piece of this and go out and say, ‘Hey, I’m a nurse practitioner and I want you to be healthy, and I’m not here to give you scary information,” she says. “To be able to be a trusted source of information so that people feel empowered to make their own health care decisions, I think is probably the most important piece of the work that we’re doing.”
In the last fiscal year, Abbott notes, the Nurse Practitioner Group saw a more than 308% increase in new visits. “We attribute that in large part to these community events where we’re going out and we’re making ourselves known and that we’re available to these folks. We let them know that we want to work with them and that we’re here to provide them with the best possible care.”
The Columbia Nursing faculty has grown notably over the past year. Here’s insight into the expertise newly represented in the school’s leadership and faculty ranks.
By Andrea Kott, MPHIn 2023 and early 2024, Columbia University School of Nursing welcomed several new faculty members, including a new vice dean of education and a returning alumnus who will join the nursing school as a program director. In addition, two current faculty members received major promotions. Read on to learn about these new leaders and their plans for the future.
“My approach to nursing, as an educator and a clinician,” says Mary Hickey, EdD, “is to ask, ‘What do you need from me and how can I help?’” A nursing leader and scholar with expertise in curriculum design and innovation, as well as program development, accreditation, and implementation, Hickey is a dedicated doer—and listener.
The new vice dean of education at Columbia University School of Nursing and a professor of nursing at CUMC looks forward to hearing faculty members’ and students’ interests and supporting them in a way that best serves the community. “I believe in taking a synergistic approach to community health,” Hickey says. “I don’t believe you can tell people what they need or what to do—you have to ask what is important to them and find ways to help them get there.”
A 1988 graduate of Georgetown University, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing, Hickey went on to complete a master’s in nursing administration at Adelphi University and a doctorate in education at Dowling College in Brookhaven, New York. She holds dual certifications and actively practices as a women’s health and a family nurse practitioner.
Her primary clinical scholarship interests include risk-taking behaviors and patients’ access to, and utilization of, reproductive health care. “The adolescent population is of particular interest to me,” she says. Her early focus on improving health awareness and mitigating the risk of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unintended pregnancies gradually expanded to encompass population-wide health perceptions, risk behaviors, and access to care, particularly in underserved communities.
In her current role, she aims to work with colleagues, students, and patients to learn about the most critical issues facing the Washington Heights neighborhood. “My hope is to find ways to partner our academic and clinical initiatives and programs with the needs of the community,” she says.
An active volunteer, Hickey serves on the board of directors of the National Association of Nurse Practitioners in Women’s Health, the curricular leadership committee of the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties, and the National Task Force on Quality Nurse Practitioner Education, and she is also an active provider for Physicians for Human Rights.
She believes in bringing clinical practice into the classroom and role-modeling for emerging nurses. “I practice clinically, conduct research, volunteer, and teach,” she says. “Students need to see such faculty engagement, which is a strength of Columbia Nursing. I’m fortunate to be here.”
Susan Doyle-Lindrud, DNP ’08, specializes in DNP curricula
Susan Doyle-Lindrud, DNP ’08, the director of Columbia Nursing’s DNP program, explains that her charge is “assuring that Columbia Nursing’s DNP curricula align with national standards.” Recently promoted to professor of nursing, she joined the school in 2011 as an assistant professor and was promoted to associate professor in 2019. She has overseen the DNP advanced practice programs since 2013 and also serves as assistant dean of academic affairs.
The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), the national voice for nurse education, is moving graduate nursing education toward a competency-based approach, with its “Essentials: Core Competencies for Professional Nursing” initiative, to increase practice readiness. “Columbia Nursing has had a competency-based program for many years,” Doyle-Lindrud says, “but will now pivot to these new competencies. In my role as the designated AACN Essentials champion,” she adds, “I represent the nursing school as the point of contact and communication liaison to this national organization. I must continuously assess the effectiveness and outcomes of the courses and of the overall DNP degree program.”
Doyle-Lindrud has also collaborated with Judy Honig, DNP ’05, EdD ’95—who recently retired as the Dorothy M. Rogers Professor of Nursing, vice dean of academics, and dean of students—on several projects to implement the role of advanced practice nurses (APNs) in Latin American countries. “Judy and I have been building a prototype APN curriculum for the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization to use as a model for implementation in member states,” she says.
Additionally, Doyle-Lindrud has spent a significant portion of her career working at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey (RCINJ) as an advanced practice nurse in the ambulatory care setting. Her responsibilities have included managing oncology patients through their treatments and monitoring them after they complete their therapy.
She also has worked as associate director of clinical research for the Gallo Prostate Cancer Center at RCINJ—developing, coordinating, and evaluating clinical research activities. “I coordinated the activation of pharmaceutical and cooperative group studies and developed investigator-initiated studies,” she says. In addition, she has had a faculty appointment at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, which has allowed her to provide a nursing perspective for medical students and to highlight an interdisciplinary approach to cancer care.
Joining the Columbia Nursing faculty as an associate professor feels like coming home for Aluem Tark, PhD ’19, the new director of the Family Nurse Practitioner Program.
“Even during my time away, practicing as an FNP and a postdoctoral research fellow, Columbia remained a beacon of inspiration,” says Tark, who first came to Columbia Nursing as a graduate student in 2013, receiving her master’s and PhD in 2015 and 2019. She earned her BS at Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing in 2009.
Tark also completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Iowa focused on pain and symptom management for individuals with serious and advanced illnesses.
“I always had a dream of returning to Columbia Nursing and paying forward the support and guidance I received,” she adds. “Now, finding myself back in a leadership capacity feels like a natural progression, with a newfound sense of responsibility and purpose.”
Tark began her nursing journey as a pediatric oncology/hematology nurse. With seven years of experience as a full-time registered nurse, she transitioned into an FNP role, managing the care of individuals across the life span and in diverse settings, including walk-in/urgent care centers, academic-affiliated health care institutions, and the realm of virtual care.
Her research interests include palliative care and advanced directives, and she has served as a palliative care consulting NP, an outpatient hematology-oncology NP, and a lead family NP. She was honored as one of five Nurse Educators of the Year by the National League for Nursing in 2022 and received the Distinguished Educator Award from the National Hartford Center of Gerontological Nursing Excellence in 2023.
Walking through the Columbia Nursing neighborhood reminds Tark of her time as a student. “Each step echoed with memories of challenges overcome and small victories celebrated each time. Columbia Nursing taught me resilience, growth, and purpose in life,” she says.
“As I embrace my role of program director of the very same program I graduated from, I am filled with excitement and gratitude for the opportunity to contribute to the school of nursing. I am honored to take a role in creating the force that can change the next generation of advanced practice nurses and future nursing leaders.”
Of the many approaches to patient care that Latisha Hanson, DNP ’15, emphasizes as a clinician and an educator, trauma-informed care is paramount. “Patients who most need access to quality health care services and resources are those experiencing the impacts of trauma,” says Hanson, who is the new director of Columbia Nursing’s Psychiatric Mental Health Doctor of Nursing Program.
As a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner who now teaches and mentors Columbia Nursing doctoral students and practices in the Bronx, where she once taught middle school, Hanson sees the impact that trauma can have on mental health. She attributes much of this to ongoing stress related to the pandemic; to racial, ethnic, and gender discrimination; and to migration. “I see trauma in firstgeneration children of migrants who feel they’re not succeeding, want to be perfect for their family who struggled to come here, and are depressed,” she says. “I see it in children of divorce, children with incarcerated parents, children who have been abused or bullied, in people experiencing homelessness, in Black mothers with poor maternal outcomes, and LGBTQ individuals who are not recognized by their chosen pronouns.”
Health care systems that are not trauma informed commonly misdiagnose, overmedicate, or otherwise mistreat such patients, Hanson explains. “You could be the best provider in the world, but if you don’t provide a space for your patients to be seen and heard, they’re not going to tell you when they’re feeling sick, suicidal or haven’t taken their medication.”
Teaching students and nurses to accurately assess and treat patients impacted by trauma can improve their access to and quality of care, says Hanson, who earned her BS in nursing at Columbia in 2010, her MS in the psychiatric mental health program in 2012, and her DNP in 2015. Today, in addition to heading the school’s psychiatric mental health DNP program, she is also the director of diversity programming and an assistant professor of nursing at CUIMC.
To be trauma-informed, Hanson explains, care must recognize language barriers, as well as cultural attitudes toward treatment. “We might not understand symptoms that patients present with because they call them different names,” she says. “You have to tailor people’s treatment to their background and experiences—that’s where trauma-informed care comes from. If students and nurses understand the impact that trauma and culture have on treatment, they can be better providers and touch more lives, not by fixing people but by helping them on their wellness journey.”
As an 18-year-old nursing student, Ashley Graham-Perel, EdD ’21, discovered two loves: nursing and nursing education. Now the director of Columbia Nursing’s Office of Diversity and Cultural Affairs, she’d always known she wanted to be a nurse. She took nursing prerequisites in her junior and senior years in high school in Brooklyn, then went on to New York City College of Technology, where she earned her nursing BS. It was when she was in nursing school that she realized she also wanted to be a nursing educator. She came to this conclusion while teaching and tutoring fellow students. “My study tactic was to teach out loud. If I could explain material out loud, it meant that I understood it. It came so naturally,” she says.
Besides helping her learn, teaching underscored the importance of a supportive learning environment. “Nursing school today isn’t what it was for me—it’s gotten harder,” says Graham-Perel, who is triple board-certified in medical-surgical nursing, nursing professional development, and nursing education. Not only has nursing education broadened clinically and technologically, but also students now face greater expectations and responsibilities. “Successful nursing education entails understanding students’ lives,” she says. “Can they pay their tuition? Do they have to work? Are they caring for children or an elderly family member?”
Plus, all students need a mentor, “someone who has walked the walk” of nursing school and practice, she adds. Eager to fill that role, she completed an MS in nursing education at New York University’s Rory Meyers College of Nursing and a doctorate in education at Columbia University’s Teachers College.
She wants to help students and nurses succeed and is especially interested in how diversity and inclusivity in nursing and nursing education impact the admission, retention, and success rates of diverse students. She notes that sagging recruitment and retention among students and practicing nurses often reflect high drop-out, failure, and first-year quit rates; burnout; microaggressions and biases; feelings of imposter syndrome; or lack of mentorship and support. “That first year is when nurse educators have to say, ‘Let me hold your hand and show you the way,’” she says, emphasizing the need to assure students and nurses that they have equal opportunities for success and inclusion, no matter their background. “Injustice impacts how we learn, teach, and communicate with one another, and Columbia Nursing condemns all forms of it.”
Columbia Nursing also recently welcomed these talented new academic and clinical faculty members. Their expertise covers a wide range of specialties, including primary care, chronic and acute illness, women’s health, palliative care, psychiatric care, behavioral science, health informatics, valuebased payment models, and more.
ALICIA BACCHUS, DNP, is an assistant professor of nursing. A board-certified family nurse practitioner (NP), she earned a BS in nursing from Dominican University of California in 2008 and master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of California, San Francisco, in 2015 and 2023. She has worked in a variety of clinical settings, providing primary, family health, women’s health, and oncology care. Bacchus has a special interest in genitourinary conditions, such as urinary incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse, and postpartum pelvic disorders, as well as cancers. As a clinical NP at Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC), she collaborated with attending oncologists to provide comprehensive patientcentered care to patients with a wide range of complex diagnoses, including prostate, bladder, kidney, and testicular cancers.
NATALIE BENDA, PHD, is an assistant professor of health informatics. She earned a BS in industrial engineering from Purdue University in 2012 and master’s and doctoral degrees in industrial and systems engineering at the University at Buffalo in 2015 and 2018. Her research interests include improv-
ing inclusivity of health technologies, with a focus on perinatal health. Benda currently has funding from the National Institutes of Health’s Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities for Maternal Outcome Monitoring and Support (MOMS), a system designed to support patients in symptom self-management. She is also collaborating on a study funded by the National Institute on Minority Health to create more patientcentered artificial intelligence solutions for perinatal mental health.
ULF BRONAS, PHD, is a professor of biobehavioral science. He earned a BS in sports medicine and human biology from St. Cloud State University in Minnesota in 1999, an MS in exercise and applied physiology from the University of North Dakota in 2001, and a doctorate in exercise and applied physiology from the University of Minnesota in 2007. As director of the laboratory of cognitive and vascular health and chair of the cardiometabolic research group at the University of Illinois Chicago College of Nursing, he investigated cognitive and vascular function, brain structure, and neural network plasticity before and after exercise in patients with chronic kidney disease, mild cognitive impairment, and peripheral vascular disease. He is continuing his studies in accelerated brain aging in patients with kidney disease, and is studying the impact of daily living environment on physical activity and dietary habits; the effect of stress on racial and ethnic disparities in midlife cognitive function; and the
prevention of age-related cognitive decline in older Latinos/Latinas. Bronas is a fellow of the American Heart Association and the Society for Vascular Medicine.
ISPER CRISSEY, PHD, is an assistant professor of nursing. A registered nurse, she has worked in psychiatric and mental health nursing for over 25 years. She has extensive experience working with psychiatric inpatients as a staff nurse, nurse clinician, and patient care director, at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian, and other hospitals. Crissey began her career in nursing academia in 2016. She has worked on committees that focus on improving diversity, equality, and inclusivity in higher education. She is committed to fostering inclusive and engaging classroom environments. She completed her MS in psychiatric nursing at the University of Maryland School of Nursing and her PhD in nursing at Pace University’s Leinhard School of Nursing. Her areas of interest are psychiatric nursing, individuals with serious mental illness, and mental health literacy. Crissey is a Jonas Scholar and a member of Sigma Theta Tau International.
NIA ADIMU-CEJA JOSIAH, DNP ’23, is an assistant professor of nursing and a clinical simulation educator. Josiah earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Johns Hopkins University in 2017 and Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing in 2020, and her doctorate from Columbia University School
of Nursing in 2023. Her clinical experience encompasses a variety of health care settings ranging from acute care to long-term care facilities. Josiah has taught psychiatric and mental health nursing practice, behavioral health psychiatry, evidence-based practice, scholarly writing and dissemination, health promotion and disease prevention, and general simulation both nationally and internationally. Her research interests include systemic drivers of racial health inequities among marginalized patient populations and includes peer-reviewed publications in national and international nursing journals. Josiah is committed to addressing mental health needs among disadvantaged minority populations. She is a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration SAMHSA MFP/ANA Doctoral Fellow, Jonas Scholar, Columbia Alumni Association (CAA) scholar, and Columbia Nursing Pathways to Leadership and Advancement in Nursing (PLAN) scholar. Josiah was recently selected as a Columbia University School of Nursing CAA board member and is the Jonas Scholars Alumni Advisory Council board member. She is a Sigma Theta Tau International Society Nu Beta at Large chapter governance committee member, International Society of Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurses (ISPN) Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee member, and Greater New York City Black Nurses Association scholarship committee member. She provides outpatient psychiatric care in a community setting in Mount Vernon, New York; operates a telehealth private practice; and volunteers at local homeless shelters.
ANNA OBERNDORF, MS, is an instructor in nursing at the Columbia University School of Nursing. A board-certified adult-gerontology nurse practitioner, she received a BS in 2012 and an MS in 2017 from the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing in New York City. A primary care provider for the ColumbiaDoctors Nurse Practitioner Group’s corporate health program, her clinical interests encompass health promotion and disease prevention, mental wellness, and women’s health. In her previous role as an adult primary care NP, she collaborated with a diverse population of patients providing preventative and disease management care.
MONICA O’REILLY-JACOB, PHD, is an assistant professor of nursing. She earned a BS in nursing from the University of Portland in Oregon in 2001. She went on to earn master’s degrees in pastoral ministry and nursing from Boston College in 2007 and master’s and doctoral degrees in social policy from Brandeis University in 2015 and 2018. A 2023 fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, O’Reilly-Jacob is a family nurse practitioner and nationally recognized nursing health services researcher who focuses on the primary care NP workforce, value-based payment models, and re-emerging delivery system innovations, such as NP-owned practices and home-based primary care. She was also recognized in 2023 as a technical expert by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Initiative to Strengthen Primary Health Care. Currently, with funding from
the American Nurses Foundation, she is leading a multidisciplinary team to examine the readiness of NP-owned practices to engage in value-based payment.
MARYAM ZOLNOORI, PHD, is an assistant professor of health sciences research. She earned a BS in business management from Tehran University in 2004; an MS in information technology from Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran in 2008; an MS in health informatics from Indiana University in 2014; and a doctorate in health sciencesclinical informatics from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2018. In 2016, she completed predoctoral research training in biomedical and consumer health informatics at the National Institutes of Health’s Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications. In 2018, she joined Mayo Clinic as a postdoctoral research scientist, focusing on using AI to improve care for patients with mental disorders. At Columbia University, her research involved building risk identification models using multiple data streams, including patientnurse communication, to better identify and prioritize patients at risk of negative outcomes. Zolnoori’s research draws on both her interdisciplinary education and her experience in clinical informatics, focusing on the use of cutting-edge technologies to develop novel methodological frameworks and informatics solutions to mitigate the burden of delayed start-of-care and negative outcomes, while also improving the quality and safety of health care services.
Our faculty’s research continues to create new knowledge that advances health care. Listed are selected articles published by leading peer-reviewed journals.
Gregory Alexander was among the authors of “Future Advancement of Health Care Through Standardized Nursing Terminologies: Reflections from a Friends of the National Library of Medicine Workshop Honoring Virginia K. Saba,” published in Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA), and contributed a chapter titled “Nursing Home Health Information Technology” to Practice and Leadership in Nursing Homes: Building on Academic Practice Partnerships, a book by JoAnne Reifsnyder, Ann Kolanowski, and Jacqueline Dunbar-Jacob, published by Sigma Theta Tau International in 2023.
Veronica Barcelona was among the authors of “Stress and DNA Methylation of Blood Leukocytes Among Pregnant Latina Women,” published in Epigenomes.
Veronica Barcelona, student Sarah Harkins, and Maxim Topaz were among the authors of “The Power of Language in Hospital Care for Pregnant and Birthing People: A Vision for Change,” published in Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Melissa Beauchemin, PhD ’19, was among the authors of “Children’s Oncology Group
2023 Blueprint for Research: Cancer Care Delivery Research” and “Children’s Oncology Group’s 2023 Blueprint for Research: Diversity and Health Disparities,” both published in Pediatric Blood and Cancer.
Joseph Belloir, PhD ’23, Jacquelyn Taylor, and Tonda Hughes were among the authors of “Structural Stigma and Alcohol Use Among Sexual and Gender Minority Adults: A Systematic Review,” published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence Reports
Natalie Benda was among the authors of “Do You Want to Promote Recall, Perceptions, or Behavior? The Best Data Visualization Depends on the Communication Goal,” published in Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA).
Lauren Bochicchio was among the authors of “Correction: ‘Getting the Staff to Understand It’: Leadership Perspectives on Peer Specialists Before and After the Implementation of a PeerDelivered Healthy Lifestyle Intervention,” published in Community Mental Health Journal.
Lauren Bocchicchio and Tonda Hughes were among the authors of “Intimate Partner Violence Among Sexual Minority Women:
A Scoping Review,” published in Trauma, Violence, and Abuse.
Maeve Brin, Haomiao Jia, and Rebecca Schnall, PhD ’09, were among the authors of “Pilot Testing of an mHealth App for Tobacco Cessation in People Living with HIV: Protocol for a Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial,” published in JMIR Research Protocols.
Laura Britton, MS ’16, Adriana Arcia, and Maureen George were among the authors of “‘A Patient Should Not Have to Ask’: Women’s Experiences of Patient Education About Preconception Care for Type 2 Diabetes,” published in Patient Education and Counseling.
Ulf Bronas was among the authors of “Comorbidities Are Associated with State Hopelessness in Adults with Ischemic Heart Disease,” published in Heart and Lung: The Journal of Critical Care, and “The Relationship Between Sleep and Brain Function in Older Adults with Chronic Kidney Disease and SelfIdentified Cognitive Impairment,” published in Journal of Gerontological Nursing.
Jean-Marie Bruzzese was among the authors of “‘Our Mind Could Be Our Biggest Challenge’: A Qualitative Analysis of Urban Adolescents’ Sleep Experiences and Opportunities for Mind-Body Integrative Health Approaches to Improve Sleep,” published in PEC Innovation, and “Sleeping Healthy, Living Healthy: Using Iterative, Participatory
Processes to Develop and Adapt an Integrated Sleep Hygiene/Mind-Body Integrative Health Intervention for Urban Adolescents,” published in Health Promotion Practice
Jean-Marie Bruzzese and Adriana Arcia were among the authors of “Seeing Things the Same Way: Perspectives and Lessons Learned from Research-Design Collaborations,” published in Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA).
Billy Caceres, Yashika Sharma, MS ’20, and Tonda Hughes were among the authors of “Investigating the Associations of Sexual Minority Stressors and Incident Hypertension in a Community Sample of Sexual Minority Adults,” published in Annals of Behavioral Medicine.
Leon Chen was among the authors of “Elevated Brain Natriuretic Peptide in a Patient with Metastatic Cancer Without Heart Failure: A Case Study,” published in Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners; “Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS) Program for Critical Care Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants in an Oncological Intensive Care Unit and Rapid Response Team,” published in Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners; and “An Unusual Cause of Complete Heart Block,” published in Critical Care Nursing Quarterly; and a co-author of “What Is DNP Science?” published in Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners.
Leon Chen and Danielle Zuma, DNP ’19, were the authors of “Right Ventricular Failure: A Concise Review,” published in Critical Care Nursing Quarterly.
Suzanne Courtwright, MS ’03, was among the authors of “Including Voices of Adolescents with Chronic Conditions in the Redesign of Children’s Mental Health Systems: Implications for Resource Allocation,” published in Journal of Pediatric Health Care, and a co-author of “Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Workforce Shortage Threatens Child Health Equity: Key Contributors and Recommen-
dations,” published in Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners
Ruth Masterson Creber was among the authors of “Association Between Sternal Wound Complications and 10-Year Mortality Following Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting,” published in Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery; “Quality of Life After Percutaneous Coronary Intervention Versus Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting,” published in Journal of the American Heart Association; “Randomized Comparison of the Outcome of Single Versus Multiple Arterial Grafts Trial (ROMA): Women—A Trial Dedicated to Women to Improve Coronary Bypass Outcomes,” published in Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery; “Revascularization Strategies for Multivessel Coronary Artery Disease Based on Sex and Age,” published in European Journal of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery; “STICH3C: Rationale and Study Protocol,” published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Interventions; and “Usability Study of Using Interactive 360º Video-Based Virtual Reality for Teaching Adult Basic Life Support,” published in Resuscitation
Ruth Masterson Creber, Natalie Benda, Stephanie Niño de Rivera, Shalom Omollo, Yashika Sharma, PhD ’23, and Meghan Reading Turchioe, PhD ’18, were among the authors of “Using Patient Decision Aids for Cardiology Care in Diverse Populations,” published in Current Cardiology Reports
Caroline Der-Nigoghossian was among the authors of “A Methodology of Phenotyping ICU Patients from EHR Data: High-Fidelity, Personalized, and Interpretable Phenotypes Estimation,” published in Journal of Biomedical Informatics.
Andrew Dick and Patricia Stone were among the authors of “Environmental and Structural Factors Driving Poor Quality of Care: An Examination of Nursing Homes Serving Black Residents,” published in Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
Danny Doan, Yashika Sharma, MS ’20, student David López Veneros, and Billy Caceres were
the authors of “Caring for Sexual and Gender Minority Adults with Cardiovascular Disease,” published in Nursing Clinics of North America
Maureen George was among the authors of “Confirmatory Cross-Sectional Validation of the Asthma Impairment and Risk Questionnaire (AIRQ),” published in Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, In Practice, and “Expert Consensus on SABA Use for Asthma Clinical Decision-Making: A Delphi Approach,” published in Current Allergy and Asthma Reports.
Sarah Ghannoum was among the authors of “Assessment of Health-Care Workers’ Attitudes, Knowledge, and Skills in the Care of Critically Ill Muslim Children in New York,” published in Palliative and Supportive Care.
Student Sarah Harkins, Natalie Benda, and Meghan Reading Turchioe, PhD ’18, were among the authors of “Visualizing Machine Learning-Based Predictions of Postpartum Depression Risk for Lay Audiences,” published in Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA)
Amanda Hessels was among the authors of “Infection Preventionists in Public Health, Consultant and Academic Roles: Results from the 2020 APIC MegaSurvey,” published in American Journal of Infection Control
Tonda Hughes was among the authors of “COVID-19 Concerns, Coping, and Perceived Peer Norms: Correlates of Increased Alcohol and Marijuana Use Among Sexual Minority Women: A Scoping Review,” published in Journal of Homosexuality, and “Probable PTSD, PTSD Symptom Severity, and Comorbid PTSD and Hazardous Drinking Among Sexual Minority Women Compared to Heterosexual Women: A Meta-Analysis,” published in Clinical Psychology Review.
Tonda Hughes and Phoenix Matthews were among the authors of “The Modifying Effect of Minority Stressors on the Associations Between Neighborhood Depriva-
tion and Mental Health Among US Sexual Minority Women,” published in Sexuality Research and Social Policy.
Lisa Iannacci-Manasia, MS ’89, was the author of “Unprotected Youth Workers in US Agriculture,” published in Frontiers in Public Health.
Kasey Jackman, PhD ’17, was among the authors of “Dance Movement Therapy for Black Womxn: A Content Analysis,” published in The Arts in Psychotherapy.
Kasey Jackman, PhD ’17, Tonda Hughes, and Walter Bockting were among the authors of “Prevalence of Substance Use and Mental Health Problems Among Transgender and Cisgender U.S. Adults: Results from a National Probability Sample,” published in Psychiatry Research.
Haomiao Jia and Rebecca Schnall, PhD ’09, were among the authors of “Do Walk Step Reminders Improve Physical Activity in Persons Living with HIV in New York City? Results from a Randomized Clinical Trial,” published in Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care
Nia Josiah, DNP ’23, student Niarah Russell, Lauren DeVaughn, MS ’21, Michelle Charles, MS ’21, and student Michael Ballard, MS’23, were among the authors of “Implicit Bias, Neuroscience, and Reproductive Health Amid Increasing Mortality Rates Among Black Birthing Women,” published in Nursing Open.
Student Jung Kang, Aluem Tark, and Patricia Stone were among the authors of “Timing of Goals of Care Discussions in Nursing Homes: A Systematic Review,” published in Journal of the American Medical Directors Association.
Ariana Komaroff, MS ’04, was the author of “Advocacy and Lactation Support for Patient with Bipolar Disorder: A Case Report,” published in Clinical Lactation.
Elaine Larson was among the authors of “Executive Summary: A Compendium of
Strategies to Prevent Healthcare-Associated Infections in Acute-Care Hospitals: 2022 Updates,” published in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, and “Introduction to a Compendium of Strategies to Prevent Healthcare-Associated Infections in Acute-Care Hospitals: 2022 Updates,” published in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.
Student Sarah Leonard, Yashika Sharma, PhD ’23, Tonda Hughes, Kasey Jackman, PhD ’17, and Jean-Marie Bruzzese were the authors of “Weight Stigma and Mental and Emotional Health Among Sexual and Gender Minority Individuals: A Scoping Review,” published in LGBT Health.
Corina Lelutiu-Weinberger was among the authors of “A Randomized Controlled Trial of an mHealth Intervention for Gay and Bisexual Men’s Mental, Behavioral, and Sexual Health in a High-Stigma, Low-Resource Context: Project Comunică Protocol,” published in Research Square.
Jianfang Liu, Maureen George, and Arlene Smaldone, PhD’03, were among the authors of “Predictors of Transition Outcomes in Cystic Fibrosis: Analysis of National Patient Registry and CF RISE Data,” published in Journal of Pediatrics
Phoenix Matthews was among the authors of “Application of ADAPT-ITT: Adapting an Evidence-Based HIV/STI MotherDaughter Prevention Intervention for Black Male Caregivers and Girls,” published in BMC Public Health; “Barriers to Using a Patient Portal Among LowIncome Patient Populations: A Qualitative Descriptive Study,” published in Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved; and “Developing a Mission Statement to Reflect the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Values and Priorities of a College of Nursing,” published in Journal of Professional Nursing.
Se Hee Min was among the authors of “Meta-Analysis of Variations in Association Between APOE ε4 and Alzheimer’s Disease
and Related Dementias Across Hispanic Regions of Origin,” published in Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Se Hee Min, Rebecca Schnall, PhD ’09, and Maxim Topaz were among the authors of “Examining Racial Differences in the Network Structure and Properties of Specific Cognitive Domains Among Older Adults,” published in GeroScience.
Se Hee Min and Maxim Topaz were among the authors of “Home Healthcare Patients with Distinct Psychological, Cognitive, and Behavioral Symptom Profiles and At-Risk Subgroup for Hospitalization and Emergency Department Visits Using Latent Class Analysis,” published in Clinical Nursing Research, and “Uncovering Hidden Trends: Identifying Time Trajectories in Risk Factors Documented in Clinical Notes and Predicting Hospitalizations and Emergency Department Visits During Home Health Care,” published in Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA)
Allison Norful, PhD ’17, was among the authors of “Sleep Disturbance and Burnout in Emergency Department Health Care Workers,” published in JAMA Network Open
Student Hollie Norman, MS ’23, and Leon Chen were the authors of “An Integrative Review: Evaluating the Risks, Benefits, and Efficacy of Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) in Treating ARDS Secondary to COVID-19,” published in Critical Care Nursing Quarterly.
Lusine Poghosyan, Suzanne Courtwright, MS ’03, Kathleen Flandrick, Madeline Pollifrone, Gregory Alexander, and Stephen Ferrara were among the authors of “Advancement of Research on Nurse Practitioners: Setting a Research Agenda,” published in Nursing Outlook.
George Rodriguez was among the authors of “Omadacycline in the Treatment of Community-Acquired Bacterial Pneumonia in Patients with Comorbidities: A Post-Hoc Analysis of the Phase 3 OPTIC Trial,” published in Frontiers in Medicine (Lausanne)
Sarah Collins Rossetti, PhD ’09, Kenrick Cato, PhD ’14, and Maxim Topaz were among the authors of “Predicting Emergency Department Visits and Hospitalizations for Patients with Heart Failure in Home Healthcare Using a Time Series Risk Model,” published in Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA).
Student Danielle Scharp, student Sarah Harkins, and Maxim Topaz were the authors of “Comorbidities of Community-Dwelling Older Adults with Urinary Incontinence: A Scoping Review,” published in Geriatric Nursing
Student Danielle Scharp and Maxim Topaz were among the authors of “Natural Language Processing Applied to Clinical Documentation in Post-Acute Care Settings: A Scoping Review,” published in Journal of the American Medical Directors Association.
Rebecca Schnall, PhD ’09, was among the authors of “Understanding Physical Activity Determinants in an HIV Self-Management Intervention: Qualitative Analysis Guided by the Theory of Planned Behavior,” published in JMIR Formative Research
Jingjing Shang, Patricia Stone, and Andrew Dick were among the authors of “The COVID19 Pandemic and Associated Inequities in Acute Myocardial Infarction Treatment and Outcomes,” published in JAMA Network Open, and “Was COVID-19 Associated with Worsening Inequities in Stroke Treatment and Outcomes?” published in Journal of the American Heart Association
Ilana Silverstein was among the authors of “‘They Go Hand in Hand’: Perspectives on the Relationship Between the Core Values of Family Medicine and Abortion Provision Among Family Physicians Who Do Not Oppose Abortion,” published in Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine.
Arlene Smaldone, PhD ’03, and Jean-Marie Bruzzese were among the authors of “Electronic Cigarette Use and Academic Performance Among Adolescents and
Young Adults: A Scoping Review,” published in Academic Pediatrics
Patricia Stone and Andrew Dick were among the authors of “Changes in Nursing Home Use Following Medicaid-Supported Access to Home- and Community-Based Services for Older Adults with Dementia,” published in JAMA Network Open.
Jacquelyn Taylor was among the authors of “Subacute and Chronic Spinal Cord Injury: A Scoping Review of Epigenetics and Secondary Health Conditions,” published in Epigenetics Insights.
Maxim Topaz was among the authors of “Identifying Type II Workplace Violence from Clinical Notes Using Natural Language Processing,” published in Workplace Health and Safety, and “Social Risk Factors Are Associated with Risk for Hospitalization in Home Health Care: A Natural Language Processing Study,” published in Journal of the American Medical Directors Association.
Meghan Reading Turchioe, PhD ’18, was among the authors of “Who Needs What (Features) When? Personalizing Engagement with Data-Driven Self-Management to Improve Health Equity,” published in Journal of Biomedical Informatics, and was a co-author of “Health Literacy, Numeracy, Graph Literacy, and Digital Literacy: An Overview of Definitions, Evaluation Methods, and Best Practices,” published in European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing
Meghan Reading Turchioe, PhD ’18, and Natalie Benda were among the authors of “Women’s Perspectives on the Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Based Technologies in Mental Healthcare,” published in Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA) Open.
Meghan Reading Turchioe PhD ’18, and student Brittany Taylor were among the authors of “Characterizing Atrial Fibrillation Symptom Improvement Following De Novo Catheter Ablation,” published in European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing.
Yihong Zhao was among the authors of “Correlates of High-Frequency Screen Media Activity During Late Childhood and Adolescence: Clinical Relevance,” published in Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry; “Epigenetic Implications of Neighborhood Disorder and Psychological Distress Among Pregnant Black Women,” published in Western Journal of Nursing Research; “Neural Correlates of Negative Life Events and Their Relationships with Alcohol and Cannabis Use Initiation,” published in Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience; and “Relative Brain Age Is Associated with Socioeconomic Status and Anxiety/Depression Problems in Youth,” published in Developmental Psychology.
Yihong Zhao and Xuewei Han were among the authors of “Analysis of the Brain Transcriptome for Substance-Associated Genes: An Update on Large-Scale Genome-Wide Association Studies,” published in Addiction Biology.
Yihong Zhao, student Danielle Scharp, and Meghan Reading Turchioe, PhD ’18, were among the authors of “Characterising Symptom Clusters in Patients with Atrial Fibrillation Undergoing Catheter Ablation,” published in Open Heart
Maryam Zolnoori and Maxim Topaz were among the authors of “ADscreen: A Speech Processing–Based Screening System for Automatic Identification of Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementia,” published in Artificial Intelligence in Medicine; “Home ADScreen: Developing Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementia Risk Identification Model in Home Healthcare,” published in International Journal of Medical Informatics; “Is the Patient Speaking or the Nurse? Automatic Speaker Type Identification in PatientNurse Audio Recordings,” published in Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA); and “Utilizing Patient–Nurse Verbal Communication in Building Risk Identification Models: The Missing Critical Data Stream in Home Healthcare,” published in Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA).
1: Molly Sicchio MS’16, Andrea Kurkul MS’17, and Hailey Redstone at the Boston Alumni Regional Event in November 2023.
2: Gosia Brykczynska BS’80 and Dean Frazier at the Royal College of Nursing in September 2023.
3: Maria Grotz MS’01 and Dominic Yee at the Boston Alumni Regional Event in November 2023.
4: Ashley Graham-Perel MS, EdD ’21, Jennifer Dohrn DNP’05, and Rebekah Ruppe DNP’09 speaking at Mothers, Midwives and Reimagining Birthing in the South Bronx in December 2023.
5: Keisha Paul MS’23 and Sarah Elisabeth Odidika DNP’23 giving introductions at Mothers, Midwives, and Reimagining Birthing in the South Bronx in December 2023.
6: Natalia Richey MS’14 and Kyleen Swords DNP’17 at the Boston Alumni Regional Event in November 2023.
7: Dean Frazier, staff, and alumni at the Connecticut Alumni Regional Event hosted by Maria Magliacano MS’06 in September 2023.
Greetings on behalf of the Alumni Association. It has been an honor to serve as your president for the last two years. With my term coming to an end, I reflect on the board’s recent accomplishments.
With student connection as a top priority, we created the Student Engagement Working Group, where members of the board communicated with student groups to establish ways that alumni can be available to meet the needs of the student body. Various mentorship and networking events took place, such as Trivia Night at New Student Orientation and Life After MDE.
As alumni continue to grow and evolve in their nursing careers, a core value of the Alumni Association is fostering their development through leadership and guidance. We established an alumni-to-alumni mentorship program, in which many fruitful connections were made.
We continued to engage alumni by hosting virtual events and reestablishing our regional events program. This past fall, alumni had the pleasure of gathering in New Canaan, Connecticut, and Boston, followed by Savannah in the spring. Be sure to also keep an eye out for Columbia Nursingsponsored events at your professional conferences.
I pass the torch with great confidence to our current vice president, Julie Yoshimachi, DNP ’20, who will assume the role of president this summer. She will continue to build on the strategic plan framework created to facilitate the growth and development of Columbia Nursing alumni.
On behalf of the Alumni Association, I hope you have a wonderful summer, and I look forward to hearing from you and seeing many of you at future events.
Warm regards,
Kevin Browne, MS ’92, DNP, RN, CNS, CCRN-K President, Columbia Nursing Alumni Association
Associate Executive Director & Chief Nursing Officer, Northwell Health
Vanessa Battista, MS ’08
Daniel Billings, DNP ’18
Felesia Bowen, PhD ’10
Kevin Browne, MS ’92, President
Nicolas Burry, DNP ’20
Jesus Casida, MS ’96
Mollie Finkel, MS ’12, Nominating Chair
Hilda Haynes Lewis, MS ’99
Christa Simpson Heinsler, BS ’76, Secretary
Kevin Hook, BS ’98, Annual Fund Chair
Vaneh Hovsepian, PhD ’22
Nia Josiah, DNP ’23
Rosalind Kendellen, MS ’74
Kimberly Lanfranca, MS ’06
Lora Peppard, DNP ’08
Marjorie Salas Weis, DNP ’17
Olivia Velez, PhD ’11
Mallory Woods, DNP ’19
Julie Yoshimachi, DNP ’20, Vice President
Vanessa Battista MS’08 Senior Nursing Director, Palliative Care, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
VANESSA: I stay connected to Columbia Nursing as it is a very important part of my life. It is where my nursing career began and where I learned my skills initially. It is the place that served as the foundation of and later became the springboard for my career. I met amazing people there and formed many important relationships that remain an important part of my life.
NIA: Staying connected with Columbia Nursing offers alumni various benefits, including networking opportunities, continued learning, access to resources, the chance to give back, community engagement, and personal and professional recognition, all of which contribute to ongoing personal and career growth. I am compelled to stay connected with Columbia Nursing for the following reasons: networking opportunities, continued learning and professional development, access to resources and services, giving back and mentorship, pride and community engagement, and personal and professional recognition.
MALLORY: Since I live in New York City, I am constantly connected to Columbia Nursing. I have met and worked with numerous alumni and I maintain close friendships with classmates. For example, I met my friend Caryn during our FNP program. We became close through a few tough clinical experiences and even worked together as NPs for several years. I follow Columbia Nursing on Instagram, which keeps me up to date on the most recent student and faculty initiatives, achievements, and events. Moreover, when I have spare time, I like to attend in-person events for new students and alumni. Staying connected to Columbia Nursing brings me joy.
I am proud to be a Columbia Nurse because...
VANESSA: Columbia Nursing is at the forefront of advances in the field of nursing, and I learned how to be a nurse from the best and the brightest.
NIA: It represents more than just a title or a profession; it embodies a commitment to excellence, compassion, and innovation. Being part of Columbia Nursing means joining a community that fosters
Nia Josiah DNP’23 Assistant Professor of Nursing, Clinical Simulation Educator, Columbia Nursing
Mallory Woods DNP’19 Nurse Practitioner, The Dermatology Specialists
groundbreaking research, embraces diversity, and champions holistic patient care.
The heritage of Columbia Nursing reflects a legacy of trailblazing leaders and pioneers in health care such as Sylvia Whitehead, Class of 1958, one of Columbia Nursing’s first African American nursing graduates. As a Guyanese American, I stand on the shoulders of nursing leaders like Sylvia Whitehead, as she and others before me have opened a door for generations to follow. Columbia Nursing signifies a dedication to advancing the field, pushing boundaries, and creating impactful change in local communities and through global health initiatives.
In addition, being a Columbia nurse means being part of a supportive network of passionate individuals who are not just colleagues but also mentors and friends. The emphasis on collaboration and interdisciplinary teamwork here is unparalleled, empowering us to learn from each other and contribute collectively to providing the highest standard of care.
In essence, being a Columbia nurse fills me with pride because it signifies belonging to a community that values innovation, compassion, and continuous growth—a community that not only shapes exceptional health care professionals but also embodies a spirit of service and dedication to improving the health and well-being of individuals and communities worldwide.
MALLORY: My education has opened many doors for me both personally and professionally. I am able to connect with people in unique ways by making them feel comfortable while in a vulnerable state. I take pride in being able to independently diagnose and treat patients, all while providing compassionate care.
VANESSA: Don’t be afraid to try new things—you will never stop learning. Believe in yourself. You are well prepared to make significant contributions to our field and to continue to advance it. If you have an idea, pursue it. The future belongs to you!
NIA: The path to becoming a nurse may have challenges, but it’s an incredibly rewarding and fulfilling journey. Your dedication, compassion, and commitment will make a profound difference in the lives of
your patients and the health-care community as a whole. Nursing is a dynamic field that constantly evolves with new technologies, treatments, and practices. Stay curious and committed to lifelong learning. Seek opportunities for further education, attend workshops, and stay updated with the latest evidence-based practices to deliver the best care possible. Prioritize self-care. Nursing can be demanding, both physically and emotionally. Remember to take care of yourself. Establish self-care routines, maintain a healthy work-life balance, seek support when needed, and don’t neglect your physical and mental well-being. Last, stay humble, acknowledge mistakes as learning opportunities, and remain open-minded to different perspectives and approaches to patient care.
MALLORY: I would challenge future nurses to think outside the box when selecting a nursing role. The field of nursing is vast, with numerous traditional and nontraditional places and purposes. You can find a role utilizing your nursing background that works best for your lifestyle and personality. During the pandemic, I met so many nurses doing so many cool things I never thought were possible. It is OK to reinvent yourself and try something new. I would also encourage new nurses to increase their financial literacy and learn everything they can about budgeting, saving, and investing. Health care is a tough profession and sometimes you need a break. Having a nest egg allows you the freedom to take a break when you see fit.
VANESSA: Graduation day, when we all stood together, a mass of light blue caps and gowns, and Sinatra’s “New York, New York” played. It was such a moving and special moment and one that I will never forget, as my classmates and I swung our arms around each other, swayed to the music, and sang our hearts out. I was so proud and so happy to be a Columbia nurse!
NIA: It’s challenging to pinpoint a single favorite memory, as my time at Columbia Nursing has been filled with myriad remarkable experiences. From forging lifelong friendships with my fellow nursing colleagues; to cheering on our Columbia Lions football team at the Robert K. Kraft Field at Lawrence A. Wien Stadium at Alumni Weekend; to “CAA jump balls,” resulting in an opportunity to experience soulful saxophonist Joe Lovano at the iconic Village Vanguard; to frequenting alum Thomas Lo’s Chi Restaurant & Bar; to CAA-WIN Winemakers Dinner Series; to my experience as graduation speaker, walking across the stage to receive my doctorate of nursing surrounded by friends, family, and fellow graduates; to my first day as a full-time assistant professor of nursing. Each moment has contributed to my overall journey. The rich tapestry of memories has been profoundly rewarding. I am fortunate to have experienced life come full circle in my transition from a graduate student to a
junior faculty member, now contributing to the educational journey of nursing students following in my footsteps.
MALLORY: In August 2015, I traveled to Cuba with my aunt and several other Columbia Nursing students as part of a global health program. We were there for 11 days and learned many details about Cuba’s unique universal health care system, such as the emphasis on primary and preventive care.
VANESSA: I work in the field of palliative care and I hope to continue to make contributions to the field by not only caring for children and their families but also by continuing to teach others how to do this important work. I aspire to continue to be a leader not only for my team but also for other nurses in the field. My current interests lie in palliative care nursing education.
NIA: In my nursing career, I aspire to make a lasting impact on the field of mental health care and nursing education. Having already achieved my dreams of becoming a doctor of nursing practice and specializing as a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, I am eager to contribute my expertise to advance patient care and advocate for mental health awareness among marginalized patient populations. As a junior faculty member, my goal is to inspire and guide the next generation of nurses, fostering a community of passionate and well-equipped healthcare professionals. I envision a career marked by continuous learning, advocacy for mental health, and the cultivation of knowledge among student learners, ultimately contributing to the ongoing improvement of health care practices and patient health outcomes.
My overall career aspiration is to explore and then ascend to the role of a vice president of nursing at an inpatient facility where I can leverage my skills and experience to influence positive change within health care systems. As a future vice president of nursing, I aim to lead strategic initiatives that enhance patient care, improve nursing practices, and contribute to the overall efficiency and effectiveness of health care delivery. My goal is to be a catalyst for positive transformation, fostering a culture of excellence, innovation, and patient-centered care. Through collaborative leadership and a commitment to continuous improvement, I aspire to impact health-care systems for the better, ensuring the highest standards of quality and patient satisfaction.
MALLORY: Honestly, I am still trying to determine my long-term goals. I have only been licensed as an NP for five years and recently switched to a new specialty. Within the next three years, I hope to achieve the following: become board-certified in dermatology and expand my skill set to provide more advanced medical and cosmetic services. Overall, I want to continue growing within my specialty and make a positive impact one patient at a time.
Janice Paul Arcidiacono, BS ’59, moved to TidePointe, a continuing care community on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, with her husband Paul. They have a beautiful view of the ever-changing Broad Creek tidal marsh, with boats sailing and motoring beyond.
Dottie Simpson Dorion, BS ’57, is still working with an active nurse’s license after 67 years, and the Nurse Registry often calls her to come and work for them.
Nancy Fixier Houseworth, BS ’56, has recently moved from south to north Florida to be closer to her two children. She lives in an independent senior community which she enjoys very much, with no more cooking! She was happy to recently celebrate her 90th birthday.
Penelope Buschman, BS ’64, received the Elizabeth Hurlock Beckman Award, an honor given to educators who have inspired their former students to make a significant contribution to their community.
Susan Hertz Evans, BS ’65, writes and performs at the Marsh Theatre in San Francisco.
Louise Karabekian Glover, BS ’64, has been adjusting to widowhood over the last eight months and receives much love and support from her three children and eight grandchildren. She enjoys daily walks, yoga, French class, and volunteer activities. Each day she is grateful for lifelong friendships that started in Maxwell Hall and for being a part of the amazing Class of 1964!
Debra Feldman, BS ’72, is living in Stamford, Connecticut, near the harbor, where she loves the views and is reshaping her life with a reduced workload and more free time.
Rosanna Formanek Hess, BS ’74, retired from teaching at the Malone University School of Nursing in Canton, Ohio. She serves on the board of directors of two nonprofit organizations, ECHO Global and Bongolo Friends, both with an international impact. She continues research as an independent scholar. She was the co-editor of a special issue on health and health care among Plain People for the Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies. She divides her year between Ohio and Florida with her husband Nelson.
Kulmindar Kaur Johal, MS ’72, is an active retired midwife who has been taking writing classes for the past few years. She plans to write a memoir about her life and experience as a midwife.
Denise Buckawick Kooperman, BS ’70, still maintains a small private virtual practice in psychiatric medication management and psychotherapy. She never saw herself working online pre-COVID, but finds that it is a useful way to keep working into her mid-70s. She feels fortunate to have a nursing career that allows her to do this. She is also involved in creating textile art and loves to travel.
Lorrie Wong, MS ’88, was inducted as a 2023 fellow to the American Academy of Nursing.
Edith Brous, MS ’95, was inducted as a 2023 fellow to the American Academy of Nursing.
Lucinda Canty, BS ’91, 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 was inducted as a 2023 fellow to the American Academy of Nursing. 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. She is an artist, poet, and historian and uses her art and poetry to bring awareness to maternal health.
Margaret Elise Eckert-Norton, MS ’95, worked as a nurse practitioner at SUNY Downstate until 2020. She earned her PhD from NYU in 2011 while working as full-time faculty at St. Joseph’s College. She moved from Brooklyn to White Plains in 2022 and is now retired from practice and a proud grandma to three amazing children.
Marjorie Maine-Nyarko, MS ’97, is the proud practice owner of Bright Horizon Psychiatry,
LLC. Her mission is to provide holistic and individualized mental health services to all.
John Nelson, Certificate ’96, was inducted as a 2023 fellow to the American Academy of Nursing.
Carina Ryder, MS ’97, celebrated her fifth year in business as owner of Takoma Park Gynecology, LLC, in Takoma Park, Maryland.
Vanessa Battista, MS ’08, was inducted as a 2023 fellow to the American Academy of Nursing.
Yvonne Anderson Douglas, MS ’03, earned her DNP and Post-Master’s Nurse Education Certificate from Johns Hopkins School of Nursing in May 2023. Since then, she has also earned certification as a Certified Nurse Educator Novice. She maintains her practice as a CRNA within the DC metro region.
Iris Fernandez, MS ’05, is a published author in four anthologies, and her debut memoir was released in February 2024. She retired from nursing informatics at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in 2020.
Melissa deCardi Hladek, MS ’04, is a researchtrack faculty member at Johns Hopkins and is still in active practice as an FNP in a local clinic. She studies self-efficacy and how it interacts with aging and kidney disease trajectories. She is working on her first intervention adaptations for her current K23 award.
Mary Moran, MS ’08, was awarded Columbia Nursing’s 2023 Neighbors Humanitarian Distinguished Alumni Award.
Anita Nirenberg, PhD ’09, is a founding member and has served continuously for 35 years on the executive board of the Children’s Brain Tumor Foundation and recently received the Founders Award, presented at the organization’s 35th anniversary celebration.
Lora Peppard, DNP ’08, serves as the president of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association.
Mona Salloum Perez, MS ’09, is now both an ANP-BC and an FNP-BC. She has worked in many areas but has recently started an ambulatory care telepath department.
Elisheva Schachter Rosner, BS ’05, published an article, “Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative: Past, Present, and Future,” in Neonatal Network in February 2024.
Sarah Collins Rossetti, PhD ’09, was named a 2023 fellow of the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics.
Arlene Smaldone, PhD ’03, was awarded Columbia Nursing’s 2023 Distinguished Alumni Award for her distinguished career in nursing.
Jessica Trimble, BS ’09, is living on Nantucket and working as a manager of care services and development for Best of Care, specializing in care management and services for the older adult.
Kenrick Cato, PhD ’14, was awarded Columbia Nursing’s 2023 Distinguished Alumni Award for Nursing Research.
Yamnia Ivelisse Cortes, PhD ’15, was inducted as a 2023 fellow to the American Academy of Nursing.
Madeleine Britton Hamer, MS’19, worked on the COVID-19 frontlines right out of the MDE program, where she realized the value of in-person connection. She recently established Nursing Connection, LLC, where she uses her nursing and group facilitation skills to host small group sound baths and guided relaxation sessions in a woodland yurt on her property in Westchester County. These sessions give individuals tools to regulate their nervous system and establish trusted connection amongst community members.
Kasey Jackman, PhD ’17, was inducted as a 2023 fellow to the American Academy of Nursing.
Allison Butts Obscura, BS ’16, joined the pediatrics department at Kaiser Permanente Mid-Atlantic States in May 2023. She is happy to be back in the DC area after living abroad in England, where her son was born in 2021, and in Mexico.
Sarah-Kate Lutz Rems, MS ’15, has developed a deep expertise in women’s health, antiaging, and medical aesthetics. She owns and operates a dermatology and anti-aging practice in Manhattan.
Kaleena Soorma, MS ’19, is the director of nursing for emergency departments at NYC Health and Hospitals.
Olivia Velez, PhD ’11, was inducted as a 2023 fellow to the American Academy of Nursing. She was also awarded Columbia Nursing’s 2023 Distinguished Alumni Award for Nursing Administration.
Kyungmi Woo, PhD ’18, was awarded Columbia Nursing’s 2023 Early Career Alumni Award for an Emerging Nursing Leader.
Yelitza Castanos, DNP ’21, received the Great Catch Patient Safety Award from ColumbiaDoctors for pinpointing the
Mary Reynolds Bard, BS ’49
Alice Cook Bosworth, Diploma ’46
Ann Winston Clark, BS ’46
Elizabeth Miller Greene, Diploma ’43
Margaret Scott MacLean, Diploma ’48
Ruth Lent Moran, BS ’47
Molly Fairbanks Stainton, BS ’46
Eleanor Straub Stough, Diploma ’47
Jean Calderwood Wood, BS ’45
Adrianna Mostert Baldwin, MS ’50
Lorraine Jacobson Foster, BS ’54
Evelyn Lane Fozzard BS ’55
Anna Mae Pethick Gallik, BS ’58
Emmy Jo Gannon, BS ’59
Francine Bilello Ginther, MS ’52
Sarah Evarts Haskell, BS ’55
Judith Rohrbach Heggie, BS ’55
Margaret Tween Huebner, BS ’58
Avis Nenninger Kessler, BS ’59
Alice Rinehart Leddy, BS ’55
Ruth Runge Marsh, Diploma ’53
Isabel Totten McLendon, BS ’53
Barbara Scott O’Brien, BS ’58
Dorothy Boback Pabst, BS ’55
Janet Nelson Pace, BS ’58
Virginia Kelly Rimm, BS ’55
Ruth Stratton Smith, BS ’57
Anne Hibbard Warner, BS ’58
Carolyn Mieding Whittenburg, BS ’53
Susan McCleary Aldrich-Hall, BS ’61
June Boester Aschenbach, BS ’60
Jennette Russell Austin, BS ’67
Geraldine Meyer Brodnitzki, BS ’67
Suzanne Festersen Clark, BS ’60
Martha Altland Eaglesham, BS ’63
Janice Taylor Forbes, BS ’63
Constance Rising Gleichmann, BS ’60
Janice Craw Helming, BS ’65
Micheline Murphy Kuipers, BS ’61
Lois Ryman Lewis, BS ’63
Mary Lyon Protheroe, BS ’62
Susan Maines Saydah, BS ’60
Mollie Morrant Secor, BS ’65
Linda Tedesco, BS ’64
source of a patient’s unusual symptoms— and possibly saving her life.
Gloria Chan, DNP ’22, was inducted as a 2023 fellow to the American Academy of Nursing.
Mollie Xiaojing Hobensack, PhD ’23, received the Harriet H. Werley Award, which honors a nurse who is the first author of a paper presented at the 2023 American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) Annual Symposium that is judged to be of exceptional scholarship and contribution to the advancement of nursing science through informatics.
Shirley Bugg, MS ’73
Kathleen Doherty, BS ’77
Margaret Maffet, BS ’72
Mary Susan MacDonald Morrissey, MS ’70
Joan Congdon Stackhouse, BS ’73
Susanne Johnson, MS ’87
Shelley Winfield McKay, BS ’87
Leslie Roessler, BS ’87
Nancy Stobie, BS ’85
Virginia Sullivan, MS ’85
Leah Maxine Stein, MS ’94
Phyllis Koenig Marion, PhD ’09
2010s
Corrie Honora Shattenkirk, BS ’12, MS ’13
Make your gift to the Annual Fund today!
Dean’s Discretionary Fund Scholarship Fund
Global Fellows Fund
To make your tax-deductible contribution, please consider making your gift online at nursing.columbia.edu/annual-fund.
For more information, contact Janine Handfus, associate director, Annual Fund, at 212-305-0079 or jh2526@cumc.columbia.edu.
“As a Columbia Nursing graduate from the class of 2019, I made my first gift to the Annual Fund last year. My #1 reason: I wanted to give back. Columbia Nursing helped to make my career possible.
During my time as a student, I served as Student Ambassador and co-president of the Doctoral Students Organization. It was having opportunities such as these, along with a nursing education that fostered true critical thinking, that brought me to the realization I would be a leader for my patients wherever my future led me. Now that I am applying the skills I gained at Columbia in the field, I know that I am making a difference serving patients as a family nurse practitioner. As a former scholarship recipient, I wanted to ensure that future generations of Columbia Nurses would have that same opportunity.”
— Mallory Woods, DNP ’19For more information about giving to Columbia Nursing, visit nursing.columbia.edu/giving or contact Janice Rafferty Grady, associate dean, Development and Alumni Relations, at 212-305-1088 or jar2272@cumc.columbia.edu.