Dr. Crystal White

The Servant Leader

Family is dear to Dr. White, who is pictured here with her youngest grandson, Legend.

Aristotle once said, “He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader.”

There is no question that Dr. Crystal White, DNP, MSN, FNP-C, is a leader. She guides graduate nursing students as an Assistant Professor of Nursing at Saint Mary-of-theWoods College in rural western Indiana. She cares for patients as a Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) at Horizon Health’s Urgent Care Clinic in Paris, Illinois, a small town with a population of about 8,200. She also organizes and participates in mission trips along with her husband, Rev. Chris White. Leadership is part of Dr. White’s daily routine. Yet she credits being led – by a student no less – to attend Frontier Nursing University (FNU), where she completed her DNP (Class 32) in March 2020.

“I had been a nurse practitioner for just a couple of years, and I always tried to precept a student or two each year,” said Dr. White. “My first experience with Frontier was with an FNP student (Danielle Ireland, APRN, FNP-C, PMHNP-BC, Class 176). I precepted her for several months and was really impressed. She was a top-notch student. She seemed very prepared to be in the clinical setting. She was so prepared each day and seemed to have a great grasp and background knowledge of acute and chronic conditions that we saw in the clinic.”

Curious as to the source of Ireland’s impressive training, Dr. White asked about “She was just a fantastic student,” Dr. White said. “She ended up graduating and came to work for the same organization where I was working, and she continues to practice with that organization (Horizon Health Care’s Chrisman Clinic in Chrisman, Illinois) to this day. She is a huge asset to the organization and her patients.”

“Having Dr. White as a preceptor at the end of my FNP clinical rotation was a blessing,” Ireland said. “It was during this time that I knew I made the right decision to be a nurse practitioner. She showed compassion and competence to her patients. She is a strong advocate for the nurse practitioner profession. I admire Dr. White for her hard work and dedication over the last few years as she has earned her DNP degree and has gone above and beyond to advance her career in the education field and inspire others in so many ways.”

While it was Ireland who helped point Dr. White to FNU, it was her worldly experience that drove her to continue her education after 20 years as an RN working in labor and delivery. She received her MSN/FNP and BSN from Indiana Wesleyan University in 2012 and 2009, respectively, nearly a decade before pursuing her DNP at Frontier.

“I had taken a mission trip to Ghana in West Africa,” said Dr. White, who became an RN in 1992. “The demand on nurses there is much different than here. They want you to basically function as a provider, even though you’re an RN. In some of those remote areas, they just don’t have access to a physician. That was kind of a catalyst that touched my heart. I didn’t want to go and do that kind of work unprepared in my education – not

“Having Dr. White as a preceptor at the end of my FNP clinical rotation was a blessing. It was during this time that I knew I made the right decision to be a nurse practitioner.”

–Danielle Ireland, APRN, FNP-C, PMHNP-BC

Frontier, her program there, and the overall experience as a Frontier student. Even though she wasn’t ready to go back to school at that time, Dr. White always remembered Ireland and her experiences at FNU.

Crystal White, DNP, MSN, FNP-C, and her husband, Rev. Chris White

really giving them the same quality that I would want for my family here. So I decided I would go back and get my master’s and become a nurse practitioner. That’s how I went from being a hospital staff nurse to becoming a provider.”

How she became a nurse in the first place was a bit more predictable. Growing up in Salem, Virginia, she always wanted to be a nurse. Her mother encouraged that dream and would dress Dr. White up as a nurse for career day at school. Her experience as a nurse enabled her to find work easily, even as her husband’s career resulted in a move from Virginia to Illinois, where they have now lived for more than 20 years. They have two grown children and four grandchildren.

Between family, work, and missions, Dr. White’s plate was full, but still, she knew she could do more. She could be a better practitioner and help educate others as well. It was time to pursue her DNP. Remembering how impressed she had been by Danielle Ireland, she enrolled at Frontier.

As she neared the end of her program, she prepared for her DNP project, which is a quality improvement project that DNP students complete. Generally, these projects are conducted within the student’s current place of employment and are customized to meet the needs of that clinical location. It requires a great deal of planning, implementation, recruitment of participants, and evaluation of data. The scope of the project can be a bit stressful for students, and, in Dr. White’s case, a major life event made it even more so.

A day before, she was to meet with her mentor for the project, FNU Associate Professor Charlotte Swint, DNP, MPH, FNP-BC, CNE, Dr. White’s father passed away suddenly. Dr. White was understandably devastated. Her world was turned upside down. Completing her DNP project seemed impossible at that time.

“I was so close to just giving up on school for a while. Who knows whether I would have come back if I had withdrawn,” Dr. White said.

It was time for Dr. White to be led. She had never met Dr. Swint before that day, but it didn’t take long to realize she had found a leader she could trust.

“I don’t have enough good words to say about Dr. Swint,” Dr. White said. “She impacted my life in the most tremendous way and continues to, to this day. I had not met her before. I did not know her. She agreed to mentor me, and I agreed to have a mentor, and I’m so glad I did. Within a week or two (of my father’s passing), I had my first meeting with Dr. Swint. She went so far beyond helping me come up with ideas for planning my project. She helped support me. In an extremely emotional and stressful time, she was the kindest, beyond belief, just way beyond what would be expected of her. She helped me with her brilliance as I planned and implemented my project, and then when it came time for dissemination, she was still right there with me. She would practice with me and let me present my project to her.”

Dr. White was working in an occupational health department at Horizon Health at that time. While the department had been very attentive to the physical well-being of the employees, she felt that there was

an opportunity to do more to support employees’ mental well-being. That became the focus of her DNP project.

“There was really nothing for emotional or stress management other than an Employee Assistance program where people could go for counseling,” Dr. White said. “It was before COVID, so at the time, I felt like it was kind of innovative, but now it just seems like ‘well, of course, you should have a stress management program.’ I knew that there had been a survey taken by the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Enterprise in our organization a few years prior to my project. That survey showed that the employees’ number one health concern was stress. More than 90 percent of them said they had had some kind of health issue the previous year because of stress. That was very eye-opening for me and let me know that I was on the right path.”

“I decided I would go back and get my master’s and become a nurse practitioner. That’s how I went from being a hospital staff nurse to becoming a provider.”

“My mother planted that seed early on,” Dr. White said. “When I finished high school, I did study education for a little bit, but it didn’t take me long to come home to nursing.” “I was so close to just giving up on school for a while. Who knows whether I would have come back if I had withdrawn.”

Dr. White initiated weekly sessions devoted to employee stress management. She created a relaxation room where staff, physicians, providers, and nurses could take a break. The room included a massage chair, a smart TV with links to meditation videos, and aromatherapy. Free weekly yoga classes were offered to the staff.

Participation in the program was optional, and those who participated were screened at the beginning of the program via the Perceived Stress Survey. The initial screenings revealed that approximately 30 percent of the staff had high levels of stress. Dr. White invited those particular participants to meet with her individually, and she shared evidence-based ways to manage stress and helped formulate a stress management plan. She was able to make referrals for those who needed additional help beyond the scope of the project.

“At the height of the project, we were seeing a 72 percent improvement in those that used the interventions of the program,” Dr. White said. “The program was open for anyone and everyone, not just those who were highly stressed. We wanted everyone to have the opportunity to manage their stress and keep it from getting to a high level and to learn coping mechanisms and resilience so that they would have those skills when they needed them.” Even though Dr. White no longer works in that unit full-time, she is pleased that the program not only persists but has expanded.

“I can’t take any credit at this point, but I was able to share my project there on-site as part of the dissemination,” White said. “The CEO of the hospital attended that presentation as well as other leadership members, and I think it opened their eyes a little bit more to think about the mental health needs of the employees in addition to the physical needs. Since that time, they have hired a wellness coordinator. She’s an RN and met with me several times while I was still employed full-time there. She learned the program I put in place, and she has kept that going and added to it greatly. I’m really proud of that.”

The impact of Dr. White’s program is not limited to Horizon Health. Dr. Swint helped see to that, continuing to mentor Dr. White through the dissemination portion of the DNP project.

“She pushed me to publish my DNP project,” Dr. White said. “She was always willing to review my work. She continued to encourage me to write abstracts and submit to conferences – things I would have probably gotten around to, but it’s so important to have somebody there giving you that push, that nudge, and also showing you the way. You don’t just know these things intuitively. I give her a whole lot of credit for where I am today.”

“Serving as a mentor for Dr. White has been one of the highlights of my professional career,” Dr. Swint said. “From Dr. White’s first contact with me, I could sense that she was professional and highly motivated. As she progressed through the DNP program, she overcame obstacles and kept her eyes on her future success. Her DNP project made a great impact at her clinical site. It has been wonderful to be by her side as she presented at her first national conferences and achieved her first publication in a peerreviewed journal. I am very proud of all that she has accomplished, and I am so happy that she is now in her dream role of a tenuretrack faculty member at a school of nursing.”

Dr. White and Dr. Swint presented at the DNP Conference in Chicago in August 2021 and at the Sigma Nursing Creating Healthy Work Environments Conference in Washington, D.C., in March 2022. Dr. White also presented on her own at the Biennial National Summit on Promoting Well-Being and Resilience in Healthcare Professionals in Columbus, Ohio, in October 2020, and at the Dermatology

Dr. Crystal White (left) and Dr. Charlotte Swint presented at the DNP Conference in Chicago. Dr. White (right), who presented at the Dermatology Nurses’ Association (DNA) Convention in Las Vegas, is pictured with DNA President Dr. Angela Hamilton, FNP-BC, DCNP

Nurses’ Association Conference in Las Vegas in February 2022. Their abstract was accepted at other conferences that were ultimately canceled due to the pandemic. The article, The Implementation of a Stress Management Program for Health Care Workers Through a Rural Occupational Health Clinic*, co-authored by Drs. White and Swint and FNU Instructor Niessa Meier, DNP, CNM, CNE, was published in Workplace Health and Safety, which is operated by Sage Journals.

“I feel like the education I got from Frontier was one of excellence, and I’m very thankful for that,” Dr. White said. “In the DNP, my intellect was opened to really seeing the need for quality improvement and understanding how to set up a quality improvement project. You never look at things the same. You go back into your clinical practice, always looking for how we are meeting the standard, how we are not meeting the standard, and how we can improve and be better. That’s what the doctorate did

most for me. It just opens your mind to so many possibilities. I use those quality improvement skills in my teaching, in my practice, and in my life.”

To that end, Dr. White is implementing some components of the stress management programs from her DNP project at her college. She has seen the impact of the pandemic on so many around her, including her students.

“For my students to be able to continue on through the pandemic and all the hurdles with trying to get clinical sites and all they have been through the last couple of years, I’m amazed by what they have been able to overcome,” she said. “For that reason, I am now working with the college to implement something similar to what I had put in place at the healthcare organization where I did my DNP project. Hopefully, we’ll spread that to the faculty and staff at the college as well.”

As she moves forward and the pandemic hopefully comes to an end, Dr. White hopes to resume mission trips. Past trips have included Ghana, Mongolia, Trinidad, China, and Cuba. Each trip leaves her feeling grateful and called to do even more.

“I have seen a lot of impoverished people, but people with great hearts,” she said. “We think that we have to have a certain standard of living and certain income to be happy and comfortable, but I’m always surprised and shocked at how happy and content people are in various places in the world that have very little resources. They find their contentment and joy in other things, whether that be family or their faith. It’s really encouraging and enlightening.”

Dr. White’s passion to serve others allowed her to follow the inspiration of an exemplary student and the guidance of a trusted mentor. Now she passes on her knowledge and expertise to her students every day, mentoring and guiding them in the same manner in which she was.

“I understand the importance of students having strong clinical skills and having the extremely important knowledge base to provide primary care services for their patients,” Dr. White said. “But at the same time, I want to touch their hearts. You can teach anyone certain skills, but it’s harder to teach some of those things of the heart. I want to live the example, and I want them to model that example. I want them to see me as caring, compassionate, and inspiring, someone who exhibits love for humanity and wants to understand people that are different from me and make sure that we’re doing the best we can to take care of everyone’s needs. I hope as an educator, I’m that way to them because I feel like I’m called there to serve them – a servant leader. I hope that some of them will be nurse educators too.”

“I have seen a lot of impoverished people, but people with great hearts. We think that we have to have a certain standard of living and certain income to be happy and comfortable, but I’m always surprised and shocked at how happy and content people are in various places in the world that have very little resources.”

Danielle Ireland, APRN, FNP-C, PMHNP-BC, inspired Dr. White to attend Frontier Nursing University.

Editor’s Note:

While this story focuses on the profound impact of mentors and mentees, Dr. White also wishes to acknowledge and thank those whom she calls “the most important people in my life – my husband (Rev. Chris White), kids (son John Christian White, daughter Courtney and her husband Jose Fiscal-Belli), and my grandkids (Silas, Rafael, Tennessee, and Legend)." In addition, her extended family has provided her tremendous support and encouragement, including her mother and stepfather, Virgil and Theresa Childress, stepmother Sherry Hagee, in-laws Wayne and Rose Barrington, brother Jonathan Hagee, and her father, John Hagee, Jr., who passed away during her DNP program.

*White CH, Meier N, Swint C. The Implementation of a Stress Management Program for Health Care Workers Through a Rural Occupational Health Clinic. Workplace Health & Safety. 2021;69(4):161-167. doi:10.1177/2165079920982406