Biography

Cathy Collins-Fulea has been in active clinical practice as a CNM since 1981, spending her career serving the women of inner city Detroit. Her basic nursing and midwifery education was in England. After returning to this country she opened an in-hospital birthing center in Detroit at a time when only 5 other CNMs were practicing in the state. After 10 years she joined the Henry Ford Health System where she started a new practice with 6 other CNMs. Over the years, Cathy grew this practice into one of the most respected in the state, leading 22 midwives delivering at 2 hospitals and practicing in 12 outpatient centers. The practice is known for the excellent collaborative relationships with physicians and nursing, and the respect the midwives hold in the department. Through the years, Cathy has been active professionally on both the state and national levels with the American College of Nurse Midwives. She has chaired many committees including Michigan Chapter of ACNM, the National Quality Management Section, the Division of Standards and Practice, the Service Directors Network and the Volunteer Structure Re-Alignment Task Force. She has served on many other committees as well as represented ACNM to other organizations including as a member of the US MERA Steering Committee, the National Quality Forum, the Joint Commission Expert Panel on Perinatal Measures, as a reviewer for ACOG’s Voluntary Review of Quality of Care Program, and on the ACOG Task Force on Collaborative Practice. In addition, she has served on the ACNM BOD as a Regional Representative, two terms as Vice-President and as President from 2020-2022. In 1998 Cathy was inducted as an ACNM Fellow. In 2003 she received the prestigious Dorthea Lang Pioneer Award from the ACNM Foundation in recognition of her work developing and implementing ACNM benchmarking and her work as editor and author of An Administrative Manual for Nurse-Midwifery Services. In 2022 she was inducted as a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. She has published on clinical as well as practice issues and has spoken nationally and internationally on a variety of topics.