Biography

I am currently splitting my time between DNP800: Nurse as the Educator and the second in NM/WH 710/711 Clinical Bound Faculty. In the Spring of 2024, I was a full-time faculty for NM/WH 712 Virtual Clinical Simulations. I was course faculty for NM702 Normal AP & PC716 PE courses 2023. I served on FNU faculty as Florida Regional Clinical Faculty for the CNEP and WHNP program tracks from 2017-2023. With a rich background in community and hospital births, a fervor for midwifery, and extensive experience in clinical practice, education, and public service, she founded a birth center and administered multiple practices. She received her nursing diploma in New York from St Joseph's School of Nursing in 1987 and a Bachelor of Science degree at Hartwick College in 1997. She graduated in 2000 from FNU with a certificate in Midwifery (CNEP class 25), and she completed a Master of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University in 2000. She completed her Doctorate of Nursing in 2019, focusing on improving physiologic birth with intermittent auscultation. She completed a postgraduate certificate in Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner (WHNP) in 2023 from FNU. Currently, she is serving as the Florida Affiliate Vice President. She served as the ACNM Florida Affiliate President for over a decade and on the Florida Council of Nurse-Midwifery board for the eight chapters since 2009. She served as a chapter chair/president in Fort Myers starting just after midwifery graduation, then in Orlando, and currently on the Tampa Bay chapter. She served as the liaison for ACOG District XII and remains active in supporting collegial relationships at the local level. She has served as the legislative chair for ACNM in Florida since 2009. She has actively integrated clinical practice, education, public service, activism, and political involvement. She developed a full-scope midwifery practice in Fort Myers, Florida, for over seven years, primarily in low-resource settings with under-served populations and building/opening a free-standing birth center. She provided homebirth, a birth center, or hospital options for women. She worked in Orlando for five years as a midwife in a large practice and developed midwifery positions. She served the Clearwater area at Mease Countryside Hospital in a private practice full-scope midwifery. She had privileges at The Birth Center of St Pete for seven years until it closed in 2023. She assisted in getting CABC accreditation for that birth center and two others. Her primary areas of clinical and academic interests are providing options to all women and supporting students. She also carved a gateway for engagement between Licensed Midwives and Certified Nurse-Midwives in Fort Myers, Orlando, Tampa, and the Panhandle. She is prominent in legislative and lobbying efforts nationally with the Political Action Committee and affiliate legislative chair in Florida. She was appointed to the Florida Council on APRN Autonomous Practice. She truly tirelessly educates and advocates while passionately offering safe access to birthing options. She is a member of the American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM), the American Association of Birth Centers (AABC), the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN), and Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI), Chi Pi Chapter. She currently resides in Madeira Beach, Florida.