Assistant Professor/Co-Specialty Director WHNP Program
University of Colorado College of Nursing
I have made training and facilitation the focus of my clinical and academic work for more than 20 years. As a facilitator and guide, I work to enhance the health of patients and families and to enhance the clinical skills and healthcare delivery of all levels of learners.
I have significant experience in all stages of academic program management, with over 17 years of design, implementation and evaluation of health professional education, simulation education and assessment projects. I have am a Master Trainer in the Calgary-Cambridge Communication Framework and have facilitated communication exercises for both advanced practice nursing and medical learners. I have advanced training in standardized patient education. I incorporate multiple software platforms into my teaching and research and pride myself on my educational technology pedagogy and practices. My research has focused primarily on optimizing health professional curricula, the appropriate timing and frequency of physical exam training and the use of multi-modal and virtual simulation to improve communication skills in health professional learners.
My focus as a nurse practitioner is fostering sexual and reproductive wellness throughout a person’s lifespan, while integrating the whole body and mind to optimize health. I work in a low resource setting serving persons with low or no health coverage. This work locally has driven my desire to learn more about low resource settings globally. I am a trainer for the Helping Mothers Survive PreEclampsia and Eclampsia and Helping Babies Breathe Master Trainer and Champion courses. Multiple trips to low resource settings showed me that understanding health systems outside of the United States is crucial to improving health care and health equity in the US and that reproductive health is truly foundational to optimizing wellness of the individual and the community.