Every VUSN graduate has exciting things happening in her or his life, both professionally and personally. Class Notes – printed twice a year in the Vanderbilt Nurse Magazine and available online on this page – is an opportunity for you to not only learn what other alumni are doing but also share news about your life. We would love to hear what you've been up to! Please contact us with any updates, or call 615-322-4836. And, when posting on social media please tag us! #VUSN

Look below for news from your classmates as of December 31, 2022. Items received since July 1, 2022 are shown in red font.

Velinda Youngner Block, MSN'89, was named a Visionary Leader by the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Nursing in April 2021, and among the 2019 Nashville Medical News Women to Watch. She was appointed chief nursing executive at HCA TriStar Health System in Nashville in April 2017, and interviewed that August in HCA Nurse Residency about the company opening a new simulation learning facility in Antioch, Tennessee.

Caroline Post Cone, MSN'89, is a nurse psychotherapist and assistant in medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (2020).

Lea Ann Cook, MSN'89 , of Los Angeles, passed away September 4, 2018. 

Charlotte Mathias Covington, BSN'69, MSN'89, is associate professor emerita at VUSN (2022).

Betsy Babb Kennedy, BSN'89, MSN'93, was voted by VUSN doctor of nursing practice students to receive the Dean Colleen Conway-Welch Award for Contributions to DNP Student Learning in January 2022. She co-sponsored a challenge gift in memory of late professor Tom Christenbery, MSN'87, PhD'04, during Vanderbilt Giving Day in April, and received the VUSN Ingeborg Mauksch Excellence in Faculty Mentoring Award in May. Betsy co-authored "Utilization of Phone Simulations to Assess Competency within Nursing Education," published in the July issue of  Nurse Educator , and "Advancing Faculty Diversity in Nursing Education: Strategies for Success," in the September issue of the  Journal of Professional Nursing . That month, she was inducted as a fellow in the National League for Nursing. She is co-author of "Identifying Mental Health Issues Associated with Infertility," published in the November issue of The Journal for Nurse Practitioners . Betsy is co-author of "Goals for Collaborative Management of Obstetric Hemorrhage," published in Obstetrics & Gynecology Clinics in March 2021. She co-presented, "Scholarship in Progress Peer Support: A Faculty Initiative to Promote Best Practices in Publishing and Presenting," at the International Association of Nursing Editors conference in August, and is lead author of "Educational Theory and Cognitive Science: Practical Principles to Improve Patient Education," published in Nursing Clinics in North America in September. She co-authored "Advancing Clinical Scholarship among Non-tenure Track Faculty: A Faculty Scholarship Program," in the November/December issue of the Journal of Professional Nursing . Betsy is co-author of "Development and Pilot Testing of a Multidimensional Learning Environment Survey," published in the April 2020 issue of Nurse Educator , and was promoted to associate dean for nontenure track faculty affairs and advancement at VUSN that September. She co-presented "Speak Up Culture and the Academic Nursing Environment: The Junior Faculty Perspective," at a Sigma International conference in January 2019, and spoke at the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses regional section conference in April. She co-authored "Mentoring Nursing Faculty: An Inclusive Scholarship Support Group," published that September in Nurse Educator . Betsy co-edited  Intrapartum Management Modules, 5^th ed ., the runner-up in the American Journal of Nursing's Book of the Year in 2016 for the maternal-child health category, and received the Ingeborg Mauksch Excellence in Faculty Mentoring Award at VUSN that year. 

Sandy Leake, MSN'89, was interviewed by 10News in Knoxville, Tennessee, in October 2021 regarding the pressures COVID-19 places on the health care workforce. She became senior vice president and chief nursing officer of the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville in May 2020.

Nancy Ledbetter, BSN'89, was hired in 2018 as a clinical nurse specialist at Salem Health Cancer Institute in Oregon, managing a new program to identify patients whose family history makes them more inclined to cancer.

Barbara Boone McGinnis, MSN'89, gave a webinar  on Medicaid basics in April 2022, and became a certified elder law attorney by the National Elder Law Foundation in 2017. She was named chairperson of the Tennessee Bar Association's elder law section executive committee and president of the Life Care Planning Law Firms Association, both in 2016. Barbara is partner at Elder Law Practice of Timothy L. Takacs in Hendersonville. 

Leigh Ann Thompson McInnis, BSN'87, MSN'89, wrote a chapter, "Herbal Supplements for Common Women's Health Issues," for the book, Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Part II: Herbal Supplements and Vitamins, published by Elsevier in March 2021.

Kim Kullman Moore, BSN'89, was named manager of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center cardiovascular intensive care unit in Nashville in July 2018. 

Roni Abernathy Nylander, BSN'89, MSN'92, was featured on the Vanderbilt University Medical Center's website in its Advanced Practice Provider Spotlight. She is a nurse anesthetist at Monroe Carrell Jr. Children's Hospital (2017). 

Vicki Goins Paty, MSN'89 , of Mount Juliet, Tennessee, passed away December 2, 2022.

Laurie Scott Tompkins, BSN'89, MSN'90, joined The Women's Institute for Sexual Health, a division of Urology Associates, in Nashville, as a nurse practitioner, in November 2018.

Deborah Dalhauser Williams, MSN'89, is a women's health nurse practitioner at Hendersonville Obstetrics & Gynecology in Tennessee (2020).