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Tracey DeWire, MSN'08, ACNP-BC, had a 16-year career in sales before deciding to become a nurse practitioner, a decision inspired by her best friend’s cancer diagnosis. She’s kept that inspiration burning in the 15 years of her second career. Her compassionate care has led to a VUMC Patient and Family Choice Award. Read More

Associate Professor Deonni Stolldorf 's project, "Implementation Science in Healthcare Settings," is part of the Provost's Faculty Grants for Culminating Projects in Immersion, designed to support faculty who provide students with transformative experiences across Vanderbilt. Read More

Ruth Kleinpell Independence Foundation Professor Ruth Kleinpell has been awarded the Pioneering Spirit Award by the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses. The award recognizes significant contributions that influence progressive and critical nursing and relate to the association’s mission, vision and values. She will be presented with the award during… Read More

In support of its commitment to fighting health inequities, Vanderbilt University School of Nursing has launched an ambitious campaign to raise and match $1 million to support health disparity research. Pamela R. Jeffries, PhD, RN, FAAN, ANEF, FSSH, Dean and Valere Potter Distinguished Professor of Nursing,… Read More

All members of the School of Nursing community are invited to take part in Vanderbilt’s Giving Day 2024, a 24-hour giving fest filled with matching challenges, power hours and participation goals happening on Thursday, April 11. Gifts given to VUSN directly support: Critical student scholarships that ensure VUSN attracts the… Read More

Nominations are now open for the Vanderbilt School of Nursing 2024 Alumni Board Awards. These awards honor alumni and friends of the school for leadership, clinical excellence, career accomplishments and service. From left, VUSN Dean Pam Jeffries, alumna Diane Welch Vines, PhD, BSN’67, and VUSN Alumni Board member Stephanie… Read More

Vanderbilt University Medical Center is welcoming the first graduates of the Nurse Scholars Program, which pays for up to four semesters of nursing school tuition at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing (VUSN) or Cumberland University in return for a work commitment to VUMC. The welcoming of the graduates comes as the latest group of nursing scholars were recently accepted into the program, which began accepting scholars in 2023. The program will pay up to $7,500 in tuition per semester, which is applied after grants and other scholarships. Read More

The Nurse Education, Practice, Quality and Retention Simulation Education Training Program is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under grant number 1 T48HP52038‐01‐00 as part of an award totaling $500,000 with 0% financed with non-governmental sources. Read More

Gretchen Persons A grant awarded to Vanderbilt University by Interfaith America, a Chicago-based nonprofit dedicated to building bridges among religions, has resulted in courses to help School of Nursing students better serve patients of diverse faith traditions. The School of Nursing and Vanderbilt’s Center for Spiritual and Religious Life… Read More

Julia Steed Assistant Professor Julia Steed, MSN’10, PhD’18, received the VUSN Award for Recognition of Faculty Achievement in Social Justice at the School of Nursing’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Annual Commemorative Lecture on January 9. The award recognizes faculty who foster social justice by advocating for equal rights and… Read More

Terri Allison Terri Allison, DNP, FAANP, director of the Doctor of Nursing Practice Program and assistant dean for academics, DNP, recently received Vanderbilt’s Dean Colleen Conway-Welch Award. The student-selected recognition is bestowed upon a DNP faculty member who demonstrates noteworthy contributions to student learning, either through course instruction or… Read More

Vanderbilt University School of Nursing will be reviewed for accreditation April 3-5, 2024, by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE). This will be an evaluation of its Master of Nursing (MN) program. Interested parties may submit written comments concerning Vanderbilt University School of Nursing’s qualifications for accreditation. Written third-party… Read More

Nursing alumnus Victor Czerkasij, MSN’06, has made visits to Ukraine, the land of his parents and ancestors, part of his personal mission. On his recent visits, he treated hospitalized children who have been traumatized by the war. “What was amazing to me was how many of the children would say, ‘I’m OK. Why don’t you give it to the child next door? They’re even worse than me,’” Czerkasij recalls. Read More

The Vanderbilt University School of Nursing was awarded a Health Resources and Services Administration Bureau of Health Workforce grant to create its new Nurse Education, Practice, Quality and Retention Simulation Education Training Program.  The three-year, $1.5 million grant, funded by the Department of Health and Human… Read More

Three targeted research projects aimed at improving hospital models of care delivery are coming together at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Independence Foundation Professor of Nursing Education Ruth Kleinpell PhD, ACNP-BC, FAAN, FAANP, FNAP, MCCM, and colleagued talked to "DIscoveries in Medicine" about their work on social determinants of health and how a new State of Tennessee grant is helping them evaluate how to fit routine SDOH screening into care. Read More

Brigit Carter, PhD, RN, FAAN, Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer for the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, will present “Amplifying Social Justice to Achieve Inclusive Excellence” from 12-1 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 9, in NA 161 for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Annual Commemorative Lecture. She is a retired… Read More

Vanderbilt has added a second session of its Academy for Diverse Emerging Nurse Leaders to take place March 18-22, 2024. Applications for the week-long academy are now open through February 26. The unique leadership development program is led by experienced leaders from diverse backgrounds who are committed to… Read More

This article explains how to edit the syllabus template in the course map application. STEP 1 Click here to log in to the Course Map Application Search for your course Click on Version STEP 2 Edit the current version- Only available if the review… Read More

Award winners front row from left: Jason Williams and Shelza Rivas. Back row, from left: Ali Cocco, Betsy Babb Kennedy, Diane Welch Vines, Audra Rankin, Cassie Brady, and Sharon Holley (Not pictured: Jenna Smith) In November, the Vanderbilt School of Nursing honored recipients of the 2023 Alumni Awards, a… Read More

Vanderbilt University School of Nursing has received a $4 million grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration to increase and diversify the nurse-midwife workforce as a means of improving maternal health and increase access to care. The school will use the Maternity Care Nursing Workforce Expansion grant to educate… Read More

Boosting its commitment to underrepresented nursing leaders, Vanderbilt University School of Nursing has secured a grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation for its innovative leadership program, Academy for Diverse Emerging Nurse Leaders. The academy is a groundbreaking, five-day immersive fellowship specially designed to train nurses from backgrounds… Read More

Erin Miller, MSN’19, was honored with Vanderbilt's 2023 Early Career Professional Achievement Award during Reunion and Homecoming weekend Nov. 2-5. The award is given by the Vanderbilt University Alumni Association and recognizes alumni age 40 and under for their significant record of career achievement and promise for professional success. Both a certified pediatric nurse practitioner and a pediatric sexual assault nurse examiner, Miller was one of the first graduates from VUSN’s pilot VEP-SANE program. Today, her expertise as a pediatric SANE, child advocate and health care leader is recognized in more than 1,000 completed sexual assault exams and court testimony in more than 100 cases. Read More

Clinicians need to have a better understanding of the potential impact of patients’ anxiety sensitivity, or “fear of fear,” according to an article published in American Journal of Critical Care. When a patient has anxiety sensitivity, they misinterpret nonthreatening symptoms as threatening, assessing the potential meaning across physical, social or cognitive domains. These “what if” thoughts may trigger a spiral effect, stimulating the nervous system and resulting in stronger sensations and further catastrophic misinterpretations. Read More

The number of dedicated nurses entering the profession will increase, thanks to a $1.25 million pledge from the Conway-Welch Family Foundation to establish the Conway-Welch Second Degree in Nursing Scholarship at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing. This milestone gift, which will be awarded to a student enrolling in Vanderbilt’s new Master of Nursing program, was made in honor of Colleen Conway-Welch, the former dean of the school who died five years ago from pancreatic cancer. Read More

Vanderbilt doctor of nursing practice students who hope to become nursing faculty may take advantage of a $1.52 million grant from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration  Bureau of Health Workforce (E01HP28788), Nurse Faculty Loan Program. Vanderbilt University School of Nursing received the award to support… Read More

A new partnership with AARP Tennessee and the National Museum of African-American Music is allowing the Theraputic Music in the ICU program led by Vanderbilt School of Nursing Professor Ruth Kleinpell, PhD, FAAN, MCCM, and Vanderbilt University Medical Center Professor Joseph Schlesinger, MD, FCCM, to expand with outreach to veterans and older adults at long-term care facilities in Middle Tennessee. Read More

Mulubrhan Mogos, assistant professor of nursing, studies ways to reduce cardiovascular disease risk among women. He was recently quoted in a story with collaborator Monica Keith, assistant professor of Anthropology, who published insights into the complex factors contributing to maternal hypertension and health disparities in a paper titled, “Social Determinant Pathways to Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy Among Nulliparous U.S. Women” in the journal Women’s Health Issues. Read More

Makayla Cordoza, assistant professor of nursing, has won a multi-year grant of over $730,000 from the National Institute of Nursing Research. She will research how poor and disturbed sleep contributes to ICU delirium. More than one third of patients in the intensive care unit develop ICU delirium, an acute form of cognitive dysfunction that disproportionately increases the risk for worse outcomes and long-term cognitive impairment. Insufficient and disrupted sleep is also a known contributor to short and long-term neurocognitive deficits. Despite this, the sleep-delirium relationship has not been rigorously investigated, Cordoza wrote in the project abstract. Read More

For the fourth year in a row, the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing has won a Higher Education in Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award from INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine, the oldest and largest diversity-focused publication in higher education. The award honors VUSN’s commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion… Read More

Vanderbilt University School of Nursing has received a four-year, $2.8 million Health Resources and Services Administration Bureau of Health Workforce grant for a primary care nurse practitioner residency program that will recruit, train and retain primary care providers with a passion for helping rural and underserved communities. Associate Professor Pam Jones, BSN’81, MSN’92, DNP’13, FAAN, is the grant’s project director, with Associate Professor Christian Ketel, DNP’14, FNAP, serving as primary author and evaluator. Read More

The Vanderbilt University 2023 Fall Staff Assembly celebrated staff contributions to the university’s mission.  The School of Nursing’s D3 team (Senior Instructional Designer Diana Vasquez, Instructional Technologist Taylor Boll, Senior Instructional Designer Carrie Sennett, Media Services Manager Clay Sturgeon… Read More

Assistant Professor of Nursing Leanne Boehm, PhD’16, FCCM, has received a grant of more than $3.6 million over five years to examine, the efficacy of telemedicine services among people recovering from post-intensive care syndrome. This effort, funded by the National Institute on Aging, is the first PICS longitudinal cognitive impairment intervention study of its ki Read More

Vanderbilt University School of Nursing will hold the second annual Academy for Diverse Emerging Nurse Leaders, a program that offers professional development and insight to support participants in health care and academic leadership roles, in Nashville from November 13-17. Applications for the program are open through October 30. “We believe… Read More

Vanderbilt Assistant Dean for Academics, Generalist Nursing Practice, and Professor Mary Ann Jessee, MSN’95, PhD, RN, will be inducted as an Academy of Nursing Education fellow at the National League of Nursing Convocation on September 30.   The NLN Academy of Nursing Education selects… Read More

Carol Ziegler, MSN’06, DNP’12, professor of nursing and co-founder of the Climate, Health and Energy Equity Lab, was appointed to the Metro Nashville Board of Health on Aug. 15. Known for her climate and health expertise, Ziegler develops trans-institutional strategies to improve health outcomes in underserved communities through culturally appropriate, community-based health initiatives. Read More

Vanderbilt University announced today the creation of the Vanderbilt Center for Research on Inequality and Health, a trans-institutional collaboration of the College of Arts and Science and the School of Nursing. The center will convene leading Vanderbilt researchers with deep expertise in economic and social inequality, population health science, LGBTQ+ health policy and gun violence to explore the health impacts of these interrelated areas of study. Read More

The Vanderbilt University School of Nursing received a $2.6M four-year Health Resources and Services Administration grant, to continue its highly successful Collaborative Academic-Practice (CAP) program, which improves advanced practice nursing education and increases recruitment and retention in rural, tribal and medically underserved populations. Read More

Vanderbilt School of Nursing Associate Professor Leslie Hopkins, DNP, MSN’93, was elected to the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties Board of Directors as a member-at-large for the 2023-2025 term.   Hopkins, director of Vanderbilt’s Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Program, has been… Read More

Four Vanderbilt University School of Nursing faculty have been announced as 2023 American Academy of Nursing fellows. Assistant Professor Leanne Boehm, PhD’16, MSN’09, ACNS-BC, Professors Jennifer Kim, DNP, MSN’97, GNP-BC, GS-C, FNAP, FAANP, and Rolanda Johnson, PhD’98, and Assistant Professor Lori Schirle, PhD, CRNA, will be inducted into the… Read More

Members of the School of Nursing are participating in a new Vanderbilt University Medical Center initiative funded with a $3.9 million grant to VUMC from the Tennessee Department of Health. The grant program will evaluate innovative models of nursing care that include screening and responding to social drivers of health. It will also investigate how to mitigate nursing staffing shortages while ensuring optimal patient care. Read More

Kendra Faucett Kendra M. Faucett, DNP, BS’00, CNM, APRN, CNE, FACNM, will become academic director for the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing’s Nurse-Midwifery specialty on September 18. She comes to Nashville from her role as an assistant professor and course coordinator at Frontier Nursing… Read More

The Vanderbilt University School of Nursing has been named a National League of Nursing Center of Excellence in Nursing Education for its support of faculty pedagogical expertise. This is the second time the school has been so honored. The five-year NLN Center of Excellence designation recognizes that VUSN demonstrates ongoing, dedicated excellence in developing and expanding faculty expertise in nursing education. Read More

The Tennessee Action Coalition has included a School of Nursing faculty member and a Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt nurse in its 2023 cohort of Tennessee Rising Star Nurse Leaders. VUSN Assistant Professor Monika Schmidt Do, DNP, FACC, and clinical staff leader Cory Smeltzer, RN, were among 25 young Tennessee nurse leaders named rising stars. Read More

Kendra Phillips: Passion for Patient Care “I have a deep love for patient interaction and care,” she says. “My desire is to treat and care for patients, not prioritize the diseases and conditions.” Phillips currently works as a clinical trials associate at Vanderbilt University… Read More

Dear alumni, colleagues and supporters, In my first year at Vanderbilt School of Nursing, I made it a priority to meet the leaders of health systems in the area and explore how we could help them in their missions. In every discussion, I was told that… Read More

The nursing profession is on the cusp of a transformation. The high demand for nurses directly aligns with all-time highs in the increased demand for health care. A compassionate, qualified and diverse workforce must be at the heart of the U.S. health care system. Read More

Vanderbilt University School of Nursing Associate Professor of Nursing Stephanie DeVane-Johnson, PhD, MSN’97, CNM, FACNM, has been awarded a two-year Diversity Supplement grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD). The National Institute of Health (NIH) supplement supports early career researchers of… Read More

“Vanderbilt chose me,” says Leslie Jeter, BSN’86, DNP, CRNA. In high school, she spent “career week” in the operating room at a local community hospital. A certified registered nurse anesthetist took Jeter under her wing and let her squeeze an ambu bag (a manual resuscitator), and Jeter watched in… Read More

Fisk University’s Sheila Peters speaking on the importance of self-discovery. Vanderbilt academy addresses uniqueness and unique needs of diverse leaders The sun was shining as a group of nurses from eight different states stepped out of the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing—newly invigorated to take on… Read More

Anana Upton Growing up, Anana Upton, BS’21, spent endless hours in hospitals as her younger brother underwent care. That experience spurred a passionate drive in her to elevate the quality of health care available to underserved communities while also educating people about their medical choices and affording them the… Read More