This session is presented by moderator Dr. Cathy Collins-Fulea and a panel of FNU faculty and alumni.
Join us for an impactful panel presentation hosted in collaboration with FNU’s IHI Open School Chapter. Hear stories of FNU’s mission in action through visual storytelling as nurse-midwifery alumni and faculty share their community projects and initiatives for serving diverse, rural and underserved populations. We hope you will be inspired by these real-life examples of quality improvement and community impact and leave with ideas to take back to your own community.
Moderator
Catherine Collins-Fulea DNP, CNM, FACNM
Dr. Catherine Collins-Fulea is the current president of the American College of Nurse-Midwives. She has been a certified nurse midwife since 1981, spending her career serving the women of inner city Detroit until 2019 when she joined the DNP faculty at Frontier Nursing University. She is now an assistant professor, teaching quality improvement science and mentoring doctoral student QI initiatives. Dr. Collins-Fulea has been active professionally with the American College of Nurse Midwives since 1985, serving in many different roles over the years. Of note, she founded the ACNM benchmarking project, chaired the Division of Standards and Practice and the Quality Improvement Committee, served one term as Region 4 Representative to the Board of Directors and two terms as Vice President. Dr. Collins-Fulea has spoken widely both nationally and internationally on leadership, quality improvement and clinical issues. Dr. Collins-Fulea has authored a number of publications on benchmarking and quality improvement.
Panel
Melva Craft-Blacksheare, DNP, CNM
Dr. Melva Craft-Blacksheare is a graduate of FNU CNEP class #4 and a proud native Detroiter whose concern of the city’s third world status of black infant mortality, and her desire to provide safe, caring maternity services, initiated a compassion to become a nurse-midwife.
Her plan as a midwife at Hutzel hospital was to stay until retirement, caring for women and infants of the community, however as the only midwife of color, she was laid off after 4 years due to hospital cuts.
Despite experiencing 4 urban area hospital/clinic closures, she continued working with community organizations that shared her desire to provide supportive infant and maternity care. When full-time midwifery jobs were not available to her she began teaching maternity nursing to share the compassion for moms and babies to the next generation of nurses and future midwives.
Presently, Dr. Craft-Blacksheare is a full time tenured Associate professor at University of Michigan- Flint teaching maternity nursing. She remains active in social justice issues and her research focus is maternal child health and the diversification of the nursing and midwifery profession. She has published over 6 articles related to the Flint Water Crisis, and its effects on maternal child health. A book chapter “Transcultural Perspectives in Childbearing” was published in 2020. Additional publications include “COVID-19 and communities of color” (2021). She serves on the Michigan Maternal Mortality Review Committee.
Minyon Outlaw, DNP, CNM, WHNP-BC
Dr. Minyon Outlaw is a Certified Nurse-Midwife who matriculated through the CNEP, post-masters WHNP and DNP programs at FNU. She graduated in 2019 and began full scope midwifery at a large hospital system in the beautiful city of Altamonte Springs, Florida. She is currently the Nominating Committee Chair for the Florida Council of Nurse-Midwives. She serves as the women’s ministry leader and Faith Community Nurse at her local church. At the onset of the pandemic, Dr. Outlaw founded an on-line support group focused on helping antepartum and postpartum patients to cope with COVID isolation through therapeutic listening. This group is still going strong today. Her passion is to see women and birthing families experience all that midwifery has to offer. Her care philosophy is healthy woman/person=healthy families=healthy communities.
Dolores (Dee) Polito, DNP, CNM
Dr. Polito has recently joined the faculty at FNU as a Clinical Bound Team Leader and Course Faculty. She is a graduate of CNEP Class 15 in 1997 and has been in private practice in rural communities in Pennsylvania and Kentucky. Most recently, she was part of a team of midwives that established the first full-scope midwifery practice at the University of Kentucky. During her time at U.K., she served as Director of the Midwife Clinic and established a successful group prenatal care program for women in recovery from substance use during pregnancy. She is active in the Kentucky Board of Nursing’s CPM Advisory Council and is serving her second term as Treasurer of the Kentucky Affiliate of ACNM. She is also Kentucky’s Team Leader for the Institute for Medicaid Innovation’s Midwifery Learning Collaborative, a 3-year initiative to promote and improve state-wide midwifery practice. Dr. Polito has a strong belief in the birth center model of care and is active politically in Kentucky where birth centers do not exist. She advocates for the removal of barriers to their development in Kentucky.
Dr. Polito and her husband Robert live in Lexington, Kentucky, and enjoy spending time with their five grown children who have become their best friends. Together, she and her husband own a home care agency which serves the central Kentucky area and will be opening a second location in Melbourne, Florida. In her spare time, she likes keeping her hands busy with knitting and sewing and finds quiet time for reading, which is most enjoyable at the beach.
Ana Verzone, DNP, FNP-BC, CNM
Dr. Ana Verzone is an FNP and CNM, working with rural populations since 2004. She has taught at Frontier Nursing University since 2018 in the Doctor of Nursing Practice and Family Nurse Practitioner programs and previously taught in the University of Alaska’s FNP program from 2016-2018. Ana is passionate about global and rural health and training excellent clinicians who take into account the wholeness of a patient. Currently living in Alaska, she has worked in various settings, including with the Rural Anchorage Service Unit and Alaska Native Medical Center providing primary, urgent, and emergency care in rural Alaska, as a hospitalist midwife with Providence Medical Center, and as a provider at an Integrative Medicine clinic in Anchorage. She enjoys international volunteer work and has served in Uganda, Indonesia, the Dominican Republic, Nepal, and more. When not teaching, Ana loves playing in the mountains with her daughter, husband, and dog – especially flyfishing, climbing, and exploring in the wilderness of Alaska.
Shaughanassee Vines, DNP, CNE, CNM, FACNM
Dr. Shaughanassee Vines is an alumnus of Old Dominion University where she earned her Bachelors and Master of Science in Nursing. She was trained in midwifery at Shenandoah University and later earned her Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree from Frontier Nursing University. She serves as assistant professor and course coordinator at Frontier Nursing University and research clinician for the THRIVE study at University of California San Diego. She is also the founder of Coceaux Health®, a telehealth platform providing women’s health services to women of color by clinicians of color and a sought out speaker. Aside from her career, Dr. Vines has a loving husband and family and serves within a number of community organizations including the CA Nurse Midwives Association’s Professional Practice Committee Chair, Reproductive Justice and Anti-Racism committee, ACNM Program Committee, and the Black Nurses Association.
Kate Woeber, PhD, MPH, CNM, FACNM
Dr. Kate Woeber has enjoyed practicing as a midwife over the past 20 years, and teaching nursing and midwifery students over the past 17 years. With specific interests in midwifery education and workforce, her professional goals are to ensure excellence in midwifery education and practice, and to grow the midwifery profession so that everyone has access to compassionate, expert care. In addition to teaching at Frontier, she is the Chair of ACNM’s Division of Research Workforce Committee, immediate past President of Georgia’s ACNM Affiliate, and Director of the Emory Decatur Labor Support Volunteer program. Outside of work, she enjoys knitting, cooking, crafts, pets, and spending time with family and friends.