SCHOLAR DIRECTORY

I am completing my Doctor of Nursing practice degree. My goal is to become a Family Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner. I graduated in May of 2014 from Austin Peay State University with my Bachelor of Science in Nursing. I completed an 18-week RN residency program on the Medical-Oncology unit at Overlake Hospital Medical Center. I have been working on this unit for 3.5 years. During this time, I chaired the Quality Practice and Patient safety committee. Currently, I am a registered nurse preceptor and mentor for new nurses who are completing or have completed the residency program I once attended. Every nurse has seen the disparities present in our healthcare system, especially in the psychiatric/mental health area. Stigma, lack of access to care, and provider shortage contribute to the increasing number of patient’s suffering from undiagnosed or untreated behavioral health disorders. This is what prompted me to focus on psychiatry as an Advanced Practice Nurse. After three-years of seeing the same inequity, I knew that if I wanted things to change then I needed to change them. When I started this journey, I was unsure of what I wanted to do for my DNP scholarly project until I learned about the Primacy Care Behavioral Health model. This integrated model facilitates the collaboration between a primary care provider and a behavioral health provider in the primary care setting. My DNP project is a workforce readiness intervention focusing on the Implementation an Integrated Care Nurse Practitioner residency program.

Darryn W. Dunbar, MS, RN, CNM, NEA-BC is an accomplished nursing leader, clinician and educator whose career spans nearly three decades and includes expertise in Emergency, Trauma and Critical Care Nursing; Behavioral Health and Women’s Health/Nurse Midwifery. Amidst a perpetually changing healthcare landscape, he is passionate about the provision of safe patient care and reduction of harm. Darryn is the Director of Behavioral Health, Critical Care (interim) & Patient Transport at Johns Hopkins Medicine’s Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, DC. Under his leadership, Sibley Memorial Hospital received the Lantern Award from the Emergency Nurses Association in 2017. Darryn earned a Master of Science degree in Maternal/Child Nursing and Nurse-Midwifery from the University of Illinois at Chicago (1995) where his research identified factors that influence nurses to suggest hydrotherapy to laboring women. He has a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from Illinois Wesleyan University (1990) where he received the Distinguished Alumni Award for Excellence in Nursing in 2003. Currently, Darryn is pursuing an Executive Doctorate of Nursing Practice degree at The Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, focusing on emergency department (ED) crowding, risks associated with extended ED length of stay for critically ill patients and systematic approaches to addressing throughput, patient flow, and capacity management. He is adjunct faculty at The Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, a certified nurse-midwife and board certified as a Nurse Executive, Advanced. Darryn is a member of the Emergency Nurses Association and American Organization of Nurse-Executives.

Cheryl has 41 years of experience in health care delivery in the areas of pediatrics, home health, managed care, health insurance, healthcare software solutions and child welfare. Cheryl is the Clinical & Health Services Administrator in the District of Columbia’s Office of Well Being at Child & Family Services Agency (CFSA). She joined CFSA with a charge to establish and develop healthcare within a child welfare agency. Cheryl is the visionary for the Agency’s Healthy Horizons Programs, which consists of an onsite Clinic and Nurse Care Management. These innovative programs are shifting the paradigm in foster care health while simultaneously establishing the District of Columbia as a model in meeting the health needs of children in care. Cheryl’s objective is to develop a model that integrates the disciplines of Nursing and Social Work into child welfare to ensure the well-being of children. Cheryl was a Senior Applications Analyst and led the management of information chapter during the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations preparation where a perfect score was achieved. Cheryl serves as a board member for the Jacaranda Center for Family & Youth Development. She is a former founding board member of the Case Management Society of America Chesapeake Chapter and served as an Advisory to Black Administrators for Child Welfare. She is a Certified Public Manager and a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt. She is the recipient of several honors and awards including the distinguished Cafritz award. She is a co-author in the Critical Care Nurse Journal.