New Digs
Launched in early 2025 a new mobile health van
will offer a regular cadence of primary care to underserved communities in Central Virginia staffed by School faculty, clinicians, and both undergraduate and graduate students, who will practice giving care aboard as part of their community health clinical rotation under the careful guidance of faculty including assistant professor Amy Boitnott (DNP ’11), Randy Jones (BSN ’00, MSN ’02, PhD ’05), Malinda Whitlow (BSN ’07, ’11, DNP ’13), among others.
For those who dream of a job that's the perfect fusion of practice and teaching, there's a growing number of on-ramps that are practical, dynamic, and do-able. It's all part of the Synergy Center's growing complement of pathways for nurses interested in career transitions.
It's part of a growing complement of new practice and educational environments—including a new breed of faculty roles that allow clinician-educators to both practice and teach—that’s bringing new energy to the School, and more options for faculty members like Jeanel Little (MSN ’18, DNP ’19), an assistant professor, the School's acute care nurse practitioner specialty lead, and a UVA Health acute care clinician, Richard Ridge (PhD ’02, CERTI-PMHNP DNP ’25), a new psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, and Kathryn Laughon (MSN ’99, PhD ’04), an associate professor, PhD program director, and director of UVA Health’s new Emergency Forensic Center, part of its ED.
For those who dream of a job that's the perfect fusion of practice and teaching, there's a growing number of on-ramps that are practical, dynamic, and do-able.
It's all part of the Synergy Center's growing complement of pathways for nurses interested in career transitions.
The Synergy Center
What it is
Positioned as a collaboration hub for nurses and nurses-to-be during four key moments in their education and career—transition to practice, professional growth, career transitions, and legacy—the Synergy Center aligns nurses' personal goals with workforce needs and tethers them to the principles of self-care, well-being, and compassionate leadership, focus areas for which the School is known.
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Reorienting Orientation
Why quality onboarding matters
From the outset, it can make new nurses feel like they’re entering a world that’s organized, efficient, supportive, friendly.
It’s why UVA Health’s Nursing Professional Development Services and the School began working on a new approach to onboarding, an united effort now headquartered at the Synergy Center.
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Building Nurses for the Future
Focused on well-being (not just because it's nice)
“Teaching self-care early in a nurse’s career helps both the individual nurse and the hospital where they work,” explained professor Natalie May, who studies mattering and its impact on healthcare workers’ quality of care, burnout, longevity, and attrition, and leads well-being modules for new UVA Health nurses taking part in yearlong residencies. “When nurses flourish, so do their patients.”
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Project Team
When the team's the thing
Not everyone has an idea for their DNP final scholarly capstone defense.
So, to satisfy both DNP students' academic needs and the challenges many health systems face and seek help to solve, Beth Quatrara, an associate professor (pictured with DNP graduate Jared Sangiorgi), has developed a list of ongoing projects that need a DNP student's touch at UVA Health and well beyond. It's just the kind of thinking the Synergy Center fuels.
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Power of Magnet
What makes graduates choose to stay?
Accelerated BSN student BreAnn Dishman (BSN ’25) wasn't too familiar with why Magnet hospitals were different until she started clinical rotations. Those experiences, and what she observed in the agency of her nurse mentor-preceptors, drove her decision about where to work once she graduated.
"It made the decision to stay easy," explained Dishman, a new UVA Health pediatric nurse.
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