Debra Van Kuiken is an Associate Professor at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio where she currently leads a team of faculty integration of holistic nursing into their new competency-based curriculum. Her current scholarship is developing a holistic pain management approach that moves beyond the medical model. She is interested in the role of trauma on the patient and nurse experience and how to better equip nurses to be self-aware and self-reflective in light of past trauma. Her past research also included promoting presence in students, interprofessional education, community health assessment and social determinants.

As an educator, she is passionately exploring the ontologic and epistemologic questions that define our being and knowing. Without their explicit integration into our pedagogy and praxis, healthcare will remain a system driven by the medical, reductionist model where any epistemology short of RCT is devalued. She is currently studying the role of a holistic nurse coach under the guidance of the faculty of the Wisdom of the Whole Coaching Academy.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-vankuiken-phd-rn-ahn-bc-sgahn-266492a/