Martha Baird MN, ARNP, a fourth year doctoral candidate
at the University of Arizona College of Nursing, is chosen as the recipient of
the 2008 Research Award from the Transcultural Nursing Society (TCNS). This
award will provide Martha with $3,000 toward the costs associated with her
ethnographic study entitled Resettlement Experiences of Sudanese Refugee
Women. Martha will be recognized as the recipient of this research grant
at the 34th Annual Conference of the Transcultural Nursing Society
held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, September 24-27, 2008.
Ms Baird is using the Theory of Transitions as a
framework to understand the experiences of Sudanese refugee women from the
Dinka tribe in southern Sudan who resettle with children to a Midwestern city
in the US. There are over 2,000 Sudanese refugees from the Dinka tribe in the
Kansas City metropolitan area. She is investigating how culture influences
their resettlement experiences.
Ms. Baird’s doctoral work and dissertation topic were
inspired by several experiences abroad. Ms. Baird traveled to the Dominican
Republic for over 10 years to work with Haitian health promoters. On several
occasions she took students from a variety of disciplines to help conduct
primary care clinics and provide health education seminars for the promoters.
In 2001 Martha spent a summer in Shaoshing China teaching English to 10 and 12
year old Chinese students. These experiences taught her the importance of
cultural context in understanding others.
Ms. Baird received a diploma in nursing in 1976 from
Research College of Nursing in Kansas City, MO.; a bachelor’s degree in
nursing in 1979 from Avila College in Kansas City, MO; and a masters degree
with a focus in psychiatric mental health nursing in 1987 from Kansas
University Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas in 1987. She has worked
extensively in the area of psychiatric nursing and holds a board certification
through the AACN in adolescent and child psychiatry as a Clinical Nurse
Specialist. She is currently working as an assistant professor at William
Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri. Her primary areas of instruction include
Community Health and Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing. In her role as a
faculty member she emphasizes transcultural concepts in the community health
nursing course through readings and by having students complete independent
needs assessment and intervention projects with a variety of vulnerable
populations from diverse cultural backgrounds. In addition to her full-time
faculty position, she maintains a part-time practice as a psychiatric nurse
practitioner in the private sector.
Ms. Baird has been a member of the Transcultural Nursing
Society since 2002 and is currently a reviewer for the Journal of
Transcultural Nursing. She is expected to complete her dissertation in the
fall of 2008 and will present the findings of her research study at an
upcoming TCNS conference. She acknowledges the opportunity to work closely
with Dr. Joyceen S. Boyle, a renowned scholar in transcultural nursing, who
has acted as her academic advisor, dissertation chair, and mentor.
