Kate Veenstra, DNP, MSN, RN, CNL, CMSRN, ACM, NEA-BC, was recently appointed as the new chief nursing officer at the University of Michigan Health-West. Her more than 18 years of experience also tells quite a story.
Veenstra started as a bedside nurse at the hospital in 2006 and has held many roles, from associate chief nursing officer to the most recent interim chief nursing officer. Throughout her career, Veenstra has been a champion for her team and patients, leading initiatives that have significantly improved care and productivity.
One of her most notable accomplishments is co-leading a clinical nurse program, which helped to reduce cardiac readmissions and hospital stays. She also participated in a clinical care team during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Daily Nurse named Kate Veenstra the Nurse of the Week for her outstanding contributions. According to Dr. Ronald Grifka, president of UM Health-West, “Kate’s caring nature, innovative mindset, clinical expertise, and commitment to nursing excellence make her the ideal leader for this role.”
Veenstra is passionate about the success of nurses in West Michigan and has been involved in developing the Amy Van Andel Nursing Scholars program, which aims to remove cost barriers for those looking to start their careers in nursing. She has also played a significant role in creating a talent partnership with talent partnership with Grand Rapids Community College and the UM Health-West Foundation.
Nominate a Nurse of the Week! Every Wednesday, DailyNurse.com features a nurse making a difference in the lives of their patients, students, and colleagues. We encourage you to nominate a nurse who has impacted your life as the next Nurse of the Week, and we’ll feature them online and in our weekly newsletter.
Jordana Latozas, RN, MSN, ACNP, went to nursing school intending to stay in the ICU forever, but her career trajectory took on a life of its own, and in February 2020, she founded the Recovery Mobile Clinic, Michigan’s first mobile addiction clinic.
The Clarkston, Michigan-based mobile clinic provides care and treatment to patients across seven Michigan counties who are recovering from substance use disorder and do not have access to the reliable transportation needed for regular care.
As National Recovery Month draws to a close, Daily Nurse spoke with Latozas about how she is changing lives as she helps patients battle substance use disorder. What follows is our interview, edited for length and clarity.
-Tell us about yourself and your role in nursing.
I’m an acute care nurse practitioner. My first nurse practitioner job was 2010 at an interventional pain management clinic. Much of the education at that time was different than now. Oxycontin and those kinds of medications were still being provided for you. At the beginning of my career, we started seeing the uptick in the opiate crisis, and we started identifying the addiction. Then, I left the pain clinic and started doing hospice and palliative care. I began because with my pain management background, even in the hospice and palliative side, where there’s pain management, there’s always the conversation of the addiction and the other side of the opiate. I come from a family who struggles with alcoholism. So, I’ve always been interested in that mindset of why I was different and could always put alcohol down and walk away. So that was always interesting to me.
But then, in the suboxone clinic, we started seeing the barriers that healthcare has. Not intentionally, but it’s just there. Even in a county like Oakland County, Michigan, which is relatively affluent, transportation was a huge barrier. We would lose around 30% of our patients to follow-ups due to transportation barriers. So, that would mean a relapse. It would mean running out of their medications and, worst case scenarios, death because they overdose. So I put my head together with my husband, who sells RV’s for a living. And it’s funny how these conversations come about sitting around the kitchen table playing a card game. And jokingly, he said, “Why don’t we just put a clinic in an RV ?” I was like, “Why don’t we put a clinic in an RV!” I started researching the medical models. In 2020, we got the unit and rolled it out with the focus of bringing Vivitrol, namely, the non-addictive naltrexone, into the community places where we’re now at SHAR House in Detroit, and other transitional houses, homeless shelters, trying to ease that transitional burden and inspire nurses like me to do exactly what we’re doing. I’m trying to teach other providers not only about ending the stigma and about Vivitrol and increasing access but also about taking community health into a different area and trying to train other providers about what the mobile model looks like and how they can improve themselves.
-Did you become a nurse to serve your community? Or did your role happen when you fulfilled a need you saw out there?
When I entered nursing school, I intended to stay in the ICU forever. It’s funny how the universe puts things in your path, and your career trajectory takes its own life. It may be different from what you expected it to be initially. Looking back and seeing where the right people came into your path at the right time and the right interactions, a clinic like the Recovery Mobile Clinic can blossom. It’s very empowering. And it’s empowering for other nurses looking at this, saying that they don’t have to do the cookie-cutter jobs of being in the nursing home, the hospital, or the bedside. Nurses do their best in a community setting or when we’re engaging with patients directly, educating, treating, preventing, and helping patients. In our case, we’re trying to transition patients back into a higher level, more traditional level of care and treating them as we’re bridging them over.
-You founded the Recovery Mobile Clinic, Michigan’s first mobile addiction clinic, in 2020. Talk about its impact on Michigan and how you’re helping patients battle substance abuse disorder.
When we started going into cities and municipalities and telling them we would be doing a mobile addiction clinic, the universal response was, oh, my gosh, that’s amazing. You’re so cool. Do it somewhere else. And that’s the stigma talking. I joke that they saw us like the pied piper like I was going to bring a problem with me, and they didn’t recognize the issue they already had. Then we entered COVID. So when we started doing COVID screens, it was to keep people in the shelters. We had to get people into the treatment centers and keep them in a shelter. So we started doing COVID tests to keep people in housing, but then it branched into the vaccines. The municipalities are seeing us as a solution now because the mobile clinic could bring those vaccinations into most areas that nobody wanted to go into. Nobody wanted to go into the homeless shelters and test everybody. So now we are a solution to their problem. They realized I wasn’t the pied piper. Then the barriers came down, and we went into seven counties within the first year and a half. It went fast. Since COVID has come down, we’re seeing more of this transition back to what we intended to do. The numbers of patients being seen are skewed slightly because of the COVID overlap, but for the first time, 95% of our cases are not COVID-related. I’ve tried to treat over 5,000 patients this year, so we’re growing quickly because we now have three full-time units. So we’ve got a full load of nurse practitioners and paramedics. A whole team of staff that are out there helping patients.
-What services, besides COVID screenings and vaccination, does the Recovery Mobile Clinic provide Michigan residents?
Weoffer a lot of primary care services and medication refills. You’d be surprised how many people come out of jail or an inpatient facility and can’t get into their primary care doctor or see a psychiatrist for a month, and they will only fill their meds. What are they supposed to do? They need meds for psych, diabetes, or hypertension, and nobody will fill them until they have an appointment in a month. There are other services we offer, but when we drive around, and it says Recovery Mobile Clinic in giant letters, sometimes it gives people a little bit of extra dignity or a little excuse that I’m just going in there for my COVID tests. I’m just going in there for my flu shot. There are so many other things that we’re doing. So it’s easy for people to save face. I hate to say the stigma is alive and well, but we must know that that is there.
Recovery Mobile Clinic
-How can we help end the stigma associated with substance abuse?
I keep bringing up ending the stigma all the time. And it’s super important. And there are a lot of ways to end the stigma. One of the best ways to stop the stigma is to tell their story. Tell your story about your addiction, family experience, or someone you’ve worked with. People have to understand that an addiction isn’t rare. It’s not unique. It’s very common. And the more that we can bring it out of the closet and start talking about the realities of addiction in our community, families, and personal lives. The more people willing to talk about it, the more we will get help. Right now, there is a fear of asking for help. It’s mostly mental illness, where people are more scared of admitting the problem than actually the results of the illness, which could be death. We have to turn that around. And the best way to do that is to get people talking about it and opening up so those communications can happen. So, I would like everybody to focus on telling your story, especially in recovery. Be okay with talking about it with others because your story can and will save somebody else’s life, even if you don’t feel like it.
-September is National Recovery Month. Talk about how recovery is possible for everyone.
Recovery is possible for everyone who wants it. And that’s important to understand. You can’t force a behavioral change on somebody until they’re ready. We can educate and teach, we can provide tools, we can give them support, we can give them the ammunition so they’re prepared to make that real serious commitment. We can’t force someone to stay sober as much as we know that their life would improve if they could, but they have to recognize that it can be done and that they’re worth it. Then, acknowledging that the struggle will be worth the long-term goals. We see that a lot with our patients, unfortunately. Addiction is a symptom of the main problem, whether mental illness, depression, anxiety, abuse cases, or PTS. We’re always going to see that overlap. But we’re treating people who are lost, hopeless, lost sense of purpose that you’ve given up on. They’re searching for anything meaningful outside of the addiction. And when you bring them in, and they’ve been told they’re not worth it, shunted aside, or not taken seriously, you know their concerns aren’t recognized, so they don’t think anybody else cares. So why should they? I have one good example of this, and he’s essentially doing well and has been sober for over six months. So, we asked a patient to do a testimonial. Would you write something for us to put on our website? So this is a public website; he knows the world will see this and described himself as a throwaway person. That was his description of himself. We would never describe ourselves as a throwaway person. But that’s how he saw himself even six years sober. And he was having a hard time seeing value in the mirror. And that’s what we’re fighting. That’s the battle that we’re having.
-The use of fentanyl is a growing crisis. Can you talk about how NARCAN approval is a game-changer?
NARCAN saves lives. So anytime we have a medication that’s available that you can save a life, whether that’s your own, or your child’s, your husband, your wife, your parents, your grandma, your cousin, your best friend, anytime we have a way for people to prevent death for someone they love, that’s always a good thing. We think that with aspirin for heart attacks or EpiPens. Being able to have that awareness and that implementation is huge. So the other part of it, too, though, is it’s encouraging people to get educated. If it’s over the counter and I can get it, I need to know how and where to use it. And that’s a critical part of NARCAN’s stigma. So, getting people to be comfortable with having that medication around and utilizing it is an important step towards ending the stigma and getting people who need help willing to go and get the help. Having NARCAN over the counter, from the stigma standpoint, is a good thing. You don’t have to ask the provider for NARCAN or get a prescription. Then, you don’t have an uncomfortable conversation with the pharmacist behind the counter. So again, it’s just decreasing those barriers and increasing that accessibility that is extremely important because it will save lives. And we’re not just talking about fentanyl. We have to remember that children will get into pill bottles. Elderly parents or grandparents may forget how many pills they took that day, or they all look like little white pills, and you mix up the bottles. So, accidental overdoses happen not because of intention but can still be reversed in the same way.
The other thing that we have to offer, and I know this is a little bit more controversial, but with the legalization of marijuana, we have started seeing an uptick in contaminated marijuana products. Fentanyl is finding its way into marijuana products. So, the young population may not intentionally try to take fentanyl or another type of opiate. They don’t know what’s in it. They don’t know what the potential for having an inadvertent opiate substance inside a marijuana product is, and it can still kill you whether you intend to take it or not. And so you have to have that population aware of how to use it, how to save their friend’s lives, you know, if that were to occur. The part that is super important that people need to know is that if you use NARCAN, you have to get that person into a higher level of care. NARCAN is designed to work extremely fast. We want it to absorb into that mucous membrane, which will be the effect so that person can start breathing, but it also wears off quickly. It doesn’t hang around for an extended period, but the medication they took will hang around for a while. We must get them into a hospital because a patient will return to the overdose. So if you leave them, they’ll overdose again. A lot of people don’t want to call 911. They’re scared that they’re going to get arrested or they’re going to get in trouble. They’re not going to arrest you for saving someone’s life. They may give you a pamphlet, lecture you, or ask if you want to talk to somebody. They’re just going to take the person that needs the attention and save their life. That’s it. That’s all they’re going to do.
-How can schools keep students safe, and what do parents need to know about fentanyl?
If your child is unresponsive or not breathing, you always want to use NARCAN first. Keeping it in your medicine cabinet, car, or purse is easy without going over the counter. Just keep it around everywhere you are because this can happen very fast. If we have an unresponsive person, even if we don’t know what it is. It could be a heart attack, someone choking, or anything else. It’s not going to hurt them. With opiates, they’ll get drowsy and stumble. They may not be breathing; if they’re breathing, it might be agonal breathing. It sounds like strong snoring, which means they’re not getting oxygen. So you want to ensure you’re giving the NARCAN, initiating CPR, and calling 911.
Education with kids is super important. Teenagers and kids want to talk to their moms and dads about drugs. But you have to have difficult conversations about the fact that marijuana is legal, but people make stuff, and it’s not always what you think it might be, so we have to pay attention. Kids don’t want to hear that their friends will give them something bad or that their friends don’t have the best interest in heart for them. Sometimes, you have to have those kinds of conversations in schools. I firmly believe schools should have NARCAN available. And again, not in a way where kids must go into the office and talk with a teacher or somebody about what’s happening. Because you have to remember it might not be the kid having the problem. They’re living with parents or with older brothers and sisters or grandparents or aunts or uncles. If you have NARCAN available, it should be where the fire extinguisher and the first aid kit are so they see where those rescue things are. And if a NARCAN walks off, then replace it. It’s good to have around if they need that. I always say increase the accessibility; hopefully, it’ll save somebody’s life.
-Talk about other healthcare challenges and the growing role of nurse practitioners in delivering care to patients in underserved communities, which you’re doing with your mobile clinic.
There are always challenges in healthcare, and the unfortunate reality is that we need more primary care doctors. Medical schools are turning out different numbers than they used to, and nurse practitioners and PAs are one of the top-growing jobs out there right now. And we’re different. We’re not the same as doctors. And that’s good, especially in nursing, where nurses are more geared towards getting out into the community and engaging with patients. Starting with education, doing exactly what we’re doing, and pulling them back in so they interact. What we’re trying to do with The Recovery Mobile Clinic is reinvent the community care way of expecting people to come into a brick-and-mortar rather than taking the services out to the patient and meeting them where they’re at. Because when you have somebody who may be struggling with homelessness or mental illness, going into a big, sterile facility can be intimidating. Sometimes, when we’re in the facilities or out of the shelters, it takes some patients two or three times to start trusting us, building rapport, and understanding what we’re there for. And so they’re ready to open up. You have to have that accessibility for them and the right culture and communication to start breaking down those barriers. So, the Recovery Mobile Clinic focuses on education with therapeutic teaching, making people comfortable talking to others about their addiction problems and realizing that these people are no different from any other patient you’ve treated. It’s a disease stage, just like anything else is. And we must start teaching everybody the right questions to ask and how to engage. And it’s a very learnable skill and very rewarding because when it does work, it’s amazing.
Monica Thelen, an RN in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at the E.W. Sparrow Hospital in Michigan, is a fantastic nurse who goes above and beyond to provide compassionate care to her patients. She recently received a well-deserved DAISY Award for her outstanding work caring for a young patient who was nervous about having an MRI.
The five-year-old boy needed to be sedated for several MRIs, and Thelen, a pediatric ICU nurse, made him feel safe and comfortable before his procedure.
Daily Nurse proudly recognizes Monica Thelen of Sparrow’s Pediatric Intensive Care Unit as our Nurse of the Week, honoring Thelen’s extraordinary compassion for her young patient and their family.
“She was so silly with him, joking around, pretending to race around corners as they pushed him through the halls, and making him laugh,” says the boy’s mom. “It was the first time I saw him smile since we got here.”
When the patient experienced breathing issues during the procedure, Thelen reassured the boy’s mother that it was common and that he would be okay.
“I panicked internally as I watched a very calm staff bag him and help him start breathing again,” says the youngster’s mother. “Monica stepped in front of me to bring me back to earth. I will remember that in my most vulnerable and scary moment as a parent, the compassion she showed me.”
“It is an honor that I was able to turn a family’s nightmare into something positive,” says Thelen. “It is important for me to establish a good relationship with not only the kids but the parents as well. They are just as vulnerable, and it’s important that they can trust who is taking care of their kid.”
Thelen’s PICU manager Jennifer Komm says she is a calming presence to patients and families. “She is truly a valued member of our PICU team.”
Nominate a Nurse of the Week! Every Wednesday, DailyNurse.com features a nurse making a difference in the lives of their patients, students, and colleagues. We encourage you to nominate a nurse who has impacted your life as the next Nurse of the Week, and we’ll feature them online and in our weekly newsletter.
Detroit, Michigan native Teberah Alexander, RN, BSN, also known as Nurse T, kicked off National Nurses Week, showcasing healthcare careers for children and engaging them in the same way she became interested: by stoking their curiosity.
Alexander’s Future Nurses Program gives children 6-13 years old hands-on experience in nursing and healthcare professions with interactive workshops like one over the weekend at Renaissance High School, her alma mater.
Daily Nurse is proud to honor Nurse T as our Nurse of the Week for giving back to the nursing profession by educating future nurses and healthcare leaders of tomorrow.
“I only feel obligated as a nurse and a productive citizen in my community to give back to these young people,” says Alexander.
The recent event at Renaissance High School, Alexander’s alma mater in Detroit, featured at least eight classrooms, each with education stations for kids. Some stations involved dissecting organs, such as sheep’s hearts, and learning about anatomy firsthand.
Kharon Thompson, 11, cut open a sheep’s heart with the help of an instructor and identified its chambers for pumping blood.
Lauryn Hayes, 12, wants to be a travel nurse and says meeting Nurse T and learning about anatomy were her favorite parts of the day.
Cymantha Galbraiph, 13, says she enjoyed learning about organs and how the human body takes care of itself. Cymantha says she wants to be a neuroscientist and likes learning about how the brain works.
Erika Walker took her 9-year-old daughter, London, to the event to learn about medical work. Walker works in healthcare administration and wanted her daughter to experience hands-on activities.
Alexander, a nurse who has worked at Henry Ford Health and Detroit Medical Center’s Sinai Grace Hospital, says she was exposed to the healthcare profession by her mother, who worked as an anesthesia technician. Alexander also credits her science teachers for supporting her interest in the field.
“This was my vision, to have a program where I can empower and educate and motivate children to go into the healthcare profession,” Alexander says. “I’m here to make sure they get that exposure at a young age because a lot of children fear the math and the sciences. They can be exposed to it, and so when they see it in the classroom or upper grades, they know that they can conquer it.”
Alexander teaches at Excelling Nursing Academy, a school for students interested in becoming certified nursing assistants, and volunteered to start a pilot CNA program for students at Renaissance High School this year. Her CNA students volunteered with the younger kids at Saturday’s event.
Other stations at the workshop focused on making healthy choices in eating, drinking, and dental hygiene. Henry Ford Health provided radiology and ultrasound equipment and volunteers for interactive stations with the children.
“You hope that if they see early that science is fun, that they need to continue in math and science if they want to have a career in healthcare,” says Denise Brooks-Williams, executive vice president and CEO of Care Delivery Operations with Henry Ford Health. “Healthcare can benefit by having people that are diverse in it, and so coming into the community and being able to expose the kids is also really great.”
Nominate a Nurse of the Week! Every Wednesday, DailyNurse.com features a nurse making a difference in the lives of their patients, students, and colleagues. We encourage you to nominate a nurse who has impacted your life as the next Nurse of the Week, and we’ll feature them online and in our weekly newsletter.
Practice authority for advanced practitioner nurses took another stride forward on May 10 when Michigan became the 20th state to opt out of federal regulations that require physician supervision of Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs).
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s action in signing the opt-out ensures Michigan’s patients have access to value-based, high-quality care and optimizes healthcare teams across the state, according to Adam Kuz, MS, CRNA, president of the Michigan Association of Nurse Anesthetists (MANA).
In March 2020, to maximize healthcare resources during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Whitmer enacted an executive order removing physician supervision for CRNAs. In July 2021, she signed HB4359 to remove supervision requirements for CRNAs in the state nurse practice act, and HB4359 is now permanent.
Highlights of the law include:
All of the following apply to a registered professional nurse who holds a specialty certification as a nurse anesthetist:
(a) In addition to performing duties within the scope of the practice of nursing, his or her scope of practice includes any of the following anesthesia and analgesia services:
(i) Development of a plan of care.
(ii) Performance of all patient assessments, procedures, and monitoring to implement the plan of care or to address patient emergencies that arise during implementation of the plan of care.
(iii) Selection, ordering, or prescribing and the administration of anesthesia and analgesic agents, including pharmacological agents that are prescription drugs as defined in section 17708 or controlled substances. For purposes of this subparagraph, the authority of a registered professional nurse who holds a specialty certification as a nurse anesthetist to prescribe pharmacological agents is limited to pharmacological agents for administration to patients as described in subdivision (b), (c), or (d), and his or her authority does not include any activity that would permit a patient to self-administer, obtain, or receive pharmacological agents, including prescription drugs or controlled substances, outside of the facility in which the anesthetic or analgesic service is performed or beyond the perioperative, periobstetrical, or periprocedural period.
(b) He or she may provide the anesthesia and analgesia services described in subdivision (a) without supervision and as the sole and independent anesthesia provider while he or she is collaboratively participating in a patient-centered care team.
“Removing barriers to CRNA practice allows Michigan hospitals to select the anesthesia delivery model that maximizes their workforce and increases access to safe, affordable care for all patients,” said former MANA president Toni Schmittling, DNAP, MBA, CRNA. “By signing this important legislation, Michigan recognizes that CRNAs are qualified to make decisions regarding all aspects of anesthesia care based on their education, licensure, and certification.”
Anesthesia services are provided predominantly by CRNAs in Michigan’s critical access hospitals, which offer surgical services in 99% of its rural hospitals. They comprise 68% of the state’s anesthesia care providers.
“The AANA applauds Gov. Whitmer for recognizing the important role CRNAs have in the delivery of safe anesthesia care in Michigan,” said AANA President Dina Velocci, DNP, CRNA, APRN. “Increased demand, limited resources, and a state with diverse populations, both rural and urban, dictate that a system capable of meeting the needs of all Michigan residents be maintained. By signing the opt-out letter, this has been achieved.”
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, nurse anesthetists across the country have, in addition to providing top-of-the-line anesthesia care, served as experts in airway management, hemodynamic monitoring, management of patients on ventilators, and overall management of critically ill patients. Instrumental in addressing the deadliest part of COVID-19, CRNAs have become highly sought-after anesthesia care providers.
During a shift one day in 2018, Dzialo had a Eureka moment when items a nurse anesthetist customarily disposes of after use caught her eye. The drug vial caps she’d been tossing without a thought covered the color spectrum. The caps in the bin ran the gamut from deep, jewel-like blues and purples, to intense reds and yellows… and, wasn’t there something potentially beautiful there? From that day forward the CRNA stopped throwing out those bright plastic caps and instead began pouring them into a unique and meaningful home-based recycling project.
A colleague at Ascension Providence Rochester Hospital, pre-op RN Cheryl Dassow-Chapman, suggested she create a mosaic version of a Monet painting, “but when COVID came and changed the world, it also changed my design plan.”
Dzialo spent hours upon hours in her basement workspace, ultimately piecing together more than 6,000 caps of nearly 400 different colors, sizes, shapes and textures. Using IV tubing and needle covers along with the caps, she created “COVID Time CAPSule,” representing infected cells, blood cells and antibodies. (And if there is Hall of Fame recognition for great puns, she should definitely be a nominee).
“Viruses are smaller than a grain of salt but have an astounding impact on us all — on our health, mental wellness, work, travel, and community and family relationships,” Dzialo said. “The caps shown here, with different colors, shapes, sizes, finishes and all their different potential combinations, make this work as unique as we are.”
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The 8- by 4-foot project earned a coveted spot on display at the downtown JW Marriott hotel during last fall’s ArtPrize, an international art competition held in Grand Rapids, Michigan, since 2009. ArtPrize celebrates artists working in all mediums from anywhere in the world and is open to anyone with artwork to enter and a venue willing to host it.
For three weeks each autumn, art is exhibited throughout the city in parks and museums, in hotels and storefronts, in bars and on bridges, and even in the river that runs through town. Visitors from around the world gather to view the art, engage in meaningful discussions, and vote for their favorite entries, with cash prizes and grants awarded to select artists in the end.
“While displaying this piece at ArtPrize for 21 days, I found that people were really attracted to it,” said Dzialo, who maintains a website to promote her art. “Especially those who had gotten infected or lost a loved one to COVID, and of course all of those with medical backgrounds.”
During conversations about the creative project with ArtPrize attendees, Dzialo was quick to share credit with her support team.
“Health care professionals have been on the front lines during this pandemic, and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how many nurses, assistants, techs and pharmacists at work helped by saving me caps. Everyone from pre-op to recovery pitched in to get me a certain color I was low on, or a special size and shape I needed more of,” Dzialo said. “Heidi Beverly would save me caps from her other CRNA jobs where they had different manufacturers and suppliers. For two years, our wonderful scrub techs saved any caps I had left behind in operating rooms and made sure I got them! And then my 16-year-old daughter Stephanie sorted everything I brought home by color, shape and size. I’m grateful for the combined support.”
While she happily accepts contributions from clinicians with access to particularly aesthetic vial caps, Dzialo also wants to give back. She hopes to eventually sell her artwork and fund a scholarship at her alma mater, Wayne State University, with the proceeds. To see more of her work, visit the gallery at the top of her personal webpage.
