All sessions will be on the Zoom “Webinar” platform, which highlights the presenters and session Ambassadors. In this format the session attendees view the presenters, but do not appear on video. Our Zoom Manager can activate audio or video for audience members as needed. Ambassadors will host each session and facilitate discussions. At the end of each day, we will shift to the group Zoom meeting format for interactive discussion based on the presentations of the day.
The session outline below is subject to change. The final program will be shown in the digital program, which will be available about 7 days before the conference for everyone who registers for the conference. The digital conference program will also include biographical and contact information for all presenters, and contact information for participants.
All times below are shown in Eastern Daylight Time
Thursday, March 19, 2026
10:00 AM – 11:30 AM
Opening Panel Presentation: Toward a New Definition of Nursing
Moderator: Robin Walter
Panelists: Gordon Gillespie; Patricia Sharpnack; Wyona Freysteinson
Thursday Knowledge Sessions #1
(3 presenters — 30 minutes each)
12:00 – 12:30 PM – Confronting Anti-intellectualism – Peggy Chinn
12:30 – 1:00 PM – Seeing the Field: The Paradox of the Caring Moment – Dr. Kaija Freborg
1:00 – 1:30 PM – Invisible No More: Advancing Inclusive Nursing Knowledge Through Immigrant Mental Health Inquiry- Dr. Kechi Iheduru-Anderson
Thursday Knowledge Sessions #4
(3 presenters — 30 minutes each)
1:45 – 2:15 PM – Health Promotion of Women Experiencing Homelessness: Understanding Within Context of the Social Determinants of Health Professor – Jean Croce Hemphill
2:15 – 2:45 PM – Integrating Virtual Reality into Hospice Care Guided by Kolcaba’s Theory – Dr. Bini John
2:45 – 3:15 PM – Original Middle Range Theory “Wright’s Caring in Context Theory” – Dr. Mary Ellen Wright
Thursday Knowledge Sessions #7
(2 presenters — 30 minutes each)
3:30 – 4:00 PM – Capturing Nursing Knowledge Development Complexity via Multidimensional Theoretical Frameworks: A Professional Role Identity Formation Perspective -Dr. Maria O’Rourke
4:00 – 4:30 PM – Theory of Anti-Positionality of Nurses – Dr. Anna Winquist
4:30 PM – 5:30 PM
Thursday Daily Discussion
Friday, March 20, 2026
Friday Knowledge Sessions #1
(3 presenters — 30 minutes each)
10:00 – 10:30 AM – Advancing Caring Practice Incorporating Robots through a Synergistic Theoretical Dialogue – Dr. Savina Schoenhofer
10:30 – 11:00 AM – Use of Existing Knowledge in Intervention Research: A Promising Path of Confirmation and Dissemination of Knowledge – Dr. Clémence Dallaire
11:00 – 11:30 AM – Critical Determinants of Future Knowledge Development in Nursing – Dr. Theodora Sirota
12:00 PM – 1:30 PM
Friday Knowledge Sessions #4
(3 presenters — 30 minutes each)
12:00 – 12:30 PM – Strengthening Theoretical Foundations in Online Nursing Education – Dr. Julie Reback
12:30 – 1:00 PM – Integrating Health as Expanding Consciousness and Chronic Sorrow to Support Parents of Children with IDD – Ella Cullen
1:00 – 1:30 PM – Dynamic Realism and Complexity: An Alternate Authentication Process for Nursing Knowledge Development – Mike Taylor
Friday Knowledge Sessions #7
(3 presenters — 30 minutes each)
1:45 – 2:15 PM – Watson’s Unitary Caring Science: Development of Nursing Knowledge through Transpersonal Teaching and Learning – Dr. Brenda Lohri-Posey
2:15 – 2:45 PM – The Hidden Part of Implementing New Academic Nursing Programs: Insights Based on the Holding Concept – Prof. Marie Friedel
2:45 – 3:15 PM – From Doing to Being: How Qualitative Inquiry Transformed My Nursing Identity – Mr. Sadeg Aldoaim
Friday Knowledge Sessions #10
(2 presenters — 30 minutes each)
3:30 – 4:00 PM – “Seeing” the Wounded Body: Preparation, Interpretation, and Appropriation in Caritas Hermeneutic Phenomenology – Dr. Wyona Freysteinson
4:00 – 4:30 PM – Buxman’s Theory of Humor in Nursing: Bridging Tradition and Innovation Founder – Karyn Buxman
4:30 PM – 5:30 PM
Friday Daily Discussion
Saturday, March 21, 2026
10:00 AM – 11:30 AM
Student Scholars Panel
-Moderator: Dr. Wyona Freysteinson
Panel Title – Contours of Becoming: Altered Reflections, Dreaming, and Transitional Phenomena toward Future Nursing Knowledge
This podium panel brings together four presentations tracing movement through disruption toward new configurations of purpose, identity, and knowing, drawing on Parse, Rogers, Meleis, and Freysteinson.
10:00 – 10:20 AM – Altered Reflections: Postpartum Mirroring and Maternal Becoming – Jaya Rijal
10:20 – 10:40 AM – Dreaming as Pandimensional Knowing in Nursing Theory – Misty McNabb
10:40 – 11:00 AM – Future Nursing Knowledge Through the Study of Transitional Phenomena – Faith Tissot
11:00 – 11:20 AM – Reimagining Purpose After Disruption: Human Becoming as a Framework for Nursing Intervention Development – Lisa Kelly
11:20 – 11:30 AM Panel Discussion
11:30 AM – 12:00 PM
Break
12:00 PM – 1:30 PM
Saturday Knowledge Sessions #1
(3 presenters — 30 minutes each)
12:00 – 12:30 PM – Decolonizing Nursing Knowledge Development Through the Nursing-Situation-as-Caring-Moment (NurCaM) Theory – Prof. Rudolf Cymorr Kirby Martinez
12:30 – 1:00 PM The Experience of Undergraduate Nursing Students of Caring Practices Using Bureaucratic Caring Model – Dr. Seham Alselami
1:00 – 1:30 PM Embracing the Past to Improve Empathy in the Future: Substruction of Peplau’s Interpersonal Relations Theory – Dr. Christopher Barnes
Saturday Knowledge Sessions #4
(3 presenters — 30 minutes each)
1:45 – 2:15 PM – Advancing the Knowledge Base with Critical Pedagogy – Roger Carpenter
2:15 – 2:45 PM – Krisis Theory: Parental Participation in Decision-Making in the PICU = Dr. Lorena Sánchez-Rubio
2:45 – 3:15 PM – Connecting Metacognition to Flavell’s Theory Through the
Lens of Nursing Education – Mrs. Hannah Odei-
Opoku
3:15 – 3:30 PM
Break
3:30 PM – 4:30 PM
Saturday Keynote Address
Marsha Fowler, PhD, MDiv, MS, RN, FAAN
4:30 PM – 5:30 PM
Saturday Daily Discussion
Sunday – free!
Monday, March 23, 2026
Monday Knowledge Sessions #1
(3 Presenters, 30 minutes each)
10:00 – 10:30 AM – After Birth: How a Theory Grows Up – Karen J. Foli
10:30 – 11:00 AM – AI in Nursing Education: Fostering Moral Competence and Collective Moral Resilience – Dr. Janet Delgado
11:00 – 11:30 AM – Nursing Theoretical Literacy: Bridging Theory-Practice Gap for Knowledge Advancement – Dr. Sijeng Peng
Monday Knowledge Sessions #2
(3 presenters — 30 minutes each)
12:00 – 12:30 PM – A Bachelor of Science in Nursing Anchored in Nursing Theories: From Theory to Practice – Dr. Amélia Didier
12:30 – 1:00 PM – Seeing the Unseen: A Framework for Experiential Learning in Diabetes Self-Care Using Continuous Glucose Monitoring – Dr. Karen Carver
1:00 – 1:30 PM – The Needle Intervention as a Compassionate Experience (N.I.C.E.) Conceptual Model RN – Jennifer Bartowitz
Monday Knowledge Sessions #3
(3 presenters — 30 minutes each)
1:45 – 2:15 PM – Use of Social Media as a Strategy to Extend the Reach of Nursing Theory – Dr. Jennifer Ohlendorf
2:15 – 2:45 PM – Decolonizing the Nursing Profession: Reclaiming Knowledge, Autonomy, and Our Professional Identity – Van Nguyen
2:45 – 3:15 PM – Developing the Clinical Nurse Specialist Practice Value Model – Jan Fulton
Closing Panel
3:30 – 5:00 PM Dialogues on Fostering Nursing Praxis from the Beginning: The Future of Nursing Knowledge Development – Richard Cowling (Moderator); Panelists – Shelby Clark; Christina Nyirati
VNTW: Annual Nursing Theory Conference 