Sheri Carson, DNP, CPNP-PC, always had an affinity for the health sciences. After helping care for her great-grandmother and volunteering as a candy striper in high school, she fell in love with nursing and embraced a career in pediatric nursing, combining her passions for health and children.

It was Sheri’s drive to help children, combined with her awareness of the national statistics on missed child abuse cases in emergency departments, that would motivate her to create a much-needed child abuse screening program. While nurses in the U.S. are trained and mandated to report child abuse, they are not mandated to screen. Her innovative framework helps healthcare workers identify the early signs of child abuse in healthcare settings, where many cases of child physical abuse often go undetected.

Now a full-time clinical instructor in the University of Arizona (UA) College of Nursing, we spoke to Sheri about developing her screening program, and how her experience has influenced the way she mentors and educates nurse leaders of tomorrow.