Our Story

Carla Orsburn, BSN, RN, CHSE is currently serving as the Membership Committee Chair and is the Simulation Coordinator for the College of Nursing. Her job responsibilities include coordination of the Learning Lab and the Physical Assessment Lab. Carla is a BSN graduate of UTK. Her clinical background includes medical-surgical nursing, critical care, and emergency care. Carla Orsburn has been in Nursing Education since 2013. She has experience in hospital education, higher education and nursing simulation from East Tennessee State University. Carla is currently pursuing a Masters of Science in Nursing with a focus in education.

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Mandi B. Dodson, MSN, RN, CCRN, CHSE, has been an active member of the Tennessee Simulation Alliance since 2010 and currently serves as President. Mandi has worked with simulation in previous nursing roles at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital (2010-2018) and currently in her role as a Nursing Professional Development Specialist for ICU and Simulation at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (2018-present), both in Memphis, Tennessee. She is an active member of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare (SSH), the International Association of Clinical Simulation and Learning (INACSL), and the International Pediatric Simulation Society (IPSS). She is a 2005 UTK College of Nursing BSN graduate and a 2015 Lowenberg College of Nursing, University of Memphis MSN graduate. During her MSN program, Mandi focused on simulation for her practicum experience and as the topic of her scholarly thesis. In addition, she completed a Post Master’s Certificate Program at Boise State University in Boise, ID in Healthcare Simulation.

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Ms. Susan Henley Hébert, MSMS, RN, CHSE, is the Simulation Director for the College of Nursing and collaborator of the Health Innovation Technology in Simulation (HITS) Lab.  Ms. Hébert oversees all simulation activities within both undergraduate and graduate curriculum including integrating simulation into curriculum, simulation faculty development and administration of daily activities. She is a nursing innovator and collaborator on several technologies developed for healthcare education and serves as a consultant in simulation accreditation and curriculum integration, simulation space design, and integrating standardized patients into nursing curricula. She is also engaged in academic/practice partnerships for simulation instructor and program development. She has a Master of Science in Medical Simulation from Drexel College of Medicine and an undergraduate bachelor of nursing degree from Illinois Wesleyan University.  Ms. Hébert is also a member of the NLN Simulation Leader Program and East Tennessee Director of the Tennessee Simulation Alliance.

Melinda Klar is currently the Administrative Director of the University of Tennessee Center for Advanced Medical Simulation (UTCAMS) and has been in that role since the center was established in 2008. In 2017 the role of UTCAMS Medical Education and Simulation Fellowship Coordinator was added to her duties. Prior to this position, she was the Clerkship Education Coordinator, Clinical Trials Coordinator, Pediatric Surgery Nurse Specialist and Pediatric Trauma Coordinator for the UT Graduate School of Medicine Department of Surgery at the University of Tennessee Medical Center. Before coming to UT Medical Center, she practiced pediatric critical care and surgical nursing in Kentucky, Florida, and Tennessee. In addition to maintaining and coordinating accreditation reports and activities, current special projects for Ms. Klar include UTCAMS activity database development, coordinating new research activities, and serving as Co-Chair for ACS AEI Consortium Administration and Management Committee.  

Melinda has been with the Tennessee Simulation Alliance since it began under the initial grant funding. She served as president of the TNSA from 2015 – 2018 and continues to serve on the Board as a Founding Member and consultant.       

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Beth Hallmark, PhD, RN, MSN, CHSE-A, ANEF, is a native Nashvillian, completing her Associates degree in Nursing in 1986 at Samford University, her BSN from Belmont in 1989 and her MSN in Child and Family Nursing from Vanderbilt University in 1994. Dr. Hallmark has been a faculty member at Belmont University School of Nursing (Nashville TN) since 1996; teaching Child and Family Nursing exclusively from 1996-2006. Beth has been involved in Simulation since 2007; she is currently the Director of Simulation for the College of Health Sciences and Nursing at Belmont. In 2010, she completed her PhD in Educational Leadership with a concentration in E-learning where she examined the impact of faculty debriefing training on the cognitive outcomes of students. She received her CHSE-A certification in 2019. She led the formation of the Tennessee Simulation Alliance and remains active with the Alliance. Beth is an active member of INACSL where she has served on various committees. In 2017, she led the SSH accreditation effort of the Belmont Simulation Center; the first center in TN to be accredited. She is a SSH accreditation visitor. In 2019, she was inducted into the NLN Academy of Nursing Education.

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Teresa Britt, MSN, RN, CHSE, has many years of experience utilizing simulation in healthcare education. Her background includes serving as the Simulation Director for two Colleges of Nursing, the Director for an Interprofessional Simulation Center and now the Director of Education in a new 45,000 Square -foot simulation center at UTHSC. She has experience with all types of simulation modalities from basic task trainers to high fidelity mannequins. She assists faculty in the development of goals and objectives, pre-brief materials, case details, assessment rubrics, reflection and debriefing guidelines. She is responsible for the educational oversight and Faculty Development for a Sim Center that provides experiences for Nursing, Pharmacy, Medicine, Physical Therapy, Physician Assistant, Occupational Therapy, Dentistry, Dental Hygiene and Medical Lab Sciences.

She brings expertise in simulation collaboration from being a member of the original founding board for the Tennessee State Simulation Alliance.

She is a Certified Healthcare Simulation Educator with extensive knowledge of current methodologies and best practices for utilization of Standardized Patients/ Simulated Patients in healthcare education. She is a member of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare, Association of Standardized Patient Educators and the International Nursing Association for Clinical Simulation and Learning. 

Michele currently serves the TN Simulation Alliance as the Communication Committee Chair Team member. Michele completed her BSN with a minor in missions at Harding University, and her MSN-Ed at Western Governors University. Michele currently serves as Assistant Professor at Columbia State teaching Medical Surgical I. Michele has been involved in simulation with the recent co-chair of the Quality Improvement Project at Columbia State for Faculty simulation training with the development of an online training platform for faculty in the area of simulation and a simulation template, awarded 2022-2023 Innovation of the Year award. Michele has areas of expertise in Emergency nursing and leadership nursing and is passionate about nursing simulation promoting critical thinking and preparing faculty to provide evidence-based teaching strategies.

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Destinee Gideon graduated in 2008 with her BSN from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, her Masters in Nursing Education, focusing on simulation in 2018, and maintains her national Critical Care, Cardiac Medicine, Stroke, & NeuroScience Nursing Certifications.

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Destinee utilized simulation while teaching at Tennessee Wesleyan University, Covenant Health in facility & system-wide level positions, and continues simulation education in her current roles of teaching at the University of Tennessee Medical Center and ICU travel nursing across the upper southeast USA. Destinee is a member of the American Association of Critical Care Nurses, American Board of NeuroScience Nursing, and is the Tennessee Simulation Alliance Communications Committee Deputy Chair.

Dr. Shkendie Papraniku is a Clinical Associate Professor and has been a faculty member at the Loewenberg College of Nursing at the University of Memphis since 2012. She obtained her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Wagner College. An alumna of LCON, she received her Master of Science in Nursing with a Concentration in Nursing Education and later received her Family Nurse Practitioner Post-Master's Certificate. She obtained her Doctor of Nursing Practice from East Tennessee State University with her DNP project implementation related to patients with type II diabetes and blood glucose self-monitoring. 

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She has worked as a staff nurse in cardiac step-down and as a nurse practitioner in advanced practice. As a certified Family Nurse Practitioner, she currently practices in an Endocrinology clinic with an emphasis in management of diabetes and thyroid disorders. She teaches throughout the Undergraduate BSN Program in the first, second, and fifth semesters and also in the Graduate FNP and Education MSN Programs. 

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Dr. Papraniku maintains an active membership with American Association of Nurse Practitioners, American Nurse's Association, The Daisy Foundation, Greater Memphis Area Advanced Practice Nurses, Mid-South Association of Nursing Professional Development, and Tennessee Nurse's Association. 

Dr. Angel Boling is an Associate Professor of Nursing and has served as the Baccalaureate Program Chair since 2018 at Baptist Health Sciences University. She begin working as a clinical adjunct faculty in 2004 and transitioned to a full time faculty position in 2011. She obtained her Associate Degree in Nursing from Northwest Community College, Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing from University of Mississippi Medical Center, and her Master’s Degree in Nursing Education with a specialization in Critical Care from the University of Memphis. She obtained her Doctorate of Philosophy in Nursing from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Her research work has been focused on Interprofessional Education and Simulation at the undergraduate level for healthcare programs in an effort to prepare graduates to provide safe, quality patient care.

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Before coming to BHSU, Angel worked as a bedside nurse, preceptor, educator, and charge nurse for a Level I trauma/burn center for 16 years. As an educator, she has taught a variety of courses across the undergraduate nursing program to include Health Assessment, Foundations, Adult Health 1 and 2 Concepts, Advanced Med Surg nursing, Senior Seminar/Capstone, as well as simulation in both the undergraduate and acute care nurse practitioner track.