Assistant Professor of Nursing
M’Lyn Spinks is an experienced nurse in the areas of adult primary care, pediatric and neonatal ICU, and care of technology-dependent children and their families. Throughout her 32 years of clinical nursing, Dr. Spinks traveled both locally in the southern US and globally in the countries of Peru, Ecuador, Mali and South Africa, to provide basic healthcare services to people in need of primary care. Dr. Spinks currently works as an assistant professor at Berry College in courses at both the junior and senior levels and junior simulation. Her service to simulation education has been as a charter member of the INACSL IncluDE committee, INACSL Research committee member and as an INACSL poster and abstract reviewer. Dr. Spinks has served on both community and nursing professional boards and has completed research projects as both the PI and as a member of collaborative multi-disciplinary teams. Her research publications emphasize the higher education student experience and DEIA in healthcare simulation education.
Education
- B.S., Nursing, Georgia State University, Atlanta GA, 1988
- M.N., Nursing Ed., University of West Georgia, Carrolton, GA, 2015
- D.N.S., Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA, 2019
Research Interests
- Nursing Leadership
- Accessible Education
Selected Publications
- Spinks, M., Kluge, S., Langdon, J., Metzler, M., & Esmat, T. (2023). Academic honesty during the 2020 COVID-19 shutdown: Perspectives from instructors and students in higher education. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 35(1), 123-137. Doi:pending
- Smallheer, B., Chidume, T., Spinks, M. K. H., Dawkins, D., & Pestano-Harte, M. (2022). A scoping review of the priority of diversity, inclusion, and equity in health care simulation. Clinical Simulation in Nursing, 71, 41-64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecns.2022.05.009
- Spinks, M., Metzler, M., Kluge, S., Langdon, J., Gurvitch, R., Smitherman, M., Esmat, T., Bhattacharya, S., Carruth, L., Crowther, K., Denton, R., Edwards, O.V., Shrikhande, M., & Strong-Green, A. (2021) “This wasn’t pedagogy, it was panicgogy”: Perspectives of the challenges faced by students and instructors during the emergency transition to remote learning due to COVID-19, College Teaching, DOI: 10.1080/87567555.2021.2018395
Professional Associations
- Sigma Theta Tau
- Phi Kappa Phi
- International Nursing Association of Clinical Simulation and Learning