Francie Bernier, PhD, RNC
|
|
Francie Bernier, PhD, RNC, completed her PhD at the University of Virginia, School of Nursing, in 2008. The National Certification Corporation of the Association of Women's Health and Neonatal Nursing (AWHONN) certified her in ambulatory women's health care. Her dissertation research focused on the exploring interventions to assist women to quickly and correctly perform Kegel exercises. |
Over the last 25 years, the focus of Dr. Bernier's nursing research and clinical practice has been to educate the public as well as the nursing and medical professions about the non-surgical options and outcomes for urinary incontinence, and to assist women to access treatment for their incontinence symptoms and complaints. These quality of life complaints are under-diagnosed, easily treated and often ignored.
Since 2009, Dr. Bernier has bee a full-time faculty member at Shenandoah University, division of nursing teaching in the bachelor's, master's and doctoral level programs. Currently her curriculum includes nursing research, multivariate statistics, community nursing and she is the guest lecturer on the urologic system and urogynecologic systems. She serves as liaison for the Society of Urologic Nursing and Associates (SUNA) to the American Urologic Association (AUA), is the legislative representative for SUNA, serves as president of SUNA's 102 chapter, has authored and published many research articles reflective of her research on the treatment of incontinence and associated non-surgical interventions. Additionally Dr. Bernier has authored many book chapters focusing on the conditions of the urologic system and female reproductive system in medical and surgical textbooks for nursing students.
Currently Dr. Bernier lives in Leesburg, Virginia with her husband, Albert, who she refers to as "Bernie" and her basset hound and editor, Fiona. She has three married children and four grandchildren.
