Baomi T. Phung, BSN, RN, PHN, is honored to be the recipient of the Susan Bowar-Ferres Scholarship award. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing at St. Catherine University and is currently attending New York University Rory Meyers College of Nursing as a PhD Candidate in the Florence S. Downs PhD Program in Nursing Research and Theory Development. Baomi also teaches as an adjunct nursing clinical instructor for baccalaureate maternity on-campus clinicals at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing. 

Baomi became a nurse because she is passionate about providing and facilitating care that feels safe and just to patients and their families. In her work as a labor and delivery nurse, Baomi witnessed how often patients and families of color were being dismissed, neglected, disrespected, and discriminated against. These experiences exacerbated distrust, trauma, and negative health outcomes. Baomi decided to pursue a PhD in Nursing to understand how to address structural barriers and create emotionally safe environments for different communities to ensure safe, high-quality perinatal care and equitable maternal health outcomes. 
Baomi has conducted and published a dimensional concept analysis on patient emotional safety to better understand what feeling safe means to patients during healthcare interactions. Currently, she is working on understanding patient emotional safety among communities that are underrepresented in the perinatal literature. Baomi’s dissertation study is a community- and arts-based constructivist grounded theory study focused on perinatal care experiences of South Asian, Southeast Asian, and Pacific Islander childbearing women and people to understand what feeling safe means. This study will serve as a foundational first step in shifting the patient safety paradigm to center patient-community perspectives of safety.

In completing and building upon her dissertation as a nurse scientist, Baomi will have the opportunity to fulfill her goals of:

1. contributing to nursing and health services research in shifting the patient safety paradigm to recognize emotional safety as central to patient safety,
2. implementing emotional safety interventions into healthcare delivery at clinician and system levels,
3. successfully developing a program of research in addressing structural oppression and maternal health inequities through implementing emotional safety practices in equitable community partnership, and 4) teaching healthcare students about emotional safety to ensure the facilitation and delivery of safe, high-quality care. 

Baomi is incredibly honored to receive the Susan Bowar-Ferres Scholarship, as the award recognizes leadership in promoting safe, high-quality care. This award not only provides financial support for Baomi to work on her dissertation study, but it also provides a launching pad for her to continue to expand upon her program of research in perinatal patient emotional safety. This award underscores her passion and commitment to centering patient perspectives in improving healthcare delivery at the clinician and organizational levels.