Daihnia Dunkley
Maternal Health Nurse Leader
Also known as “Dr. D,” Daihnia Dunkley was born in Jamaica and later moved to New York. Inspired by her mother, who was a nurse, she began her nursing career in high school as a LPN and went on to receive her Bachelor’s from Hampton University and Master’s and Doctorate from the University of Phoenix. During the span of her twenty-year career she worked as a bedside nurse in step-down, labor, delivery, and post partum, as well as in administrative roles that included assistant director, patient care director, and director of nursing. She served as Assistant Professor of Nursing at Farmingdale State College and is currently a lecturer in the Graduate Entry Pre-Specialty in Nursing (GEPN) and Masters of Science in Nursing programs at Yale School of Nursing.
During Dr. Dunkely’s doctorate research on the experience of being Black and female in executive nursing leadership, she found a lack of adequate supportive resources for Black and minority nurses. This inspired her to found The League of Extraordinary Black Nurses (LEBN) in 2018. The nonprofit nursing organization serves to address the support and mentoring gap by offering programs that include a #NURturship mentoring program, leadership institute, and a scholarship program. In 2020 she founded Daihnia’s Joy, LLC as a principal consultant to diversify nursing representation, empower minority nurse leaders, and improve maternal health outcomes. Whether through nursing education, non-profit advocacy, or consulting, Dr. Dunkley continues to serve as a change agent by advocating for systematic improvement of diversity and inclusion in the nursing profession, and for the eradication of racial health disparities.
View Dr. D’s Nurses You Should Know video and YouTube channel, tune into her interviews with the Tough Like a Mother and Once a Nurse Always a Nurse podcasts, or read her article What It’s Like to be a Black Woman and CNO.
Sources
We sourced the above information from LinkedIn, I am Doctor D, and directly from Dr. Dunkley.
Learn More
To learn more about inclusion in nursing and be part of the national discussion to address racism in nursing, check out and share the following resources:
Know Your History
- Nursing CLIO to engage with historians and scholars committed to deep work around historical accuracy in healthcare and nursing.
- American Association for the History of Nursing to attend monthly webinars on topics of nursing history, view the calendar here.
Examine Bias
- NurseManifest to attend live zoom sessions with fellow nurses on nursing’s overdue reckoning on racism or to sign their pledge.
- Breaking Bias in Healthcare, an online course created by scientist Anu Gupta, to learn how bias is related to our brain’s neurobiology and can be mitigated with mindfulness.
Support & Advocate
- National Coalition for Ethnic Minority Nurse Association to stay engaged with topics relevant to nurses of color.
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