A Nurse's Guide to Women's Mental Health

Michele R. Davidson, PhD, CNM, CFN, RN, is an Associate Professor of Nursing and an affiliate faculty member for the Women's Studies Program at George Mason University. She has 21 years of clinical experience in women's health nursing including labor and delivery, postpartum, NICU, reproductive endocrinology, and inpatient gynecology at Columbia Hospital for Women. She has delivered over 1,000 babies during her career as a nurse midwife and has treated women with a variety of mental health disorders. Dr. Davidson formulated a postpartum depression support group which provides ongoing treatment to indigent women. She has published over 50 papers, contributed more than 17 chapters to other author's textbooks, and published an additional 15 textbooks that she has co-written, including the international bestseller Old's Maternal-Newborn Nursing and Women's Health Care Across the Lifespan (9th ed) which has been translated into nine languages and used throughout the world. Dr. Davidson is a member of the American College of Nurse Midwives (ACNM) where she served as past vice president of the Washington, D.C. chapter and has served as an item writer for the ACNM National Certification Examination. She is also an educational affiliate of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). Dr. Davison is a member of the American College of Forensic Examiners International (ACFEI), the International Society of Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurses (ISPN), and the Marce Society. She received an honorary award from the March of Dimes for her ongoing care to pregnant women. In 2002, Dr. Davidson established the Smith Island Foundation to provide rural health care education and screening programs and children's programming to a small island community in the Chesapeake Bay. She subsequently developed an immersion clinical practicum for students to participate in rural community health on Smith Island. She is also the author of the children's book, Stowaways to Smith Island.