By Josh Siatkowski | Staff Writer
Baylor’s Louise Herrington School of Nursing, located in Dallas, appointed Dr. Karen Foli as the inaugural Louise Herrington Endowed Chair in Mental Health Nursing.
Foli, who began on Aug. 1, arrived after 16 years as a professor at Purdue University. Foli said her research covers a vast portion of the mental health spectrum, and many of her papers are foundational to leading theories. Foli’s role as chair will primarily be one of research, but will also complement the new Psychiatric and Mental Health Nurse Practitioner graduate program.
Mental health nursing, according to Foli, is a vast subject that deals with psychological trauma in all types of health conditions. But it’s also a field where research can become very specialized.
“There’s this macro-level, and I could argue that mental health is in every different specialty area of nursing,” Foli said. “At the micro level… I use, in my survey research, a lot of tools that have to do with depression, anxiety, PTSD and substance use.”
Foli said she’s particularly interested in the mental health of nurses themselves, which is another field of mental health nursing. In 2019, she developed the leading theory on nurse-specific trauma.
“I started working with the psychological trauma that nurses experience,” Foli said. “It was pre-pandemic, and I co-authored a book, ‘The Influence of Psychological Trauma in Nursing.’ It was published in 2019 and won two national book awards.”
Foli has also conducted leading research on the emotional strain of adoptive parents and many other fields.
“I’ve dealt with a lot of teams, a lot of different folks in different disciplines, from psychology to statistics, to sociology to consultants in healthcare organizations,” Foli said.
In her new role at Baylor — which she will fulfill remotely from her home in Indiana — Foli said she hopes to use her diverse experience to connect her research with other disciplines, of which Foli believes there are many.
“There may be different disciplines who have specific hypotheses that are related to mental health,” Foli said. “For example, if somebody in the business school… [is] looking at how mental health affects purchasing or financial decisions.”
Although Foli has conducted many years of high-level research, she said her career has not always been in nursing, or even academics.
“My career path has been very nontraditional. For example, I wasn’t able to spend decades in one organization, but I’ve always envied those that did,” Foli said. “In fact, I held several nursing-related positions prior to my academic career starting about 17 years ago.”
Along Foli’s nontraditional path, she said she gained 11 years of clinical experience as a nurse. She then received a Ph.D. in communications research from the University of Illinois.
But after over a decade in nursing, Foli had to take an extended break when her son was born with special needs. As she took care of her son, she found a different way to work.
“I went on to start a family, and my husband and I’s first child had some special needs, so I was really out of work for about 10 years helping my son,” Foli said. “I became a writer, and I actually wrote a book about his experience with auditory processing disorder. The book went on to be auctioned by New York publishing houses.”
After making a deal with Simon and Schuster and going on a book tour for her narrative, Foli worked as a regulatory writer at a pharmaceutical company.
Finally, Foli became a professor, and before her 16-year tenure at Purdue, she spent a year teaching at the Indiana University Kelly School of Business.
Foli said it was at Purdue where she began her research. Her most renowned studies, which come from the field of the mental health of nurses, were sparked by a powerful meeting with a student.
A student arrived in Foli’s office one day asking to talk. A conversation led Foli to discover that the student had been sexually assaulted over the weekend and still showed up to perform their academic duties.
“It really struck me what this student was dealing with, and it was an outgrowth from that to look at the work of nurses and how it really impacted their mental health,” Foli said.
This encounter sparked a field of deep research, but it also instilled in Foli a love for undergraduate students, one she still holds today.
“My heart is with undergraduate students,” Foli said. “As we build more and more research capabilities… I hope that we would offer more research experiences for undergraduate students.”
Although Foli said that research is her primary goal at Baylor right now, it’s not the only way Baylor’s School of Nursing is putting a stronger emphasis on mental health. Foli’s role is complemented by the new Psychiatric and Mental Health Nurse Practitioner graduate program, which is an entirely online degree that launched in August of 2023.
Since Foli is not a nurse practitioner, accreditation requirements prevent her from teaching advanced courses in this graduate program; however, she said she still plans to pursue her passion for teaching.
“My charge at Baylor is to really focus on research. That being said, I know I will teach. It will probably be… in one of the core graduate classes,” Foli said. “I really enjoy teaching. I think it’s one of the funnest things you can do in academics.”
Tammy Prater, a student in the Psychiatric and Mental Health Nurse Practitioner program, said she was excited about the degree and the hiring of Foli. As a nurse with over 18 years of experience, she knows the value — and the lack of awareness — of mental health in nursing.
“Somewhere I want to go with this [degree] eventually is teaching a new generation of nurses how important self care and mental health is in nursing. It’s not just physical care,” Prater said.
Even though Prater has not yet crossed paths with Foli, her impact on the graduate program is already present. Prater, who is currently reading Foli’s book on psychological trauma in nurses, said Foli’s arrival “reinforces [her] excitement to be at Baylor and in the program.”
But most importantly, Prater said Foli’s arrival and the new graduate program gives her hope that mental health nursing will grow to the great extent that it is needed.
“I hope more nurses will come to this program because it’s really needed,” Prater said. “We need to be able to not be afraid about our mental health struggles.”
