I have been mentored by Dr. McKechnie for the past three years, first as a nurse interventionist and coordinator for her current study, then as her Ph.D. advisee since the fall of 2020. During this time, Dr. McKechnie has consistently gone above and beyond the role of an advisor to provide exceptional, caring mentorship. As someone who came to the field of nursing as a second career, I have benefited greatly from Dr. McKechnie’s efforts to initiate me into the profession. I completed the Master of Nursing program at UMN in 2018 and, while I knew that I wanted to pursue a career in research, I also wanted to gain clinical experience. Therefore, I joined Dr. McKechnie’s research team and also took a job as a staff RN. Although I was not a student at this time, Dr. McKechnie encouraged me to not merely assist with projects, but to become a full collaborator. She knew of my interest in researching human milk feeding and direct breastfeeding for infants with congenital heart disease (CHD) and took the initiative to help me take the first steps in this work. With her guidance and expertise, we successfully co-wrote a grant to conduct a national survey of clinicians and create an mHealth intervention focused on supporting human milk feeding and direct breastfeeding for these infants. This was my first experience in writing a grant in the sciences, and Dr. McKechnie spent countless hours guiding me through the process and providing feedback. Her mentorship on this project resulted not only in a concrete mHealth product but also in my achievement of a first-author publication, which is essential in helping me to establish a career. As my advisor in the Ph.D. program at UMN, Dr. McKechnie has continued to provide extraordinary mentorship. Although my dissertation will be a quantitative secondary data analysis I felt strongly (as a parent of an infant with CHD) that parent voices were underrepresented in the literature. Dr. McKechnie encouraged me to apply for School of Nursing funding to support a qualitative study, in which I interviewed 30 lactating parents who were able to establish a direct breastfeeding relationship with an infant hospitalized for CHD. Dr. McKechnie is an expert in qualitative methods and has spent nearly a year mentoring not only me but also a research team including two additional Ph.D. students and one recent DNP graduate through the process of conducting this study and analyzing the data. In our weekly meetings, Dr. McKechnie continually encourages us to think deeply and critically about our findings, challenges, and assumptions and pushes us to refine our ideas. This has been a uniquely beneficial experience – beyond what is expected of Dr. McKechnie as an advisor – and has resulted in the development of not only conference presentations and publications, but also a conceptual framework to help identify clinically-meaningful areas related to feeding for infants with CHD that are targets for future intervention. Dr. McKechnie clearly cares about her students’ personal and professional development. She is generous of spirit and consistently goes out of her way to give credit for ideas or work accomplished by those around her. She is sensitive to her student's needs and is flexible in supporting family-related issues – which, as a student mother is greatly appreciated. She also models this in her own life by prioritizing family when needed and striving for work-life balance. Her generosity extends to her efforts to facilitate introductions to others working in the field who may have common interests or be able to assist in her students’ professional development. For example, when we were assembling my Ph.D. committee, she suggested and welcomed the addition of an international expert from another university to help provide me with well-rounded guidance in establishing my research career. I feel that she recognizes my talents in research and writing, nurtures them, and gives suggestions that consistently improve my work. She is always available to provide extensive, timely feedback, talk through ideas, and brainstorm next steps for my career. Without her mentorship, I would not have been able to achieve the successes in grant writing, intervention development, and publication that have been crucial as I establish a career as a nurse scientist. I give Dr. McKechnie my highest, enthusiastic recommendation as an exceptional mentor.

Note:  This is Dr. McKechnie's 2nd DAISY Faculty Award!