Dr. Susan M. DeNisco has been the Editorial Review Group Chair for Advanced Practice Nursing since September of 2021. Since then, we’ve sent Dr. DeNisco’s group 19 books, 13 of which have been reviewed. 

Dr. Susan DeNisco, Professor of Nursing, is the immediate past director of the Post-Baccalaureate Doctor of Nursing Practice/Family Nurse Practitioner Program at Sacred Heart University. She has held a variety of leadership positions including interim director of the School of Nursing and director of Graduate Nursing Programs. She coordinated the Family Nurse Practitioner Program at Sacred Heart from 2000 to 2010. She also led the development of the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Program, which was implemented in 2010. Susan received a DNP degree in clinical leadership from Case Western Reserve University, an MS in the Family Nurse Practitioner Program from Pace University, and a BSN from Western Connecticut State University. Dr. DeNisco served as the executive director for the Center for Community Health & Wellness, where she secured grant funding through the Southwest Connecticut Agency on Aging to support health programs for hard-to-reach elderly Latinos. She served on the Executive Board of the Connecticut Advanced Practice Registered Nurse Society in a variety of elected positions including president from 2005 to 2009. She is board certified as a Family Nurse Practitioner and Clinical Nurse Leader by the Commission on Nurse Certification (CNC), an autonomous arm of the American Association Colleges of Nursing (AACN).  

Dr. DeNisco’s impressive career includes 36 years of clinical experience as a family nurse practitioner in a variety of primary care settings. Her work has largely focused on medically underserved populations including disenfranchised groups such as migrant farm workers, refugees, and homeless persons. She has traveled globally to Ghana, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, and Jamacia with faculty and student colleagues to provide medical care. Dr. DeNisco’s current clinical practice areas include internal medicine at Southwest Community Health Center, a large federally qualified health center for medically underserved people in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Her scholarly interests include evidence-based treatment modalities for alternative treatments for pain, depression, and anxiety disorders. She has numerous peer-reviewed publications and presentations on these topics. She is the author of two widely adopted advanced practice nursing textbooks published by Jones and Bartlett: Role Development for the Nurse Practitioner: Seminar Discussions, 3^rd Edition (2023) and Advanced Practice Nursing: Essential Knowledge for the Profession, 5^th Edition (2024). 

Her doctoral research focused on the relationship between resilience and diabetes outcomes in African American women. She was recently inducted as a Fellow in the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. She is the recipient of numerous state and national awards including the American Academy of Nurse Practitioner Connecticut State Award for Excellence, The National Nursing Center Consortium Primary Care Champion Award, the Connecticut Nurses Association, and the Diamond Jubilee Josephine Dolan Award for Outstanding Contributions to Nursing Education. Most recently she received the Connecticut League for Nursing, Jane E. Murdock “Life-Long” Learning Award for her contributions to nursing education. In 2019, Dr. DeNisco received $2.4 million in funding from the Department of Health and Human Services, Advanced Nursing Education Workforce grant. The project, titled Alternatives to Opioids for Pain (ALTOP), has benefited patients who are at risk for misuse of opioids for noncancer chronic pain. It has also generously supported family nurse practitioner students’ tuition.  

As a family nurse practitioner, Dr. DeNisco feels she can combine her love for clinical practice with teaching because education provides the foundation for all health promotion and wellness activities.