2024 APNA Psychiatric Nurse of the Year

Kathleen Schachman, PhD, FNP-BC, PMHNP-BC, PPCNP-BC, FIAAN, FAANP

Nominated by Carol Essenmacher, DNP, PMHNCS-BC

You would never expect that a visionary Psychiatric-Mental Health (PMH) nursing professional who’s made a seismic impact on the field actually began her career wanting to work anywhere but in PMH nursing. That was the experience of Kathleen Schachman, who chose to launch her nursing career in labor and delivery after a nursing school placement in a state mental hospital.

Kathleen shares, “Careers are rarely a straight line or smooth trajectory – but every step I took further refined my interests and guided me to a new, fulfilling career at age 60. It’s never too late to make a shift or become an impetus for change.”

Married to a Marine officer, Kathleen and her family moved many times throughout the world. She explains, “I’m a proud military wife, with 30 years of experience with military life. My son serves too.”

While stationed in Okinawa, Japan during the Middle East Crisis, Kathleen worked in the OB clinic and encountered very high rates of depression. “These new moms often struggled to cope while deployed to a country where most do not speak English, family is far away, and their spouse is away in combat.” Kathleen began a study to look at the very high rates of postpartum depression in the military wives she saw. She followed that with a study looking at the mental health challenges that military fathers face when returning from deployment and reintegrating back into the family.

While her nursing career took her through positions in OB, pediatrics and primary care across the globe, it was Kathleen’s depression research that drew her to PMH nursing. Upon her husband’s retirement from the military, Kathleen returned to the U.S. and completed her PMHNP post-graduate certificate from Johns Hopkins University, where a rotation in addictions sparked new excitement.

“I saw people really turn their lives around. Going from broken to gaining employment, getting their family back – this was real hope and success that I’d never been part of before.”

As a result, Kathleen decided to focus her career on working with those experiencing substance use disorders (SUD).

Kathleen worked to blend teaching with her active PMH nursing addictions practice. Throughout her career, she served as Assistant Professor of Nursing at Albany State University, Associate Professor at Montana State University, Dean of the School of Nursing at Aspen University, and an Endowed Professor of Nursing at Saginaw Valley State University, where she serves as the Program Director of the PMHNP post-graduate certificate program. She says, “You can make a big impact working in education. I love building a fire of enthusiasm and serving as a force multiplier – sending students out with greater knowledge, skills, and passion.”

Drawing from the fears that initially kept her away from PMH nursing, Kathleen created innovative educational opportunities for PMH and SUD advanced practice nursing students. She welcomed those in addictions recovery to help develop program curricula and serve as “actors” in simulations, telling their personal stories. These experiences cultivated increased understanding and hope, while reducing stigma among the students. Kathleen states, “instead of seeing people with addictions as hopeless, students come to be inspired to understand that addiction can happen to anyone and that those with addictions are worth saving.”

In 2018, Kathleen found herself inspired by Project ECHO, a revolutionary model to bring specific health care expertise directly to providers working all across the country – democratizing knowledge and reducing the patient’s need to travel to receive care. Kathleen started a new Project ECHO hub focused on treating substance use. Health care professionals participate in bimonthly virtual sessions to learn more about cutting edge treatment they can bring into their own communities. Kathleen develops curriculum, produces content, and serves as a guest lecturer for the expert hub panel. More than 1,600 clinicians have attended biweekly tele-mentoring events from across 43 states and three countries. In 2023, Kathleen’s hub was elevated to “super hub” – one of only 41 globally, and the only one that emanates from a nursing school – which allows the mentoring and training of others who would like to start a Project ECHO hub of their own. Today, Kathleen runs two Project ECHO hubs.

In 2019, recognizing that rural Michigan communities outpaced their urban counterparts on rates of drug overdose deaths, Kathleen created and launched a new addictions-focused PMHNP post-master’s certificate program at SVSU and worked to integrate mental health and addictions services into primary care settings.

Through her practice, serving as co-director of the Center for Rural Behavioral Health and Addiction Studies, Kathleen noticed that those over 55 did not feel welcome or comfortable in the addictions clinic. To address this need, she started a separate addictions clinic for patients 55+ which achieved increased treatment engagement, lower relapse rates, and saved more than $1 million over three years, due to fewer avoidable hospitalizations and inappropriate use of emergency services. The clinic became a new model, as few programs provide age-specific care. Outcomes of this work – the Gaining Recovery in Addictions for Community Elders Project (GRACE) – have been accepted for publication in JAPNA.

Additionally, Kathleen has passionately worked to help expand access to substance use care, developing programs to leverage the latest telehealth technologies, obtaining grant funding for a mobile substance use clinic serving 21 rural Michigan counties, and pioneering a perinatal SUD digital badge program helping providers identify high-risk substance use among women of childbearing age. To date, her program has awarded more than 150 digital badges to providers, and expects to prompt the implementation of universal screening for over 20,000 women across 21 counties.

It is clear that this highly accomplished PMH nurse is an innovative thinker, making a significant impact on both patients and nursing students alike, while advancing her commitment to creating a healthcare landscape that is more equitable and effective in serving rural communities experiencing addictions. Kathleen advises, “Be brave, don’t let fear hold you back. Find a mentor and say yes to opportunities to grow.”